Today’s Headlines

• Claypool Credits Security Cameras With a 26% Drop in Crime on the CTA Last Year (ABC)
• Cabbies Staged a Strike This Morning, Rallied at City Hall to Protest Ride-Share (Sun-Times)
• Now That a Metra Pass Is Almost as Expensive as a CTA Pass, Some Are Switching Modes (RedEye)
• Metra's BNSF Line to Aurora Is Its Busiest But Also Its Least Reliable (Herald)
• Teen Who Killed Senior While Going 35 MPH Over Limit Charged With Misdemeanor (Tribune)
• Indiana Leaders Consider Installing Traffic Cams, Look at Illinois' Experience With Them (WTHI)
• Cyclist Who Was Doored by a Cab Driver Wins Settlement (Keating)
• Singer Who Wrote Protest Songs About CTA & Traffic Cams Sets His Sights on "Dibs" (DNA)
• Chicagoist Speaks Out Against the Evils of Bike Parking "Dibs" -- John Is Guilty as Charged
• Historian, Hungry Hound Discuss the Bloomingdale & Immigrant Experiences Tonight (DNA)

Get national headlines at Streetsblog USA

Due to a funding shortfall, Streetsblog Chicago has suspended publication of orginal articles. Please see Streetsblog Editor-in-Chief Ben Fried’s message about the hiatus, and my post about the effort the revive the site via local fundraising. In the meantime, I am continuing to produce Today’s Headlines on a volunteer basis as a service to readers.

The Chicago Community Trust, a charitable foundation that was one of the early funders of SBC, has been impressed by the outpouring of support the site has received since we announced our hiatus on January 8. Thanks to the generosity of sponsors and readers like you, by February 13, we had raised $34K of the $75K needed to fund a year of operations.

As a result, CCT has very generously offered us a challenge grant. If Streetsblog reaches $50K in donations and sponsorships by our April 8 deadline to reboot the site, the Trust will provide the last $25K needed to resume daily publication of original reporting. In other words, our finish line is within sight.

However, we still have a lot of work to do in order to win the CCT funding that will allow us to relaunch. If you haven't already done so, please donate to the Streetsblog Chicago Resurrection Fund today. While donations are not tax-deductible at this point, in the very unlikely event that the site does not relaunch by April 8, your money will be refunded.

If you've already contributed, thanks so much for helping us attract the challenge grant. As an added incentive to first-time donors, as well as those who'd like to make an additional contribution to help us win the CCT funding, anyone who donates $100 or more from this point on will be mailed a copy of my book "Bars Across America." Donate $200 or more and we'll also throw in a copy of the anthology "On Bicycles," to which I contributed a chapter about Chicago's West Town Bikes, while supplies last.

Please feel free to spread the word about the challenge grant to potential donors, or contact me at 312-560-3966 or greenfieldjohn[at]hotmail.com with leads on other possible funding sources. To keep you apprised on our progress as we enter the home stretch, I'll be updating the above Donate-O-Meter along with Today's Headlines each morning.

Thanks again for your continuing support.

- John