Cameron Bolton

The film "Power Trip," written and directed by Myron Levin, discusses how films, video games, and automobile ads glamorize the kind of high-risk driving that kills people and tears families apart. While the number of traffic deaths is falling in other affluent nations, American crash fatalities rose to over 40,000 a year, with speed a factor in 30 percent of the cases. "The film is dedicated to the memory of crash victims everywhere, to their grieving families, and to those working to end the slaughter on our roads," its website states.

New York City dominated the headlines today after electing Zohran Mamdani as mayor. But it wasn't the only big U.S. city that's made history in the past week.

In May 2024, Juan Sebastian Arias started his current position as executive director of Elevated Chicago, an organization that helps encourage equitable transit-oriented development. Here's an interview with him from back then by Streetsblog Chicago's John Greenfield.

This fall, Metra has been testing its prototype Café Car on most of its highest-ridership rail lines and stations. It has coffee shop-inspired counters, tables, and seating. During the first week, September 30 to October 6, it ran on the Rock Island line. This week, the Café Car ran from Tuesday to today on the BNSF Line between Union Station and Aurora. It's the busiest route, and some runs stop in Riverside, the historic west-suburban village where I live. See next week's schedule for the pilot at the bottom of this post.

Last Friday's transit talk, "Averting the Cliff: The Road to Regional & High-Speed Rail" was supposed to feature State Rep. Kam Buckner, co-leader of the House's Public Transit Working Group, but he couldn't make it. So the question of who would take his place was a bit of a cliffhanger: Who would fill Buckner's Nikes?

The Active Transportation Alliance and Ride Illinois held a Suburban Advocacy Connect session over Zoom on Wednesday, October 8th. Besides the updates on ATA and Ride Illinois, this latest meeting also included a market research presentation about gathering and expanding support for transit.

The organizers of the annual Sadie Hawkins Style Ride describe the event as "an all-skill-level, self-guided, scavenger-hunt-style bicycle ride, open to anyone that wants to ride." They add, "We dress in costumes or high-style gear, and bicycle decorations are encouraged as well. The ride is as long or as short as anyone wants to go, with an excellent afterparty and prizes afterwards."

On Tuesday, the curtains closed on last month's "Save Chicago Transit: The Comedy Show," a weekly series presented by Funny You Should Care at Second City. Meanwhile, it's now October, the month in which Illinois state legislators will hopefully pass a public transportation reform and finance bill that will rescue our region from the looming transit fiscal cliff.

The CTA held the last of its 2025 budget town halls yesterday, allowing more members of the community to voice their concerns and opinions about the looming $771 million regional transit fiscal cliff. The event took place at Malcolm X College, 1900 W. Jackson Blvd. While officials acknoewledged the budget crisis, it was a "good news and bad news"-style meeting.

At the Truman College event, Sen. Mike Simmons and Sen Ram Villivalam disputed claims about the transit bill from Republican senators.