Steven Vance

In the video, one car will be issued a warning. Watch for the subtle flash reflecting against the trees.

The multi-week Ventra rollout ramps up this week as thousands of college students have received their U-PASS-enabled Ventra cards. The same card will be with them through their entire enrollment at 41 participating colleges. Outside the semester, though, students can load cash or passes onto the Ventra card to give them transit access when U-PASS is disabled. I sent my roommate on a mission Thursday to test loading cash onto a Ventra card, given to me by the Chicago Transit Authority, and use it to get to work downtown from Logan Square.

32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack, usually a progressive on transportation issues, recently made some backward comments about city initiatives that convert car parking spaces into facilities like Divvy stations, bike parking corrals and People Spot seating areas. Waguespack fretted about the impact these conversions would have on local businesses, but it’s clear that these innovative uses can be more effective ways to draw visitors to retail strips than simply warehousing cars on the public way. Even after I staked out a bike-share station in his ward and found that 12 customers used it during a two-hour period, while there was zero turnover at two adjacent car spaces, the alderman still wasn’t convinced.

Update Friday, 15:09: Judge Kathleen Kennedy denied the plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order because they didn't state a clearly ascertainable, protectable right and cannot sustain the merits of their complaint (if it went to trial, as they requested). The protectable rights they tried to ascertain and state were that the Divvy station would have a negative impact on the building's property value, and the residents' safety and privacy would be at risk.

The Illinois Department of Transportation is again seeking the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's help to build an expensive highway expansion that isn't included in the region's planning blueprint. This time, it's not about a putting a flyover above Halsted Street and a wall in front of people's homes, like the agency plans to do with the Circle Interchange expansion. IDOT, along with the Indiana Department of Transportation, needs approvals from several CMAP committees and the full board so the two agencies can spend $2.75 billion building a brand new four-lane highway in southern Will County.

A fifth Metra board member gave up his post Thursday after the Chicago Tribune wrote that Stanley Rakestraw no longer lived in suburban Cook County  – as required – and the person who appointed him, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle, asked him to tender resignation. Board members are resigning after allegations of double dipping (for being on two governmental boards simultaneously), patronage hiring and promoting, and for giving former Metra CEO Alex Clifford a severance package potentially worth over $700,000 in exchange for keeping quiet. The full amount would be available to Clifford if he fails to find a new job.

Tax increment financing is a pretty neat tool cities can use to finance quality-of-life amenities, like the Beltline in Atlanta, or the streetcar in Kansas City, by capturing the taxes from the property value increases of the investments.

The Evanston City Council on Monday approved a proposal to apply for federal funds through the Transportation Alternatives program to pay for a minimum of seven Divvy bike sharing stations (map) in the adjacent suburb. A staff memo to the council [PDF] recommended that Evanston make an agreement with the City of Chicago to collect revenues and maintain the system on behalf of Evanston using the existing contract between Chicago and Alta Bicycle Share. Evanston would pay Chicago if there were any shortfalls in covering operating costs.

There is no highway for the sake of traffic. There is a highway for the sake of moving large quantities of people because people generate traffic. Depending on the highway's alignment, and the land use, how much traffic people will choose to generate is highly influenceable. If it's tolled, more people than usual will carpool or take transit. If a highway is built passing highly desirable destinations without other ways to reach them, it will get congested. Neither of these are uncontrollable phenomena. I'm talking about Lake Shore Drive and the project to study the alternatives for the corridor between Grand Avenue and where Lake Shore Drive ends at Hollywood Avenue. The study's public participation, the first group in a series of 5 meetings, began last week, where citizens learned about the study and the data project group members – the Chicago and Illinois Departments of Transportation, CTA, and the Chicago Park District – have gathered so far.

Chicagoans by now have noticed dozens, if not hundreds, of signs in the middle of two-lane streets telling people driving and bicycling about the state law requiring them to stop for people in crosswalks. The statewide law went into effect in 2010, and Chicago passed an identical law in 2011. Transportation departments, residents, and the Active Transportation Alliance have been working hard ever since to educate people about the law, and these signs represent the best effort so far because of their immediate effect.