Picture at top: The bridge over Route 59 in Streamwood opened Oct. 25. As was the case throughout the suburbs in 2025, a young e-bike rider and e-scooter rider were seen.
In the first year of this website, I found even more suburban Chicago bicycling news than I imagined I would.
I knew that new bicycle-pedestrian bridges would be dramatic, and one of them did not disappoint. I knew roundabouts are controversial, and one planned for my hometown exceeded my expectations.
My hometown also sent me on an exploration of bicycling infrastructure — bike lanes or off-road paths? — as it embarks on its own shift. I found readers were quite fascinated with ticks (and maybe cicadas). And e-bikes, plus e-motos as it turns out, were the gifts that kept on giving (headaches, maybe).
Let’s review the top suburban Chicago bicycling news of 2025.
E-bike laws explode
The debate over e-bikes reached a fever pitch in 2025 — and eventually, some suburbs (but not nearly all) came to realize that the problem was more with e-motos than e-bikes.
Really, the new e-bike laws began before 2025. In November 2024, Huntley made the first really strict e-bike law by limiting e-bike use to those 16 and older, contrary to state law, unless those under 16 don’t use the motor.
Then in late April 2025, the Roselle Park District said only Class 1 e-bikes are allowed andriders must be 16 or older. The Village of Roselle at large followed in June by saying all e-bike riders must be 16 if they want to use the motor.
On June 10, the Schaumburg village board required all e-bike riders to be at least 16 years old regardless of motor use.
But it wasn’t until June 17 that e-bike laws made the local TV news. That’s when Elk Grove Village passed its law requiring e-bike riders to have driver’s licenses. More suburbs followed — and Fox Lake added a proof-of-insurance requirement.
Finally, suburbs began to heed advocacy group Ride Illinois’ call to “cool your jets” as it launched a campaign to distinguish e-bikes from e-motos. Rolling Meadows and St. Charles passed ordinances with no e-bike age limits beyond the state law’s. Vernon Hills leaders declared “the Village is taking a more measured approach at this time.”
Arlington Heights had been considering a minimum age of 16 for all e-bike riders as soon as August, but after lobbying from adults and youths, trustees passed an ordinance allowing broad use.
The same night, Sept. 15, a 16-year-old Mount Prospect boy died after crashing his e-vehicle into a pickup truck in Arlington Heights. In November, the Arlington Heights trustees added age requirements after all, but based on speed rather than type of vehicle.
On the night they approved that measure, however, they added a unique provision: The age restriction could be removed altogether if riders completed Ride Illinois’ Bike Safety Quiz through the “silver” level first.
Now, many suburbs are looking to state lawmakers to create new laws specifically on “e-motos.” Read more about the 2025 e-bike law evolution, about the creativity in e-bike laws, or a suburb-by-suburb round-up of e-bike laws.
Roundabouts send us in circles
Roundabouts always bring debate in the Chicago area, as many think they are confusing and maybe more dangerous than intersections with traffic lights — even though many statistics prove the opposite. The project to build three roundabouts on the rural Darrell Road near Island Lake in Lake County was finished in 2025; it included a bike path.
But a proposal to build a roundabout at a neighborhood intersection in Schaumburg, at Springinsguth Road and Weathersfield Way, brought the most comments online of any Suburban Chicago Bicycling article.
Even with a bike path planned, some feared children won’t be able to get safely through the roundabout to school. Others didn’t like the bike path crossing their driveways; a portion of the bike path was moved in the plans as a result. But the village board approved the project. Construction won’t come until 2028 at the earliest.
Bike lanes, bike paths send us swerving
Schaumburg also had a slight controversy in 2025 with its latest effort to eliminate on-street bike lanes in favor of off-road paths.
It had done so on sections of two main neighborhood streets, Walnut Lane and Weathersfield Way. In 2025, they did it on Salem Drive as that popular road was reconstructed. Residents had narrowly favored the side path, in particular saying children were safer off the road. Whether to narrow the path from 10 feet to 8 feet also came with some debate; the narrower path preserved more trees.
Schaumburg’s shift had me examining bicycling infrastructure throughout the suburbs. My review of more than 80 suburbs so far shows a wide mix of facilities — bike lanes, sharrows, signs only, off-road paths, or even all of those within the same town as engineers wrestle with varying space. But only in suburbs that are cities themselves, like Evanston, do on-street lanes have any protection, such as cement barriers or bollards, as Chicago commonly provides.
New bridges excite residents
The safest way to bicycle across busy streets undoubtedly is a bridge, or an underpass. The problem is, they’re very expensive. But many have been planned for the suburbs.
