Promoted

Yesterday there was an eventful meeting of City Council's Committee on Transportation and the Public Way. The committee passed a resolution by Ald. Bill Conway (34th) pushing the CTA to increase its enforcement of no smoking rules by coordinating with law enforcement and releasing ticketing numbers. The measure will go before the full Council for a final vote.

On a recent Friday, I stopped by the CTA's 95th/Dan Ryan terminal to check out a couple of things: the system’s only in-station DJ booth, and riders' viewpoints on the upcoming $5.7 billion Red Line Extension to 130th Street.The DJ booth project, called "An Extended Song of Our People (AESOP)" is a public art installation brainstormed by Chicago artist Theaster Gates. The CTA believes it’s the first-ever artist-designed and built DJ and broadcast facility in a transit stop – anywhere.

In October 2023, a sedan driver struck and killed Josh Anleu, 16, as he biked through the intersection of Waveland (3700 N.) and Long (5400 W.) avenues in the Portage Park community. At a ceremony that November to install a "ghost bike" memorial at the site, his mother Karen Buendia tearfully told the crowd, "If we, as human beings, don’t care about other people’s lives, we're going to keep killing each other."

About two months earlier, a turning trucker killed a 44-year-old man in a crosswalk at Cermak/Ashland, just two blocks south.

While some might argue it's risky for the senator and his colleagues to hold out for a full $1.5B to upgrade the system, he says that failure to do so would be a missed opportunity.

Livable streets advocates were well represented at yesterday's community meeting on "The Grant Park Framework Plan – Chicago’s Front Yard Reimagined" at the Maggie Daley Park fieldhouse, 337 E. Randolph St. And they walked away happy, because the proposal includes putting a deck over DuSable Lake Shore Drive downtown to help make the the Third Coast more accessible and attractive.

After yesterday's celebration of the five new Red Line stations in Edgewater and Uptown at the Argyle stop, I buttonholed State Sen. Mike Simmons and State Rep. Hoan Huynh (pronounced "Hahn Win") for updates on the transit fiscal cliff. The Illinois General Assembly failed to pass a public transportation funding and governance reform bill before the spring legislative session ended on May 31, so Chicagoland is now at risk of Draconian cuts next year.

View yesterday's Streetsblog photos of the four new Red Line stations here.

By Ellen Steinke