CTA

The advocates say the agency should provide more info on the schedules of the bus shuttles that will replace trains during track closures, and want to know how the upcoming work will affect service on the rest of the Blue Line.

The agency credited a series of Taylor Swift shows at Soldier Field, plus popular concerts and festivals in various neighborhoods, for lifting the number of passengers in early June.

On Thursday, disadvantaged business enterprises attended a meeting hosted by the Chicago Transit Authority to learn more about the Red Line Extension and the subcontracting opportunities available. The event took place at the CTA’s West Loop headquarters.

This week’s Chicago Reader "First Tuesdays with Maya [Dukmasova] & Ben [Joravsky]" at Nighthawk on the topic of “Public Transit Crisis” lived up to the theme. The conversation with state representative Kam Buckner and activist (and former Streetsblog reporter) Lynda Lopez touched on familiar CTA woes: the ongoing triple-whammy of sub-par cleanliness, safety, and reliability; the predicted $730 million Chicagoland transit system budget shortfall by 2026; and a punishing funding structure that keeps the system hobbled. But it was the audience Q & A where on-the-ground frustrations of riders—and CTA workers in particular—gave a pulse to the urgency of the crisis at hand.

Monday I wrote about the Chicago Transportation Authority hosting a meeting tomorrow morning to introduce disadvantaged business enterprises and small businesses to the three CTA-identified bidders for the Far South Side's Red Line Extension Project as potential subcontractors. After I asked a colleague to review the article before publication, he had some interesting questions.

The CTA didn't provide me a FOIA response for months, and then finally did so at a time when I was unable to read it.

Despite the significantly longer Kennedy travel times, there hasn't been much uproar about the project creating a carpocalypse.

Since launching the program in August 2022 on the #22 Madison Street Route, the agency has installed 1,300 tactile signs at stops along 12 of the city’s bus lines.

Unfortunately, the CTA won't be able to run significantly more trains systemwide until staffing is closer to full strength again, and that means improving conditions for workers.