PORTAGE PARK ALDERPERSON, RESIDENTS SEEK TRAFFIC IMPROVEMENTS AFTER BICYCLIST STRUCK
A stretch of road in Portage Park has become a danger for cyclists, according to residents and the local alderperson in the wake of a crash that sent another teenage bicyclist to an intensive care unit.
Police are still searching for the driver who briefly stopped to tend to the 18-year-old cyclist but drove off after paramedics transported the teen to the hospital and before police arrived.
Kathlyn Ryan’s home security camera captured the driver striking the cyclist at the intersection of Long Avenue and Grace Street on Friday evening. The incident occurred two blocks north of the site where 16-year-old Joshua Anleu was fatally struck by a driver last October.
Video shows a vehicle heading south run through a stop sign without slowing, turning east on Grace and knocking the southbound cyclist to the ground, she said. The teen was hospitalized in critical condition at Lutheran General Hospital with a brain bleed, according to a police report.
Local Ald. Ruth Cruz (30th) said surveillance video of the crash is “heartbreaking because this doesn’t seem like an accident. This was reckless and aggressive driving.”
Cruz is still trying to figure out why police did not respond immediately, allowing the driver to leave.
“That never would have happened if the police were there,” she said.
Officers responded 24 minutes after the 5:30 p.m. crash, according to the police report. Ryan said the security video shows police arriving later at the scene and searching the area with flashlights. Police later located the 18-year-old in the ICU at Lutheran, according to the report.
Detectives issued a public alert early Saturday with a photo of the wanted vehicle, a black two-door Jeep Wrangler. A police spokesman Monday said no citations had been issued and no one was in custody.
One witness of the crash was a U.S. Postal Service letter carrier collecting mail nearby.
The employee, Larenzo Miller, told the Sun-Times he saw the helmetless 18-year-old fall to the ground and lose consciousness. The cyclist woke up a minute later and tried to stand up, but Miller told him to stay down.
He said the driver of the Jeep got out and tried to help the cyclist.
“The driver said it was his fault. He tried to help him,” Miller said.
He said the driver asked the cyclist his age and where he lived.
The paramedics showed up less than five minutes later, he said, but when the ambulance left, so did the driver.
‘A real death trap’
Neighbors said Long Avenue needs safety improvements, including speed bumps to slow down cars and prevent crashes.
“Long [Avenue] has become a real death trap,” Ryan said. “Cars are always flying through that stop sign.”
Ryan said she had spoken to Cruz before the crash about potential safety improvements.
William P. Gray Elementary School is just blocks away. Ryan fears that a driver could hit a child going to or from school. “It’s going to be terrible,” she said.
Cruz said she spoke with the cyclist’s father and she “shares [his] frustrations” with bicycle and pedestrian safety in the area.
The father, who did not respond to a call from the Sun-Times, lives nearby and is concerned with cars speeding on Long Avenue and not stopping at stop signs, Cruz said.
“We hear from our residents it’s throughout Long [Avenue], from Irving Park to Addison,” she said. “I want to ask what else can we do” to improve safety, she said.
The side streets in this part of Portage Park are staggered so the intersections don’t meet. Grace Street, an east-west street, shifts about 100 feet north at every intersection with north-west streets.
Christina Whitehouse, founder of cyclist safety advocate group Bike Lane Uprising, said she is frustrated that no safety improvements have been installed in a neighborhood with elected officials in favor of bike and pedestrian safety upgrades.
Long Avenue is classified as a bike route by the city, even though there’s no safety features like extended curbs, bike lanes or speed bumps, she said.