WILMETTE – After striping Greenleaf Avenue last week there are more sharrows* in the works in Wilmette. Park and Washington Avenues and Poplar Drive are getting them too, probably in the summer of 2023.
At Wednesday’s Transportation Commission meeting the Village discussed installing sharrows on Park Avenue between Central and Gregory, on Washington Avenue between Ridge and Hunter and on Poplar Drive between Greenleaf and Isabella.
Washington Avenue is an important bike route for kids getting to and from school and Poplar Drive has a lot of cyclists going to or coming from the Green Bay Trail. Finally Park Avenue was chosen because the Wilmette Library has its address there. Some residents said they worry that Park is not suitable for bikers because of all the cut-through drivers on Linden and Park who ignore the stop signs. Commissioners acknowledged this problem and promised to look at it at a later date.
At the meeting our advocacy group Bike Walk Wilmette suggested one improvement to the current plan for Poplar: making sure that northbound cyclists on Poplar have the option to get on to the west sidewalk (and the beginning of the Green Bay Trail) before they hit the busy pass-through between Wilmette Ave and Greenleaf Ave near the Panera Bread parking lot. A consultant for the Village promised to come up with a safer solution for cyclists at this tricky section of Poplar.
The Village is working with consultants to add even more sharrows in the years to come, according to the 2021 Master Bike and Active Transportation Plan.
*A sharrow is a combination of the words ‘shared’ and ‘arrow’ and means “shared-lane marking.” Sharrows are placed in the travel lane to better indicate to drivers that cars and bikes share the road. They alert drivers to the presence of bicyclists and let cyclists know that it is “safe” to cycle in the road. If a driver wishes to pass a cyclist, they must maintain a three-foot clearance from the cyclist.
Bike Walk Wilmette 