Transitized

It seems like every time the city proposes an innovative sustainable transportation project, there’s someone who attacks the plan as an irresponsible waste of money for our cash-strapped city. For example, Roger Romanelli and his Ashland-Western Coalition anti-bus rapid transit group have repeatedly argued that the CTA’s plan to build 16 miles of fast, reliable BRT on Ashland Avenue at a cost of $160 million is outrageously expensive. Other initiatives like Divvy bike-share, which cost $27.5 million for the first 400 stations, and the Dearborn protected lanes, which cost $450,000, have also come under fire from citizens and in the press as frivolous uses of taxpayer dollars.