Gotta light?

Dispatch from Mary-Lynn Wilson, who finds bike routes for Chicago Southland folks as a coach with Footprints:

I was getting really hungry but I thought I’d knock out this really easy route for a young woman I spoke with at the Blue Island TGIF picnic. It was a no-brainer: approximately 4600 west on Midlothian Turnpike to the Crestwood Library. Less than a mile: Turnpike, Cicero, 135th and it’s hamburger time. Except, I wouldn’t want to put an inexperienced rider on this triad of highways.

OK, side streets . ..maybe I should put the burger on now. Can’t go north, bus company is in the way. A little detour south, cross Cicero at a light and swing back north. I’ve driven this street a million times, I know there’s a light, somewhere. 147th! Not much better than Midlothian Turnpike.

Decide to start backwards. I find the library at 135th and LaVergne. I’ll have to take her west. Success, Long goes through to MTP: please be a light, please be a light! No light. Even if it had one, a huge house blocks a southern extension. “Excuse me, can I ride through your back yard?” Stomach is starting to grumble and hamburger is moving from rare to well.

LARAMIE! Put my little Google man at the corner of Laramie and MTP. No light. Even if I could get her across she’d have to ride through the Midlothian Country Club parking lot. Not a safe idea. She could go north on Billy Casper Lane, on to 143rd, then south. Four more blocks south to 147th and there’s the light on Cicero! A (very) quick ride on 147th to Kilpatrick back up to Midlothian Turnpike and she’s home! Three and a quarter miles and some harrowing street crossings. Hamburger’s a hockey puck. Pizza sounds good.