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Partying like it’s 2025: CTAction’s Dorval Carter retirement celebration heralds a new era for Chicago transit
On January 13, the CTA announced that the agency's embattled President Dorval R. Carter was stepping down after more than a decade on the job. As Streetsblog discussed that day, elected officials and transit advocates had major problems with the way he ran the system, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. They cited major problems with reliability, crime, and cleanliness. As early as last April, everyone from the grassroots group Commuters Take Action to Governor JB Pritzker was calling for new leadership at the agency.
February 3, 2025
Hattie Mickell, 76, fatally struck by a trucker at Madison/Western was the 2nd female senior killed on foot in the area in about a week
Update 2/4/25, 11:30 AM: The Cook County medical examiner's office has identified the victim of the Near West Side crash as Hattie S. Mickell, 76. She lived about two miles southwest of the collision site in the North Lawndale community.
February 3, 2025
Today’s Headlines for Monday, February 3
• Trucker killed woman, 76, Saturday morning near Madison/Western on Near West Side, a mile from where driver killed Halyna Hudzan, 66 on 1/24 (ABC)
February 3, 2025
Rep. Buckner on the transit fiscal cliff: “We need the right mix of revenue and reform to make the system work the way it’s supposed to.”
Right now, the elephant in the room for Chicagoland public transportation planners and advocates is the looming regional transit fiscal cliff as federal COVID-19 funding subsidies run out. According to the Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the CTA, Metra, and Pace, the three systems will face a $770 million total shortfall – almost 20 percent of the operating budget – in 2026. The RTA says that if the issue is not addressed by this spring, the result would be higher fares and reduced service, leading to less ridership, aka the dreaded "transit death spiral".
January 31, 2025
Today’s Headlines for Friday, January 31
• RTA: "Regional transit ridership hits post-pandemic high in 2024; 11 percent jump from 2023"
January 31, 2025
Reimagining Chicago’s DuSable Lake Shore Drive is a generational opportunity to reshape the city
McCoy Cantwell was born and raised in Chicago and now live in Los Angeles, where he's pursing a master's degree urban and regional planning at Cal Poly Pomona. He wrote this piece as a class assignment to discuss a current planning issue.
McCoy Cantwell
January 30, 2025
Today’s Headlines for Thursday, January 30
• City officials dispute legality of Trump’s federal grant pause, impact on city budget uncertain (The Daily Line)
January 30, 2025
Old Town row: Ald. Hopkins won’t support proposal for 500 transit-friendly apartments due to NIMBY backlash
Sign a (non-developer-affiliated) letter of support for this project here.
January 29, 2025
Today’s Headlines for Wednesday, January 29
• After SBC posted that CTA doesn't believe Trump's executive order's will impact federal Red Line Extension funding, WTTW takes a look at the issue
January 29, 2025
Travis Duffey: A bike advocate and artist who flipped through life
It's relatively simple to eulogize people who were well-loved, or even just generally liked, and who never really did much out of the ordinary in their lives. Longtime Chicago cycling advocate Arthur Travis Duffey, known as "Flip Bike Travis," was not such a person.
January 28, 2025