Steven Vance

Ever since the Chicago Transit Authority and Pace switched from magnetic stripe fare cards to the Ventra smart card system in 2013, social service providers across Chicago have been spending more money on paying for their clients' transit rides, and giving out fewer rides. A new report from the Chicago Jobs Council details the burdens that Ventra fare policies and ticket ordering delays place on social service organization staff members and money dedicated to helping clients. The jobs council works to change laws and policies to increase access to jobs for marginalized workers.

A new partnership between Divvy and Transit app, you can now get 24-hour Divvy passes and ride codes via smartphone. This means that people who have just signed up for an annual membership won't have to wait for a key to arrive in the mail before they can start using the blue bikes. It also means that folks who want to use bike-share for the day won't have to wait in line at a kiosk to sign up for a pass and check out a bike.

Yesterday the Tribune's Mary Wisniewski further explored a topic Streetsblog's John Greenfield covered two weeks ago for the Reader. Virtually all of Chicago's new transit-oriented development projects are upscale buildings in affluent or gentrifying neighborhoods. TOD advocates argue that adding housing in these communities will take pressure off the rental market. But some Logan Square residents say soon-to-open TOD towers in the neighborhood will encourage other landlords to jack up rents.

As a former bicycle parking planner for the Chicago Department of Transportation on sabbatical in northern Europe, I'm impressed by how much better the long- and short-term bike storage is here than what I'm used to in the states. Too often in the U.S., bike parking is an afterthought even though secure and convenient parking is essential for encouraging more people to use a bicycle for transportation. Nothing discourages a would-be cyclist like having a bike stolen.

The Illiana Tollway, a proposed highway boondoggle that would run through land south of the Chicago metro area, is the project that just won't die. The tollway would be a joint project of the Illinois and Indiana transportation departments and cost Illinois taxpayers a minimum of $500 million. That's $500 million that might otherwise be spent on necessary and financially viable projects like rebuilding the North Red Line, constructing the Ashland bus rapid transit route, and building Pace's transitways.

A new tool shows just how much advantage residents in some Illinois cities might have over others accessing jobs with low-cost transit, and just how much difference state legislators could make if they chose to fund more transit. AllTransit, an analysis tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology and TransitCenter (a Streetsblog Chicago funder), shows information about access to transit that residents and job seekers have in any part of the United States, using data about transit service, demographic information, and job locations.

Two local politicians have proposed changing the streets around Wrigley Field to help defend it from terrorist attacks. Instead we should be looking at ways to protect the area from an excess of car traffic.

A parking lot next to the Logan Square Blue Line station that's ripe for redevelopment is under review for a zoning change. 35th Ward alder Carlos Ramirez-Rosa intends to change the zoning district from a very low-density, mixed-use B1-1 designation to RT-4, a residential district designation. That type of zoning allows only single-family homes and two-flats.

The South Shore Line, a commuter train service between Chicago and northern Indiana, started its weekend-only bikes-on-train pilot last Saturday. Alex Elich, a reporter with the WSBT radio station, demonstrated how to use the racks that hold the bike steady on the train.

One of the country's most successful city transportation commissioners spoke on Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Planning Council about her experience working in New York City for seven years. Janette Sadik-Khan was hired by former mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2007 to implement the radical – for NYC and for that time in the United States – sustainable transportation initiatives outlined in the city's comprehensive livability plan called PlaNYC.