My year birding, botanizing, and mothing on iNat: 1,644 observations and 585 species across 7 states and 41 counties

Glad to see @robertloerzel.bsky.social’s book featured front and center when I walked into @chiarchitecture.bsky.social today

Due to safety concerns, @localcelebrity.bsky.social suggests that residents avoid the 45th Ward City Council representative until noticeable improvements are made in the form of a new alder.

Another KC Streetcar extension coming online soon!

More Dubuque after dark

I believe that for the first time since I’ve lived in Chicago, the Aldi store on Milwaukee at Leavitt has a proper bike rack within 50 feet

Today’s haul from River Lights Bookstore in Dubuque. This time of year I buy books much faster than I can read them

Belllevue, IA on the banks of the Mississippi

Dubuque after dark, including the funicular

Big flocks of trumpeter swans in the corn stubble near Cone Marsh. Over 100 in this field alone. 📍Louisa County, IA

Many thanks to all who braved the cold to participate in the LaBagh Woods Christmas Bird Count! Highlights included a Common Goldeneye on the river and this little guy who was watching us from a cozy nook high in a tree. @chicagobirder.bsky.social @windycitybirdlab.org @yorickgarcia.bsky.social

Illumination at Morton Arboretum

My husband’s response to an inane icebreaker question about his favorite Christmas movie: Carol, a 2015 Todd Haynes period drama featuring Cate Blanchett as a troubled mid century lesbian housewife. This is the type of thing that has kept us together for 12 years.

Exciting things happening on Clark between Montrose and Lawrence #bikechi

An affordable housing nonprofit looking to build 2,000 new and refurbished homes has been named the winner of the Chicago Prize, which comes with a $10 million grant. blockclubchi.co/4pJ0M4h

The 1st “live wire” streetcar test took place on the Riverfront Extension today marking the 1st time the system was energized & the 1st time a streetcar has ever traveled to the Riverfront in Kansas City’s history. kcstreetcar.org/rolling-to-t...

Out and about in Edgewater this evening and I saw this famous bit of YIMBY rhetoric in the wild ❤️

Today’s canning projects: spicy ginger tomato jam, blueberry butter, and ground cherry jam.

CTA’s new 10-minute-or-better frequent bus service has been a game changer for weekend errands. This morning I made a quick trip to the indoor farmers market in Avondale on the Belmont bus. It’s far from a train station and parking is a mess there. The bus is the way to go!

Very cool to see the KC Streetcar posting such strong ridership numbers. I took the line when I was in town the weekend after it opened and it was super convenient. A connection from downtown to Country Club Plaza and UMKC makes so much sense.

CONFIRMED: Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, will be the new mayor of Miami. She'll be the city's first Democratic mayor since the 1990s. She flipped the office from Republicans, and does so easily. She leads the DeSantis-endorsed Emilio González 59/41 right now with most ballots counted.

This is my annual appreciation post for the bar mitts/pogies my mom sewed out of old puffer jacket sleeves a few years ago #bikechi

Someday I’ll upgrade to a cargo bike, but it’s amazing how much I can haul with a rickety $25 trailer I got a few years ago on Craigslist. This was today’s hardware store run to the Crafty Beaver on Central. #bikechi 📍Portage Park

Seen on the 77 bus this morning 🚍🎄❤️

Some of the worst sidewalks on my commute were in front of CTA infrastructure: Cicero/Pensacola bus turnaround and Montrose blue line stop. 😬

Good day to check in on your native plant garden and see who is delivering the ❄️winter interest❄️ Ninebark is winning the cute little snow hat category Turf grass and hostas could never

First time using the new Grayland MDN Metra station. Very much appreciated the easy transfer to the 56 Milwaukee bus as I was trying to get home in the snowstorm last night.

Ice-encrusted Amtrak after arriving in Chicago from Emeryville

Pulling into Chicago Union Station #amtrak #californiazephyr

Enjoying snowy downtown Burlington, IA while waiting for the train to pull in. #amtrak #californiazephyr

Yeah avoiding traffic is great, but more importantly I love the Willa Cather novel vibes of taking the train from the big city back to my ancestral family farm for the holidays.

Snow bunting friend from our UPN Metra trip to the Waukegan lakeshore. Still trying to make regional rail birding a thing.

The snowy owls at Montrose this morning attracted quite a crowd

I often run into this problem on my Chicago-to-SE Iowa trips to visit family. I bounce back and forth between the Southwest Chief to Fort Madison and the California Zephyr to Burlington to avoid sold out trains and high ticket prices.

I’m late to noticing this, but the expanded weekend service on the UPN is a game changer. Day trips to bird the harbor and lakeshore in Waukegan and Kenosha are much more doable now, which is a good option if you’re bummed about how Montrose is overrun with people.

Trump claimed Chicago’s "Miracle Mile" is failing — but data shows the Mag Mile is recovering. blockclubchi.co/47CU60X

Popular discourse attributes falling college enrollments to the rising cost of four-year college. That story is wrong in multiple ways, as @mattbarnum.bsky.social points out in his latest roundup of the evidence (citing a new working paper of ours): www.chalkbeat.org/2025/11/11/i...

@mndot.mn.gov estimates every St Paul-Chicago trip by train, instead of car, saves $296. $88 comes in social benefits-safety, emissions and crash reduction. The rest goes to the rider, due to reduced cost of operating a personal vehicle. Increased rail service is a no-brainer! @hsrail.bsky.social

A striking innovation in the Illinois Transit Bill is the explicit embrace of “regional rail”—a term that signals a complete departure from the commuter rail model that has defined suburban train service for over a century www.hsrail.org/blog/illinoi...

Thanks to the Illinois’ massive investment in transit, Chicago has a bright transit future, with the dawn coming next year: —50% increase in every-10-min bus routes to 30 citywide —8-minute midday headways on rail lines —24-hour Orange Line service (Red & Blue already have it)

Bus in Pasadena whose front rack accommodates *3* bikes, 50% more than the standard CTA rack

Moline-Chicago Amtrak passenger rail funding approved by Illinois General Assembly! “Today is a day for celebrating because we have secured funding for our train,” Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati said. www.wqad.com/article/news...

30-minute stop in Albuquerque, so I had time to explore. And if you give me 30 mins anywhere, I will track down an iced coffee and local brews #amtrak #southwestchief

The buses are free, a streetcar extension opened last week, and new housing is springing up around the stations. Kansas City is the future we need.

“Kansas City’s new streetcar has spurred the construction of more than 1,400 new apartment units along Main Street since 2017.”

10-minute headways on a Sunday morning! First impressions of the newly opened KC Streetcar expansion are very positive

I want all my vacations to start here:

Step 1 of my vacation rail itinerary: MDN Metra to Chicago Union Station.

Seen on the 5100 block of Irving Park. Billy Caldwell was an early 19th-century Potawatomi leader and the namesake of a nearby forest preserve site. I’m curious about the backstory of this sidewalk tribute.

Well over 100 people this evening at a whistle packing party in Norwood Park, of all places. Seems like a hopeful sign.