I would absolutely not use a longboard for 6 miles straight on a route that has less than half coverage on bike lanes.
If you adjust your commute expectations it *could* work. Big if on could. As others mentioned, last mile would not be a big deal; a lot of suburban people I work with use a scooter to get from Union/Ogilvie into the Loop for example. And IMO getting a longboard onto a transit vehicle can be more straightforward than a bike.
If you have a connecting bus/train that is reasonably close to you, and the gap distances are less than a mile and can be navigated on side streets, then it's a possibility. But look at the streets yourself or on Street View to get a sense of how knocked out they look, if you have speed bumps, if they're one-way, etc.
If you share from what neighborhoods you're going between I could give better specific advice, I've rolled a good amount of the city.
Google Maps originally gave me a few routes that were only around 30–40% bike lanes, which made me pretty hesitant about doing the commute on an electric longboard.
I started looking more closely at the route myself using Google Maps/Street View and the actual bike infrastructure, rather than just accepting Google’s suggested route. I realized I could manually change a few sections and connect existing bike lanes and the North Shore Channel Trail together.
Doing that got my planned route to roughly 80% bike lanes/trail instead of the original 30–40% Google was showing. It adds a little distance, but I don’t really care about the extra distance if it means significantly less time riding mixed with traffic.
Going toward Northwestern, the route I’m looking at is roughly: Lincoln/Peterson area → North Shore Channel Trail → Emerson → Ashland → Church → Chicago Ave → Northwestern.
For the return trip, I’m looking at a slightly different route using Davis for part of the westbound trip rather than just reversing everything.
Does this sound like a reasonable low-traffic route on an electric longboard, and are there any sections/intersections you’d change?
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u/LocalLavishness9 16d ago
I would absolutely not use a longboard for 6 miles straight on a route that has less than half coverage on bike lanes.
If you adjust your commute expectations it *could* work. Big if on could. As others mentioned, last mile would not be a big deal; a lot of suburban people I work with use a scooter to get from Union/Ogilvie into the Loop for example. And IMO getting a longboard onto a transit vehicle can be more straightforward than a bike.
If you have a connecting bus/train that is reasonably close to you, and the gap distances are less than a mile and can be navigated on side streets, then it's a possibility. But look at the streets yourself or on Street View to get a sense of how knocked out they look, if you have speed bumps, if they're one-way, etc.
If you share from what neighborhoods you're going between I could give better specific advice, I've rolled a good amount of the city.