River North

A 32-year old man died Sunday after he fell into the street during an altercation and was struck and killed by a cab driver. At about 4:20 a.m., Marques Gaines was involved in an altercation near Hubbard and State in River North, according to the Chicago Police. After a man punched him in the head, he fell into the roadway.

The Chicago Department of Transportation has taken advantage of recent warm spells to do some late-year bikeway construction. In addition to new bikeways on Lincoln, the department recently striped buffered bike lanes on Halsted, between Fulton and Erie in the West Loop and River West.

The Chicago Transit Authority expects that more people will ride the 'L' next year, especially in north side neighborhoods. To accommodate this increased demand, it added six new rush-hour trips on the Brown, Red, and Purple lines at the end of September, and will add even more frequency to the Brown Line and Orange Line this weekend. Additionally, its 2015 budget will add two more rush hour trains to both the Blue and Orange Lines.

The city is slowly moving forward with building the Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit project, which will speed bus service between Union Station and Michigan Avenue . Meanwhile, the Chicago Department of Transportation is looking at other ways to improve transit connections between the West Loop train stations and the neighborhoods just north of the Loop with the River North-Streeterville Transit Study.

A huge complaint during this #Chiberia season has been the lack of snow removal from sidewalks. The problem is nothing new, but complaints are rising along with the frequency of the snowfall -- it is the fifth snowiest winter, after all. The issue was discussed at February's Mayor's Pedestrian Advisory Council, and last week CDOT released stats on how many 311 reports residents have submitted requesting snow removal.

The steps, broken pavement, and roller coaster ramps at the southwest corner of Kinzie Street and Clark Street were all repaired recently. The construction was originally supposed to wrap up by spring 2013, but didn't finish until December. The six-month long construction was unusually complex, according to 42nd Ward Alderman Reilly's newsletter.

The Chicago Riverwalk extension, from State Street to Lake Street along the south bank of the waterway, will be a marquee public space and recreation project in the same class as Millennium Park and the Bloomingdale trail and park. And like the Bloomingdale, the riverwalk also has the potential to be a valuable addition to our city’s car-free transportation network.