Streetsblog Chicago

• Hearing on legislation for Metropolitan Mobility Act, which would combine the 4 local transit agencies, this Tuesday 9 AM at Bilandic Center, 160 N. LaSalle

Streetsblog Chicago is a sustainable transportation news and advocacy website, not a publication that typically covers finance. So it's not really my role to opine on whether it was a smart fiscal decision for the City Council to approve an $830 million bond deal to pay for transportation infrastructure. But let's look at how the narrow 26-23 vote went down last Wednesday; some arguments against and for the financing by alders; and reactions from walk/bike/transit boosters.

This week, the CTA released the final design concepts for a pedestrian path and other new amenities on a 1.3-mile segment under Red and Purple tracks, between the Lawrence and Bryn Mawr stations in Uptown and Edgewater. At the second of two community meeting this week, held last night at Truman College, 1945 W. Wilson, attendees seemed generally satisfied with the design.

• "Why a Plan to Borrow $830M to Repair Streets, Sidewalks, Bridges Touched Off a Political Firestorm" (WTTW)

• CTA "Will Pilot Automatic Detection System on Rail Right-of-Way" to detect trespassing on tracks, and prevent injuries and service delays

By practically all accounts, New York City's congestion pricing initiative, which launched on January 5, is doing precisely what it's supposed to: easing traffic congestion. You can get up to speed on exactly how the program is designed, from this explainer by Streetblog NYC's Dave Colon.

• Could CDOT Commissioner Tom Carney get fired as part of Mayor Johnson's plan to clean house? (Sun-Times)

• Transportation committee to consider measure to require CTA president nominees to testify in front of alderpeople (Daily Line)

On Thursday the Chicago Tribune yet ran another editorial about construction on the Kennedy Expressway inconveniencing drivers that calls for some discussion. That reminded me that I'd been planning to update Streetsblog readers about a similar editorial last December that we'd asked the newspaper to correct. Let's talk about one, and then the other.