John Greenfield

Usually in news stories about Chicagoland's looming transit fiscal cliff, which Springfield legislators resumed tackling in the fall veto session today, you hear from agency officials, public transportation advocates, and riders.

• "Springfield now faces the $2B question: How much to invest in transit's future" (Crain's)

"I am a patient boyI wait, I wait, I wait, I wait"

• Soldier-free CTA for now? "Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump’s National Guard Mobilization To Chicago" (Block Club)

Judging from expensive-looking billboards prominently placed on Broadway in Uptown and Edgewater, you might assume these neighborhoods are dead-set against Broadway Upzoning.

As Streetsblog Chicago readers are well aware, this is a pivotal month for regional sustainable transportation. State legislators will return to Springfield for a fall veto session, taking place on October 14-16 and October 28-30. While things are tense right now in Illinois, hopefully the lawmakers won't be distracted from passing a transit funding/reform bill, to permanently save Chicagoland from projected 40 percent transit service cuts and 3,000 layoffs.

• "One Month Into Trump’s Immigration Blitz, Chicago Escalates Its Fight Back" (Block Club)

This post is sponsored by Keating Law Offices.

Yesterday, I visited the site where a northbound minivan driver fatally struck Juslene Akeza, 4, as she was crossing Talman Avenue (2630 W.) westbound on the north side of Granville Avenue (6200 W.) in West Ridge. That tragedy happened along the recently installed Granville Avenue Neighborhood Greenway. But as I noted in my writeup of the crash, the new east-west street design was basically irrelevant to the motorist's failure to hit the brakes in time, the reason why police cited them for failure to reduce speed.

• Don't mess with Illinois! "Texas National Guard arrives in the Chicago area" (Tribune)