Before the sun rose on a February morning in 2023, owner of Soapie’s Cleaners & Tailoring Yun Park left for her daily three mile walk before work, but as she crossed Chicago Avenue, she was hit by a car turning left.

The driver of the white SUV kept going. Park was left unconscious and critically injured in the street with a brain hemorrhage.

“I am not a very ‘live in the past’ type of person,” Park said. “When you have a brain hemorrhage, especially your first year (of injury), you don’t realize the changes you have to go through.”

Following the pandemic, pedestrian and bike crashes rose in Evanston, according to data from the Evanston Police Department. Although pedestrian crashes decreased to their pre-pandemic numbers in 2024, some Evanston residents are still calling for more traffic law enforcement.

Car accidents involving pedestrians have increased since 2021, with Park’s hit and run being one of the 70 crashes in 2023, according to data from EPD.

The number of cyclists hit by cars also increased, rising to 67 crashes in 2023, up from 50 in 2021.

There was improvement in the last year, though. In 2024, the number of pedestrian crashes decreased to 41. However, the number of cyclist crashes remained stagnant, with 65 crashes.

EPD Cmdr. Ryan Glew attributes the recent spike in crashes in Evanston partially to the pandemic, but said there was not one factor responsible for the increase.

“There was less traffic enforcement during COVID, people took more risk-taking behavior, which resulted in corresponding fatalities and injuries,” Glew said. “But here locally … it doesn’t lend itself to one ‘a ha’ moment.”

However, he says that the EPD has worked over the past decade to improve traffic flow through lowering speed limits and providing more “robust enforcement” of traffic law in targeted areas.

One area where Glew has seen recent improvement is on Ridge Avenue, a location EPD has targeted with traffic engineering efforts since reducing the street’s speed limit to 25 mph from 30 mph in 2018.

“I wouldn’t say problems are ever really always completely solved, but I think it has been mitigated or minimized on Ridge,” Glew said.

Organizations like Streetsblog Chicago are calling for infrastructure improvements, such as protected bike lanes, to make Chicago area streets safer for cyclists. Streetsblog Chicago writes articles and social media posts informing residents on transportation news. In November, members of the organization called for an extension of the protected bike lane on Chicago Avenue.

Former Evanston resident Anne Alt (Weinberg ’84), who writes for Streetsblog Chicago, supports increased safety for bikers. As an avid biker, she is a member of Evanston Bicycle Club and Chicago Cycling Club. Alt said she has noticed increased danger on the roads since 2020 and has had to adapt her efforts to avoid aggressive drivers while on her bike.

“Since the start of the pandemic, I feel all kinds of driver aggression have increased quite a bit, including drivers threatening people who get in their way,” Alt said.

Alt said she believes that the increase in crashes in Evanston coincided with reduced traffic stops by the EPD, which declined by almost 70 percent from 2015 to 2023, according to data from the EPD. Traffic citations are still lower than they were before the pandemic and have dropped by about 71 percent, from 10,477 in 2019 to 2,989 in 2024.

Alt said she believes the city is not doing enough to promote road safety.

“(The roads have) really become a problem in terms of enforcement because a lot of drivers feel like they can get away with anything because there won’t be any consequences,” Alt said.

Overall, there are fewer officers on the streets. The number of EPD traffic officers on duty was reduced from eight officers plus a sergeant in 2020 to only three officers in 2023. The City of Evanston website says there are now six officers plus a sergeant on the Traffic Bureau for 2025.

In 2022, the EPD experienced its highest number of officer vacancies, 27, since 1993. Twenty-two of these open spots opened through resignations, many of which came from officers in the middle of their careers.

Currently, Glew said the EPD is still “understaffed” with 11 vacancies for sworn members. However, he said there are currently 10 officers in training, thus, the EPD is around 20 officers down as far as the number of officers “independently out on the street.” Glew said he attributes this lack of staffing to the increase in resignations in 2021.

“We need safer driving,” Glew said. “If you have less officers, and they have less time to address traffic safety, it’s not going to be helpful in bringing down traffic crashes.”

Evanston resident Monty George said he has experienced decreased enforcement of speeding laws and road signs since the pandemic.

For George, the solution to road safety lies in continuing to put money back into Evanston’s Traffic Bureau, because road safety is a “huge part” of preventing a “catastrophe,” especially when considering pedestrians and children.

Following the pandemic, funding for the EPD Traffic Bureau was cut in half. According to data published in the EPD’s annual report, the Traffic Bureau spent $588,930 in 2023 compared to $1,160,316 in 2019. However, in 2024, the bureau’s funding returned to pre-pandemic numbers with $822,660 spent.

“It’s an imbalanced use of resources and a lack of resources being put to traffic enforcement,” George said. “It’s only public pressure that’s going to do it, because they’re just not doing it.”

Across the country, traffic fatalities have increased in all but five states over the past 10 years, according to a study shared by The Kryder Law Group, a firm that focuses on accident and injury law.

Illinois ranks as the ninth worst state for traffic fatalities, with a total of 10,920 deaths from 2013 to 2022.

Despite her experience with a hit-and-run crash, Park said she doesn’t feel like Evanston feels more unsafe for pedestrians than other cities she has lived in, such as New York.

“People are very aware of just being polite and following the rules,” Park said. “It’s a city. I don’t think people realize that we have a population of 80,000, but I think it’s safe.”

Some Evanston residents don’t look only to EPD as a solution to road safety. Alt says she would like to see more red light speed cameras installed and increased protection for bikers.

Evanston resident Miah Ebels-Duggan agrees that Evanston roads could be safer. Ebels-Duggan said they prefer to walk or bike around Evanston due to concerns about other aggressive drivers on the road.

“There are enough drivers on the roadway that just seem to exhibit a lack of care for everyone else on the road that being on the road is scary,” Ebels-Duggan said.

Like Alt, Ebels-Duggan cited infrastructure changes as an alternative to increasing police funding and efforts. These changes, Ebels-Duggan predicted, would reduce resident encounters with police, allow for police resources to go to other efforts and, overall, make the roads more pleasant for residents.

“I think the (EPD) just shouldn’t be our first line of defense against reckless driving, against safety concerns,” Ebels-Duggan said.

While they said they feel Evanston does a better job than other cities, they want to see “physical traffic calming techniques” put in place. These strategies include installing physical protection for bike lanes, building narrower roadways, making intersections harder to speed through and decreasing turning radii at corners.

“We should instead be focusing on physical and infrastructural measures that make the city safer and more pleasant for everyone,” Ebels-Duggan said. “Make the city a more pleasant place to get around no matter how you’re doing it, but especially without a car.”

Email: [email protected]
X: @emilymlichty

Related Stories:
— Q&A: EPD Chief Schenita Stewart named Illinois Police Chief of the Year
— Police arrest man with loaded handgun near Evanston Public Library
— Woman charged with suspected arson after Jackson Avenue house fire