Lake Shore Drive - Future Extension Plans

Future Extension Plans

Extension of Lake Shore Drive is currently being constructed to provide access to new development in South Chicago of the old US Steel plant site. A thirty year development plan estimated to cost $4 billion dollars was approved by the city in September 2010, for the former site of the huge steel mill, which operated along the neighborhood's shoreline from 1880 to 1992. The site has undergone extensive demolition and environmental remediation since 1992. The plan includes extension of Lake Shore Drive.

By contrast, the extension of Lake Shore Drive to the North has been the subject of controversy in recent years. In 2004, a private foundation solicited plans, and the Chicago Park District considered a feasibility study, to extend Lake Shore Drive farther north through Rogers Park and into Evanston. Residents protested against cutting neighborhoods off from the lake, and Rogers Park and Edgewater voters rejected the extension in a referendum placed on the ballot by citizen initiative in November 2004. However, in spring, 2005, the Chicago Park District spent $350,000 on plans for new marinas along Lake Shore Drive, including one at Devon-Granville, and in July, 2005, Cong. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) obtained federal funding reported variously as $800,000 and $1 million for a study of the possible extension of the Chicago North lakefront path; both of these developments fueled residents' suspicion of a secret city plan to extend the Drive. The controversy remained an issue through the 2007 aldermanic election in the 49th Ward. In 2008, proposals by Friends of the Parks to extend the lakefront park system north, possibly through offshore manmade islands linked by bike paths, met with similar resident opposition. Despite statements by FOP that no extension of the Drive was contemplated, activists contended that the Park District "has plans already drawn up that clearly show Lake Shore Drive immediately east of" Edgewater and Rogers Park.