Active Transportation Alliance

Since 1992, the CTA Holiday Train has been a Chicago Christmas tradition. Now people don't need to ride it to appreciate its splendor. Daniel Moreno, a photographer from Venezuela who now lives in Chicago, has spent several years capturing the decorated 'L' train.

Got a fun photo of Kathy Schubert at a bike ride or advocacy event that you'd like to share? Please send it to me a jgreenfield[at]streetsblog[dot]org and I may add it to this post, and/or create a gallery of images that I'll link to here.

New York City dominated the headlines today after electing Zohran Mamdani as mayor. But it wasn't the only big U.S. city that's made history in the past week.

On Tuesday, I hopped on my bicycle and high-tailed it from Chicago to Springfield, Illinois, the state capital, in an effort to sample my first-ever horseshoe sandwich. In case you're not familiar with that delicacy, it's an open-faced sandwich composed of thick-sliced toast, a protein (often hamburger patties, but there are several other options), cheese sauce, and french fries. It's an indigenous dish of Flower City and, as far as I know, it's no longer available in the Windy City.

Last Friday's transit talk, "Averting the Cliff: The Road to Regional & High-Speed Rail" was supposed to feature State Rep. Kam Buckner, co-leader of the House's Public Transit Working Group, but he couldn't make it. So the question of who would take his place was a bit of a cliffhanger: Who would fill Buckner's Nikes?

The Active Transportation Alliance and Ride Illinois held a Suburban Advocacy Connect session over Zoom on Wednesday, October 8th. Besides the updates on ATA and Ride Illinois, this latest meeting also included a market research presentation about gathering and expanding support for transit.

Last month, when I interviewed State Rep. Kam Buckner about efforts to address the looming $771 million Chicagoland transit fiscal cliff, he noted that the discussion of the topic in the media has been something of a "boy's club." (Today, Buckner and I talked some more about this subject with Outside the Loop Radio's Mike Stephen on a show airing this Saturday morning, which doesn't undermine that argument.)

The program, sponsored by Ald. Matt Martin (47th), and researched by Police District Council members, could start as early as this winter.