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Update 2/12/25, 1:30 PM: The Chicago Department of Transportation will host another public meeting on this project Thursday, February 13, 6-7 p.m. on Zoom. Register at bit.ly/granville2025.

• Rep. Chuy Garcia, Sen. Villalam, and People's Lobby make pitches for better Chicagoland transit, including Metropolitan Mobility Act (Active Trans)

There was a changing of the guard today in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. The bicycle store launched as Urban Bikes, then transformed into Uptown Bikes, rebooted once again as Broadway Bikes, with longtime wrenches Leah Plummer and Nina Hazelton now the owners.

Sometimes right now it feels like Chicagoland residents are on a runaway train (or a scene from the 1994 city bus thriller Speed?) hurtling towards our region's looming transit fiscal cliff. Federal COVID-era public transportation subsidies for the CTA, Metra, and Pace, overseen by the Regional Transit Authority, are projected to run out in 2026. That would leave the systems with a total budget gap that would be the better part of a billion dollars.

• Trump administration's bias against "childless cat ladies" rears head with threat to cut DOT funds to states like IL with lower marriage, birth rates (Crain's)

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.

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.

• 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)

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".