Technology

Editor's note: Streetsblog accepts guest posts with viewpoints different than our own. Lynn Stevens is an urban planner, blogger at Peopling Places, and long-time neighborhood booster for Logan Square where she’s been an active participant in Bike/Walk Logan Square, the Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival, the Logan Square Corridor Development Initiative, and the (now defunct) Zoning Advisory Committee.

One aspect people like about the Chicago Crash Browser is looking up crashes along the route they bike to see if there are areas that should be avoided. What if you could also avoid routes that have high pollution, are especially noisy, or lack good street lighting?

Ventra, you may have heard, is the new fare payment system for Chicago Transit Authority and Pace. (Metra will not be joining the Ventra system, and is currently testing other fare payment methods.) CTA is switching to Ventra to save $5 million per year on maintaining outdated fare collection technology, according to spokesperson Lambrini Lukidis.

If the snow we're going to get tonight sticks around, we're gonna have to shovel it. But what if you aren't home or you need some help? Enter Adopt-A-Sidewalk, a website that came out of a collaboration between the City of Chicago and local developers.