Car Free Keith

I am incredibly lucky that there are folks like @carfreekeith.bsky.social out there who are very skilled at doing short-form video about Chicagoland transit history and policy (and who is kind enough to include #BuildTheTunnel content from time to time)

Making a NITA video that will come out in June after NITA gets activated. From initial conversations with folks who know more than me about what's really important here -- seems like focusing on the importance of board assignments will be key. Wanted to ask, what else would you like to see covered?

Thanks for the kind words! I just genuinely can get behind the Build the Tunnel plan so it's hard not to talk about it when talking about basically *anything* Chicago transit!

Time to write Scott a letter, got a few gripes to bring up

I love living in Ward 32 🫩

My meal prep this week is a pot roast from a 1954 united airlines cookbook

Hopefully it doesn’t give me any unnatural thoughts about bulldozing neighborhoods for new expressways

Really glad CFK highlighted one of Chicago transit’s “original sins”: we privatized the ‘L’ and the surface lines in the 1940s but waited until the 80s to privatize the commuter lines, so the CTA spent 40 years trying to “expand” into the South Side rather than leveraging a regional network vision

It was actually really good 😋

YouTube video by Car Free Keith Chicago's Forgotten 'L' Train Line

New video! The rise, fall, and potential rebirth of what was once arguably Chicago’s best commuter rail line.

youtu.be/VGgqoqLlOFs?...

YouTube video by MATTY MATHESON Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza | Cookin' Somethin' w/ Matty Matheson

youtu.be/smeVnani6-E?...

Two deep dish pizzas on a stovetop

I made deep dish tonight and it turned out better than I ever could’ve possibly imagined. It wasn’t looking good when I put the dough in the pan

All this & we were also building high rise apartments on the lakefront like crazy!

I heard Iowa is trying to pass a bill to get the bears to go there 🫩 get outta here. Nobody wants the Iowa Bears

That’s still a cool experience to have had. I’d be interested in picking your brain sometime!

I’m in Texas this week & it really is wild how much their cities have grown. It’s just a shame they’ve done it in the sprawliest way possible. But even with that it’s easy to see how high speed rail would be insanely successful in the TX Triangle

I’ll play board games for the vibes but am generally not a huge board game guy…this game is the exception. I love it so much

I don’t believe there are any cta stations that have exclusively full height turnstiles at all entrances, unless there are some one off exceptions. It also seems like there’s not a ton of data about cta fare evasion, but anecdotally I’ve always *heard* that it’s not as big an issue here

Bad Bunny’s halftime show was amazing & I hope the TPUSA show got less than 0 viewers

A YouTube thumbnail showing a map of Chicago with the cta ‘L’ lines in bright pink and a circular animated image of an orange train with an arrow pointing to the Metra Electric South Chicago Branch on the map.

New video about the rise, fall, and (hopefully someday) rebirth of the Metra Electric South Chicago Branch is out now on Patreon and in a week on YouTube

www.patreon.com/posts/150216...

Kansas City, 1929. Assertions to the effect that “people preferred to drive” are guesses in the guise of explanations.

In cities a minority of motorists degraded streetcar service for the majority. KCPSC: “Practically the only cause of delay ... is ... motorists who block [streetcars’] progress.”

NJ Transit but instead it’s IL Transit

And they seem to be implying that busiest = best…could be fun to see how much that statement holds up

It’s important to create stuff right now. Real stuff. That you make. And there’s nothing else like it. And it wouldn’t exist if you didn’t make it. It might be cringe or not good or whatever, but you’re creating and not just consuming.

People who don’t live *right* next to the project area should still get a say. We’re all affected by rents going up because we’re not building enough

This photo was taken at almost 8pm btw. Warmer, brighter days are quickly coming

A walking path lined by budding trees with the Grant Park lakefront on the right and a faint view of the city skyline ahead

Timeline cleanse for this dreary February morning: a flashback to a gorgeous spring evening on the Grant Park lakefront from last year on April 30th

Got the high quality renders finally

Generative AI is one of the worst things that the human race has ever created, it felt like it was made to destroy us.

YouTube video by Car Free Keith Illinois proposes regional standards for planning new passenger #rail projects #amtrak #chicago

New short from me with a very brief explainer of the Passenger Rail Planning Act introduced by the ILGA this month. I’ll have more in depth coverage later this spring! youtube.com/shorts/Zjgwu...

Send this picture to every blue state elected leader and ask them what they’re doing to grow their state’s population.

If their response doesn’t include “more housing production,” ask them why they want to let Texas take congressional seats from us.