Igor Studenkov

Metra and Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, the agency that operates the South Shore Line, are working on two projects to improve the Loop’s Van Buren station.

Seven out of the nine declared Chicago mayoral candidates shared their plans for making the city more accessible to people with disabilities at the January 7 forum hosted by Access Living, a disability rights group.

While Chicago polar vortex-related flight cancellations have been covered extensively on the news, Amtrak hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention.

The U.S. Congress is poised to pass a law that would avert the railroad labor unions strike that would otherwise begin as soon as December 9.

The specter of a railroad strike shutting down much of the country’s freight railroad network and some of Metra’s busiest rail lines has risen once again.

It’s not often that Metra's board pushes back on a budget proposal, and it’s even less common for the final budget to be significantly different from what the staff originally presented, but both of those things happened this year.

The budget calls for doing away with most transfer fees, making all current CTA-only passes valid on Pace, and permanently eliminating 69 routes suspended during COVID.

Metra’s proposal to discontinue systemwide day passes, three-zone day passes, and a $100 systemwide Super Saver Monthly Pass in favor of zone-based single-day and monthly passes faced such as strong backslash during the October 12 meeting of the Metra Board of Directors that the press release announcing the proposed new budget framed it as just one of many possibilities.

This post focuses on the Chicago Mobility Collective breakout session that focused on street design to improve bus service. Streetsblog may run coverage of other breakout sessions that focused on pedestrian and bike matters in the future. The meeting took place during the same time as the ghost bike installation for youth mentor Sam Bell, 44, in River West. To highlight Chicago's traffic violence epidemic, some people Zoomed in to the meeting from the memorial using a background with a white bicycle and the words "I'm currently at the ghost bike vigil for another cyclist killed on Chicago streets." Others posted a "Vision Zero Chicago 2022 Report Card" with crash fatality stats. About 140 people attended the meeting altogether. - Ed.

There was good news today as the potential shutdown of four Metra lines due to a threatened freight rail worker strike was averted. But what would have happened if it wasn't?