In 2025, the one that got finished was the bridge over Route 59 in Streamwood. It was built to connect the majority of the village with the western end of town, which has a network of bike trails. It took most of the year to build, and it was opened with much ballyhoo on Oct. 25.
A lot of the bridge being built out of Busse Woods over Arlington Heights Road into Elk Grove Village also got done. That’s set to be finished in 2026, when big bridges in Mount Prospect and Elmhurst also will be built.
And Barrington’s massive Route 14 underpass project got underway in 2025. It won’t be done for a while, but in the meantime there is enough of a way for bicyclists to sneak through.
2025 road and trail work smooth out rides
There was plenty of road and trail construction to keep track of for bicyclists in 2025. One project that generated a lot of excitement was the reconstruction of the western 7 miles of the Old Plank Road Trail out of Joliet. Bicyclists were looking forward to a smoother experience, and they got it with the project’s completion in December.
North Shore bicyclists were eagerly watching 12 miles of the Robert McClory Path in 2025. The path was reconstructed, patched or even paved for the first time starting in the summer. Done in waves, the whole project was finished in November.
The inconsistent Salt Creek Greenway Trail got some attention here and there — most notably a horrible section in Wood Dale that got repaved in 2025. I hear an adjacent section in Itasca was redone, too.
On the road, Long Grove gave bicyclists a nice surprise by repaving Checker Road. That came as work nearby on Old McHenry Road lagged and as Main Street in Lake Zurich was remade in 2025 — without bicycling infrastructure.
This work leaves us waiting
Speaking of the Salt Creek Trail, a lot of riders ask when it will permanently open again at I-294, near Bemis Woods on the Cook County border. And the answer effectively is … who knows? It’s at the mercy of the massive Central Tri-State construction project.
Speaking of Busse Woods, all the fans of the northwest suburban Cook County trail had to keep waiting for bumps to be smoothed out. Some patching was done, but a Cook County planner said the trail is being evaluated for a full repaving. The Thorn Creek Trail in southern Cook County got similar attention.
The Des Plaines River Trail in Cook County has been getting improved over the past few years. In 2025, the work was between Lawrence Avenue and Irving Park Road. It addressed flooding sections by shifting the trail away from the river. “Much of the work is expected to be completed this year, with some activity continuing into next year,” a county planner wrote in September. Then engineers will begin looking at the next section south of Irving Park Road — including some way (a bridge?) to cross that busy road.
Overall, the list of bicycling projects coming in 2026 is already building.
The things that make us tick or squirm
County trackers by May were tallying an increase in ticks in 2025. Then in September the Illinois Department of Public Health warned Illinoisans to take precautions from ticks after someone became seriously ill from the Powassan virus. It’s one of the diseases that ticks transmit around here, as is Lyme disease.
What’s a bicyclist in forest preserves to do? The answer became one of my more popular posts in 2025.
I also revisited the 17-year cicadas that invaded us in 2024. I made a video of my friend Occhi, who hitched a ride on my leg for seven miles.
The great rides that make us happy
What do we like to remember at the year’s end? Our great bike rides.
The Arlington Heights Bicycle Club’s Arlington 500 offered various loops around southwest Lake County starting at Lake Zurich High School. The Bicycle Club of Lake County went just over the Wisconsin border for its BCLC Ramble ride around Wilmot Mountain and the Twin Lakes area. It offered a choice of loops on the peaceful country roads.
One ride was full of ice cream. The chamber of commerce for Sharon, Wisconsin, just across the border near Harvard, hosted its Roun’da Manure Bicycle Tour, and once again most of the rest stops were ice cream shops. This was another ride with several loop options, but this one also offered the chance to meet ultra-distance cycling legend Lon Haldeman.
And of course there was Bike The Drive, the Active Transportation Alliance’s fundraising bike ride on Chicago’s DuSable Lake Shore Drive, which was open only to bicyclists for four hours. The weather for the 2025 edition was beautiful.
These were only a few of the rides on the 2025 calendar. Soon I’ll be updating this calendar with the 2026 dates. We always have something to look forward to.
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Nice job in creating such a comprehensive site on the local “bicycling” scene ( and I did read your interesting reasoning for using the term “bicycling” instead of “cycling”). I had a similar experience in finding more news than I expected when I launched Bike Trail Journal last year. The site reviews urban and gravel trails, and I found so much trail-related news that I created an X account to feature it.
Keep up the good work in Chicago.
Thank you for the note, Michael. I see you have taken on an ambitious project, writing about trails around the country. There are a lot! Keep on rollin’!