Bus Transit

This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh.

The city is slowly moving forward with building the Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit project, which will speed bus service between Union Station and Michigan Avenue . Meanwhile, the Chicago Department of Transportation is looking at other ways to improve transit connections between the West Loop train stations and the neighborhoods just north of the Loop with the River North-Streeterville Transit Study.

If, like me, you optimistically view the summer as lasting until September 22, we’ve got more than five more weeks of beach season left. Still, time is running out for fun in the sun, so you should make a beeline for the shoreline as soon as possible. While people often gripe that Chicago has limited access to natural beauty, our city’s status as a rail hub actually makes it easy to reach the beach without a car.

For the past three years, Pace has run two express bus routes down the Stevenson Expressway (I-55) from Bolingbrook and Plainfield to downtown Chicago and the Illinois Medical District, and used the expressway's shoulders to bypass traffic jams. Creating these dedicated transit lanes has resulted in better reliability -- on-time performance jumped from 68 to 93 percent -- and faster service, which when combined with comfortable (and wi-fi equipped) buses, has led ridership to jump 226 percent.

This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh.

It may only be August, but snow's already on the minds of the Mayor's Pedestrian Advisory Council. At this week's meeting, the Chicago Department of Transportation owned up to their shortcomings in providing clear pedestrian routes through the city during last winter's polar vortex conditions.

Someone had to cave and last night, it was the Senate.

Buenos Aires is fast becoming one of the most admired cities in the world when it comes to reinventing streets and transportation.

Some East Lakeview neighbors are unhappy with a proposed retail complex along Broadway, just north of Wellington, that would house a large Mariano's supermarket on its lower floors and an Xsport Fitness on its upper floors. The five-story building will have retail space with a large driveway and loading area on the ground floor, the supermarket mostly on the second floor, two levels of parking, and the fitness center on the top floor.