Kevin Zolkiewicz

The Broadway upzoning passes the land use commission 15-2. Loud cheers break out

In NYC, the OMNY system (same vender as Chicago’s Ventra system!) charges the same price regardless of how you pay (no OMNY card or pre-paid fares required) AND caps the fare cost so you never pay more than the price of a weekly pass.

Proposed fare budget chart, showing new fare structure effective 2/1/2026. Relevant proposed line items are “Full Bus Fare: $2.50”, “Full Rail Fare: $2.75”, “Full Fare Cash (bus only): $2.75”, and “PAYGO: $3.00 bus/$3.00 rail”

“Pay as you go” (PAYGO) fares will be $3 on both bus and rail, requiring you to open a Ventra account and load pre-paid fare value for the best price. This goes against the entire point of having an “open fare” system if you penalize riders for taking advantage of the “open” part.

CTA - Finance & Budget - CTA CTA posts its financials and budget recommendations online.

While MTA offers fare caping on NYC subways and buses, CTA wants to go in the opposite direction. Taping to pay with a bankcard or mobile wallet will cost extra in their proposed budget, making the system more expensive and less accessible to occasional riders. www.transitchicago.com/finance/

PJM acting like that first-year Chicagoan who foolishly takes out their window unit after the first cool stretch in early September.

I feel like I’ve gotten more hourly price alert notifications this month than I did during peak summer.

Unfortunately that one has been there for years, I’ve seen it before. 😔 I recall CTA installing some when they planned rear door boarding during Covid. Good news is that all the newest buses are pre-wired for rear door readers.

An image showing the entrance to the new Argyle Red Line station with three screens, one showing normal service on all elevated lines, one showing a few elevator outages among the massive number CTA has across the system, and one showing any active or upcoming service alerts in place of paper alerts as a person enters the turnstiles. Arrival information is also showing overhead.

Long but hopefully fulfilling transit nerd thread incoming:

I want to talk about that I’m super proud of, and which is a culmination of things we’ve done in the past as well as things I’ve seen elsewhere that I wanted to bring home to Chicago: New digital at RPM stations that we hope to expand!

These turned out fantastic. I love seeing that green checkmark every time I walk into Bryn Mawr, assuring me I’m not going to encounter an unexpected situation. Great work!

I noticed the same thing last Saturday! I was trying to figure out where we were while stopped for single tracking. “Oh, somewhere in this five mile radius, okay.”

ACTUALLY what is driving the surge is DRIVERS SPEEDING.

The intersection of Broadway and Winnemac, showing “paint and post” bumpouts at the corners.

Looking west on Winnemac from Broadway, showing dashed yellow lines for a contraflow bike lane along with dashed placeholders for future markings and green paint.

A family with three children on bikes wait for the light at Clark and Winnemac from the new contraflow lane.

Dashed advisory bike lanes seen on Winnemac looking east from Ravenswood.

With Granville wrapping up, work has now begun on the new Winnemac Greenway! This involves a one-way conversion between Clark and Broadway (contraflow lane is striped, but no one-way signage just yet). There are advisory lanes west of Ashland.

My first thought as well. I’m holding out hope that a couple of raised intersections planned on Glenwood will be better.

It failed for me because there was technically one dock still open but they all looked full at first glance when I pulled up

Looking east at Granville and Clark, with newly installed “Do Not Enter, Except Bicycles” signage

Looking west at Granville and Clark, with newly installed “Do Not Enter, Except Bicycles” signage

Looking east at Granville and Ridge, with newly installed “Do Not Enter, Except Bicycles” and “No left turn, Except Bikes” signage

A raised concrete crosswalk at Granville and Glenwood, with bicycle sharrows on the pavement

The Granville traffic safety project is almost complete. The biggest change is strategic one-way (vehicular) conversions at Broadway, Clark, and Ridge to prevent cut-through traffic. No more turns onto Granville from Clark and all vehicles on Granville must turn at Clark.

Much (all?) of this stretch already has a 20mph limit, including further north through Andersonville

no human is illegal unless they want to live in apartments in my neighborhood

A concrete raised crosswalk with red stamped brick pattern, met by existing sidewalk ramps with a downward slope.

Raised crosswalk with French drains at Roscoe & Elaine. Would be better if CDOT redid the ramps and kept the grade consistent for pedestrians.

“Sorry, we can’t have more housing because 0.05% of people in the Ward said no.”

So this means you’ll finally support fare caping like New York City, right?

Pedestrian perspective of a concrete intersection with clearly defined curbs and pedestrian ramps at the crosswalk

Same perspective, looking south, at a concrete intersection with clearly defined curbs and pedestrian ramps at the crosswalk

Here it is, CDOT’s completed “raised intersection” and Damen/Winnemac.

They’ll be on Reddit tomorrow complaining that someone put a sticker on their car, leaving out the crucial detail of where they were parked

Last I checked the pavement markings were never installed for the new camera on Broadway in Edgewater. Had me wondering if it was a requirement or just a “nice to have”.

Bryn Mawr is jealous.

The prior station location, accessible only by walking in an active traffic lane

This is actually an improvement over the prior situation when the station was across street during Metra’s 10-year-long station reconstruction project.

Today at the ribbon cutting for CTA’s brand new 100% accessible Red line stations, Senator Simmons made the call clear: it’s time for legislators to get back to Springfield NOW for a special session and fully fund public transit!

We can’t wait! We have to get this done now!

activists hold signs calling on funding for public transit in front of CTA Argyle red line . Me wearing red and a CTA button

activists hold signs calling on funding for public transit in front of CTA Argyle red line

Thank you activists for showing up. Right now let’s fiercely fight not only for reforms needed for Chicago public transit systems so it works for all of us, but also for sustainable funding. Call every level of government that represents you. Hold us accountable. Let’s win this together

That futuristic sound will likely fade over time as the new rails smoothen out, so enjoy it while it lasts.

I love hearing the sound of the new Red Line echoing throughout Edgewater in the morning

I’m unsure. CFD had already arrived when I got to the station.