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• Crain's: "Johnson faces pushback over [likely CTA president pick City of Chicago's COO John Roberson] as advocates push for broader search"

Last Thursday, the Active Transportation Alliance held its annual Movers and Shakers Ball, a fundraising gala to support the work of the advocacy group, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary this year. 

"Homewood-Flossmoor HS senior Tom'Mya Lyons killed in Bishop Ford crash hours after prom: 'A beautiful soul'" (ABC)

Good news for rail fans: Recently, Illinois legislators discussed a groundbreaking bill to launch statewide train service.

I'm confident that the generally car-centric folks on the Chicago Tribune editorial board deserved the spanking I gave them on Friday for their rather arrogant editorial about our region's looming $770 million total transit budget gap. "Chicago’s transit agencies want you to panic," the headline stated. "They don’t explain the whole truth."

• ATA: "Lawmakers face a clear choice: invest in a world-class public transportation system or allow our region’s transit agencies to slide into a crisis."

On Thursday, I heard the tragic news that groundbreaking singer-songwriter Jill Sobule had passed away at age 66, in a house fire early that morning while she was visiting the Twin Cities. Among many other great folk and pop tunes, she was known for her 1995 hits "I Kissed a Girl," the first LGBTQ-themed recording to make the Billboard Top 20, and "Supermodel," which appeared on the soundtrack for the movie "Clueless." She had been booked to perform in her hometown of Denver on Friday evening, but instead the venue hosted an impromptu memorial.

Read the Tribune editorial here.

• Axios: "Chicago transit leaders say $1.5 billion could avoid "drastic service cuts"