Bus Transit

Last weekend's Blue Line track work, just one week of the months-long Your New Blue project, pushed rail riders onto shuttle buses that ran along Milwaukee Avenue -- and right through a traffic jam created by the very same track work. Instead of following the designated detour, drivers diverted from Fullerton and Sacramento Avenues under the Blue Line piled onto Milwaukee Avenue and slowed buses to a crawl.

Indianapolis might not be known as a transit city -- yet -- but a legislative breakthrough at the statehouse this week opens the door for dramatic improvements to its transit system.

Here's the rosy scenario of a future where cars drive themselves: Instead of owning cars, people will summon autonomous vehicles, hop in, and head to their destination. With fewer cars to be stored, parking lots and garages will give way to development, eventually bringing down the cost of housing in tight markets through increased supply. Pressure to expand roads will ease, as vehicle-to-vehicle technology allows more cars to use the same road space. Traffic violence will become a thing of the past as vehicles communicate instantly with each other and the world around them.

Tony Dutzik is a senior policy analyst with the Frontier Group.

So transit ridership is up. Everybody knows that. It’s at its highest point since 1956. Right?

At least one Illinois legislator supports a unified transit agency, even though RTA board chairman John Gates and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel have declared their opposition.

The transit task force Governor Pat Quinn convened last year after the Metra governance scandal continues to discuss the merits of a single transit authority to replace the Regional Transportation Authority and absorb Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace. Count Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CTA President Forrest Claypool among the opponents of that idea.

Yesterday’s nine-hour standoff between police and an alleged murderer, which shut down North Lake Shore Drive and created Carmageddon on nearby surface streets, highlighted why Chicago is fortunate to have multiple transportation options. Around 12:30 p.m., officers began chasing accused killer Joseph Andrew Felton Jr., 43, in his car from south-suburban Harvey, through the South Side. The fugitive rammed several cars on LSD before his vehicle landed in the grass east of the northbound lanes near the Fullerton offramp.

On Tuesday, the Northeastern Public Transit Task Force, created after former Metra CEO Alex Clifford's abrupt resignation and the ensuing severance package scandal last summer, issued four different options for restructuring regional transit governance [PDF]. While there's a lot of variation among the four options, they would all hand more power to the governor. This is the wrong direction to take.