On April 10, 2026, a unique collaboration brought global cycling expertise to Chicago’s South Side. At Wild Blossom Meadery, local advocates, city officials, and international planners gathered for a hands-on workshop focused on one goal: making the Major Taylor Trail safer and more intuitive for everyone who uses it.
The workshop,organized by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Chicago and the Major Taylor Trail Keepers, centered on a powerful idea: better design saves lives. And when it comes to bike-friendly infrastructure, few countries offer more insight than the Netherlands.
The Dutch are recognized as one of the leading nations in implementing cycling infrastructure, with 50 years of experience in converting their car centric transportation systems to prioritizing human powered mobility. The goal being increased safety for people.
The Major Taylor Trail, built along a former rail line, stretches through Chicago’s South Side to Blue Island. While it offers a valuable recreational and commuting route, certain intersections have long posed safety challenges—especially at:
- 91st Street & Beverly Avenue
- 105th Street & Vincennes Avenue
These crossings cut through Chicago’s rigid street grid, creating confusing and sometimes dangerous conditions for cyclists and pedestrians. Despite decades of use, these problem areas have remained largely unchanged since the trail’s original design in the 1990s.
Preparing for the workshop
To prepare for the session, Trail Keepers board members Peter Taylor and Randy Neufeld led a bike tour for the Consul General of the Netherlands in Chicago, Eric Strating, along with James Grizzell from his staff and Jeska de Ruiter, project and marketing coordinator for the Dutch Cycling Embassy, a public-private partnership dedicated to sharing the country’s expertise with the world.
The Dutch team grabbed the Metra Rock Island line train from LaSalle and Harrison to the Beverly Hills-91st Street stop, where Neufeld and Taylor met them for a ride north to the Dan Ryan Woods trail head, then south to the bridge over the Calumet River for a chance to pose with the Major Taylor mural. They grabbed a train back from one of the Metra Electric’s several stops in West Pullman.
Along the way, Taylor, Neufeld, and communications consultant Gordon Mayer highlighted challenging intersections, opportunities to enhance the trail, and ongoing improvements like the landscaping from 111th to 115th streets as well as our storytelling and communications work with the visitors.
Rethinking the intersections
This workshop aimed to address the longstanding problems of bike trail / street crossings at the challenging intersections of 91st & Beverly and 105th & Vincennes by rethinking them using modern design standards and global best practices.The session was facilitated by Dutch mobility firm Mobycon and brought together an unusually broad coalition of stakeholders, including:
- Alderman Ronnie Mosely
- Chicago Department of Transportation
- Department of Planning & Development
- Chicago Park District
- Cook County Forest Preserves & Transportation
- METRA
- Trust for Public Land
- Metropolitan Planning Council
- Friends of the Major Taylor Trail
- Brook Architecture
- Local community partners
This mix of policymakers, planners, and community advocates reflects a growing recognition: safer infrastructure requires coordination across agencies—and input from the people who use it every day.
What Comes Next?
While the workshop was just one day, it marks the next step in a longer process of blending international expertise with local knowledge to improve a vital piece of Chicago’s infrastructure. The hope is simple but ambitious: to transform the Major Taylor Trail into a model of safe, accessible, and community-centered design.