Chicago Sun-Times

If additional policing leads to the criminalization of more people of color and low-income residents, don't be surprised if the response is hundreds of angry Chicagoans storming the turnstiles.

In her second column promoting Uber's bogus message that Chicago's proposed ride-hail tax would hurt poor people, Washington says the mayor should compromise with Uber. Here's why that's wrong.

Chicago Department of Transportation commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld has overseen the completion of several good projects during her four years on the job, including the Loop Link bus rapid transit corridor, the Bloomingdale Trail, the Chicago Riverwalk, and 100 miles of new and upgraded bike lanes. (However, it’s worth noting all of these initiatives were launched by her higher-profile predecessor, Gabe Klein.)

After the Chicago Tribune’s star anti-traffic camera reporter David Kidwell left the paper last month somebody had to take up the slack, right?

Chicago transportation commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld is voicing support for a proposal to use a device known as a "textalyzer" to crack down on distracted driving with cellphones. Two aldermen, Anthony Beale Beale (9th) and Edward Burke (14th), have introduced a resolution asking the Chicago Police Department to look into using a $10,000 device from Cellebrite, which makes phone data extraction and hacking tools, that would allow officers to immediately copy the data on a motorist’s phone to determine if they had been using it while driving.

Yesterday, a road construction lobbying group tricked many local publications into promoting their highway expansion agenda.

When I heard that the anti-bus rapid transit group the Ashland Western Coalition was staging a photo op and interview session for the Sun-Times, I expected the worst. The NIMBY group hadn’t received any coverage from the daily papers before this, but they’d gotten plenty of flattering writeups in local publications like DNAInfo, The Gazette and Patch.

There is no highway for the sake of traffic. There is a highway for the sake of moving large quantities of people because people generate traffic. Depending on the highway's alignment, and the land use, how much traffic people will choose to generate is highly influenceable. If it's tolled, more people than usual will carpool or take transit. If a highway is built passing highly desirable destinations without other ways to reach them, it will get congested. Neither of these are uncontrollable phenomena. I'm talking about Lake Shore Drive and the project to study the alternatives for the corridor between Grand Avenue and where Lake Shore Drive ends at Hollywood Avenue. The study's public participation, the first group in a series of 5 meetings, began last week, where citizens learned about the study and the data project group members – the Chicago and Illinois Departments of Transportation, CTA, and the Chicago Park District – have gathered so far.

The Chicago Transit Authority announced this morning that some of the fees associated with using the optional debit account on a Ventra transit card will be eliminated or reduced.