The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) must act NOW to implement meaningful safety improvements on Inner Lake Shore Drive and stop hundreds of preventable crashes, injuries, and deaths a year.

The above image is a rendering of the Addison and Inner Lake Shore Drive intersection with safe streets infrastructure Lakeview Urbanists is advocating for along the corridor, including paint and post bump-outs, left-turn traffic calming, and a bus bulb.

After the 44th and 46th Wards requested CDOT to review their portions of Inner Lake Shore Drive from Grace to Belmont, CDOT presented their traffic study, which only included adding more road signs and striping. This is not enough.

Driver behavior is largely influenced by road design. If we want them to drive cautiously, we need to design a road with traffic calming measures that provide higher visibility for pedestrians and narrow lanes to slow down drivers. This can all be done at a low cost with a high return.

• Paint and post bump-outs: This narrows the street to slow down drivers, makes pedestrians waiting to cross the street more visible to drivers, and encourages drivers to slow down as they turn

• Left-turn traffic calming: This adds raised curbs, bollards, and rubber speed bumps to the centerline at intersections, which slows down drivers and encourages them to yield to pedestrians

• Reprogram traffic lights: This would prohibit vehicles from making left turns while the pedestrian crossing indicator is active

Why are we demanding this?

In the last six months of 2025, the Addison and Inner Lake Shore Drive intersection made headlines after car crashes injured three pedestrians. One of the victims died and another spent weeks in the hospital recovering from critical injuries, including broken ribs, severely damaged legs, a fractured pelvis, and a traumatic brain injury.

Zooming out, the Lakeview portion of the Inner Lake Shore Drive corridor (from Sheridan to Belmont) saw 171 total crashes, with 41 injuries, in the past year. These are just the reported crashes. Unfortunately, residents faced countless more close calls and minor injuries that they didn’t formally report.

Beyond the human cost of physical injuries and mental trauma, these crashes have an enormous economic impact. The past year of crashes on this corridor cost victims an estimated $4.2 million in medical expenses, legal costs, and property damage. This doesn’t include an additional $16 million in estimated damages to quality of life.

Every day, residents in our community risk their lives walking, biking, taking transit, or driving on or across Inner Lake Shore Drive. It’s an important road for pedestrians and cyclists to cross to access the lakefront, for transit riders to catch one of the many high-ridership bus routes, and for drivers to travel across the city. No one using Inner Lake Shore Drive should fear for their lives on their daily commute or stroll to the park.

CDOT has a moral responsibility to prevent future injuries and deaths on this road and across our community. In a recent social media post, CDOT acknowledged a well-known and well-researched fact that car crashes are not accidents. In CDOT’s own words, “No traffic-related death or serious injury is acceptable when the tools exist to prevent the conditions that lead to these tragedies.”

CDOT must act NOW to build safe streets, and they must implement meaningful infrastructure changes that prioritize safety for all road users.