Rail Transit

At a meeting last week, CDOT staffers committed to exploring the idea of warning signs, but ignored Romanelli's call to spend $1.8B rebuilding the tracks.

By encouraging families to send their children to school by transit rather than driving them there, we'd also get a safer, healthier, and more efficient city.

In reality Romanelli's proposal to rebuild the tracks to make driving easier is a road project. As such, he should be pursuing road funding for it, not transit money.

While our city's TOD ordinance has spurred more transit-friendly development in wealthy and gentrifying neighborhoods, it has done relatively little to encourage investment in parts of the city that need it the most.

This latest tragedy highlights the urgent need for local leaders to think outside the policing box and take constructive action to keep transit riders and workers safe.

The announcement at the top of this month’s recovery report from the Chicago Loop Alliance, which tracks pedestrian levels, transportation use and office and hotel occupancy, is a gradual return of life downtown. The Loop Alliance’s eighteen pedestrian counters situated along State Street from Wacker to Ida B. Wells logged over one million people per week on the street for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

The increased investment in walking, biking, and transit is great, but these investments are at risk of being outweighed by an increase in roadway expansion.

The Altenheim Line could spur development in North Lawndale. But residents are worried it could also lead to displacement.

Launching a free fares pilot for schoolchildren would be a great way to start improving transportation equity in Chicago, helping us catch up with peer cities that are way ahead of us in that department.