Midwest cities are experts at dealing with bad weather. Minneapolis, for example, is known for its Skyway, a network of higher-than-street-level bridges that connect much of downtown Minneapolis, making the city navigable on foot even in colder months.
Chicago, however, chose a more grounded approach. Literally.
First constructed in the 1920s, the Chicago Pedway is a five-mile-long system of tunnels, skybridges and ground-level concourses that connects parts of the Loop, the city’s primary downtown area. To make your way into the tunnels, you have to follow signs with the Pedway’s distinctive compass logo on streets or inside buildings.
The pedway is a mix of privately — and publicly-owned passageways. The public portions are managed by the Chicago Department of Transportation, or CDOT. It’s an unusual part of their responsibilities, according to Lindsey Frey, CDOT transportation planning team lead.
“The Pedway’s kind of a unique part of our team’s portfolio,” Frey said.
Frey leads most of CDOT’s Pedway-related projects. In recent years, this has included improvements to wayfinding and signage. The system isn’t on Google or Apple Maps, making it difficult to navigate — or even find — for first-timers or visitors.
“It is a complex system, so we’re definitely interested in making things a little bit more navigable and user-friendly in the coming years,” Frey said. “Probably the best asset that is available right now is that comprehensive Pedway map which can be found on the city’s website.”
CDOT has also thought about getting the system onto Google Maps.
“It’d be great if [the Pedway] kind of came up as an option. It might not be the fastest way, but it’s comfortable in other ways,” Frey said.
Having a sheltered throughway for pedestrians traveling downtown allows them to escape severe or inclement weather. Several Canadian cities have similar underground systems, including Toronto and Montreal. Few, if any, American cities share an underground, street-level and elevated system like the Pedway.
It’s particularly helpful for commuters, who come into the area on Metra commuter lines or on buses and trains run by the Chicago Transit Authority, the city’s iconic rapid transit system.
Parts of the system connect CTA and Metra stations, including the underground sections of the Red and Blue Lines, the only two CTA lines with subsurface tracks in the Loop. Built in 1951, these connections are some of the oldest remaining in the system.
According to CDOT, the first section of the Pedway was a pedestrian tunnel that ran underneath Michigan Avenue, near Randolph Street, connecting to the former Illinois Central Rail Station. The station is now Millennium Park, and its Pedway sections have been entirely rebuilt.
“As things got built downtown, as things were being developed … developers of these lots were finding opportunities to be able to connect their buildings to the system,” Frey said. “It was really kind of piecemeal after that as the connections were growing outwards from those initial transit connections.”
The system is still scattered, and several portions remain disconnected from the others, particularly those across the Chicago River. Recently, part of the network has been offline due to Google’s redevelopment of the downtown Thompson Center into its new regional headquarters. With the building coming online in the next few years, CDOT hopes the Pedway’s connections to the building will reopen under the new ownership.
For CDOT, the Pedway is a key part of the city’s broader efforts to improve transit safety, viability and usability.
To accomplish that goal, navigability remains a major barrier. The current system was installed in the ‘90s or early 2000s, and a common complaint throughout the decades since is its poorly marked and maintained passageways.
As a temporary fix, CDOT installed large vinyl stickers over fading signs in 2021. But they’re hoping to do more.
“We are always thinking about how we can make the space user-friendly and better for the people who are using it in the ways that we are able to,” Frey said.
Other concerns include safety and the presence of unhoused people. According to Frey, private owners are responsible for security, maintenance and cleanliness, meaning that quality across the system can be inconsistent.
Improving and maintaining the Pedway is a team effort, but Frey hopes that these partnerships and the city’s own efforts will make the system a usable option for years to come.
“We want to make sure that we’re continuing its legacy of being an asset for transit users,” she said.
The Pedway also provides a space for public art, retail spaces and potentially other programming. Small installations, like a stained glass window array near the Macy’s segment of the system, are examples. But Frey said additions and installations can be complicated, given the mix of private and public jurisdiction.
“I definitely think there are more opportunities,” Frey said. “The city’s definitely supportive of those types of things, but it would definitely involve a lot of a lot of stakeholders to get together for some of them.”
Frey said that the more people that use the Pedway, which remains relatively obscure, including to Chicagoans who don’t venture downtown as much, the more alive it will feel.
“We like to see vibrant urban spaces, and those come from a lot of activity and use,” Frey said. “The more reasons people have to be in the pedway, the more lively it can be. It can be really seen as a public asset.”
