Promoted

By Julius Otto

According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the region's metro planning organization, northeastern Illinois has recently seen an uptick in traffic crash deaths. They've joined forced with the Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways (DoTh) and the Chicago Department of Transportation on the Cook County Safety Action Plan. That's part of Safe Travel for All, a region-wide effort to reduce the number of serious injuries and fatalities on local roads. They're hosting community meetings to spread the word about new initiatives, hear about residents' experiences with traffic hazards.

Executive Director Leanne Redden's comments were made during a recent Transit Is the Answer Coalition discussion of strategies to avoid the fiscal cliff.

This post is sponsored by Keating Law Offices.

At yesterday's CTA board meeting, new acting transit agency president Nora Leerhsen discussed issues she will prioritize in order to improve conditions on trains and increase ridership. These include addressing the problem of smoking on trains, and helping unhoused people who spend the night on the Red and Blue lines get access to shelters.

By practically all accounts, New York City's congestion pricing initiative, which launched on January 5, is doing precisely what it's supposed to: easing traffic congestion. You can get up to speed on exactly how the program is designed, from this explainer by Streetblog NYC's Dave Colon.

The last time Chicago intercity bus service was making headlines was last fall, when the local Greyhound station, 630 W. Harrison St., was in danger of permanent closure. That would have made this the largest metropolis in the Northern Hemisphere without an intercity bus facility. That embarrassment was temporarily avoided when Greyhound owner FlixBus worked out a month-to-month lease deal with the station's landlord.

The Chicago Tribune editorial board members are probably not my biggest fans right now, since I recently pointed out questionable statements about bike lanes and Metra fares in their editorials.

State Sen. Ram Villavalam and a coalition of labor unions are backing the "United We Move" bill that would empower the RTA without merging the four transit agencies.