After the June 1 effective date of the transit bill, RTA is quick to flex its new powers over the Service Boards. RTA chair Dillard sent a letter to the service board chairs last week basically telling them they have to follow RTA directions now. Here is the full letter (courtesy of FOIA):

"Baltimore began building its underground matrix of tubes, dubbed a 'subway for wires,' in the 1890s. To this day, some 80% of Baltimore’s conduit is either terracotta or Orangeburg, an outdated material made of wood pulp; the rest is the more modern PVC pipe."

wtf is going on in Michigan with their single-stair bills. Supported by cities/townships AND by the fire service (at least partially) but blanket opposition from the architects??? Even the firefighter union only indicated opposition to the 5-6 story bill!

Missed Will County - Slated to appoint their current Pace board member John Noak (Mayor of Romeoville) as their NITA/Pace board member. Keeping their Metra board member Brian Shanahan but losing their RTA board member J.D. Ross.

Since the NITA became law on June 1st, Collar counties are starting to address their new NITA board appointments. McHenry, Lake, and Kane Counties are all close to finalizing their appointments (cc @starlinechicago.bsky.social, @stevevance.net):

I am glad the FDA got there in the end but it should not have taken three separate pieces of federal legislation, a European chemical firm willing to burn millions of $$$ on questionable FDA data reqs, 2+ years of review, and the firing a department head to get to this result.

Last fall the FRA proposed removing 1) the requirement to sound a horn near passenger stations and 2) the minimum sound level if they do sound it at a station. The only comment in opposition? Submitted by a rail union. downloads.regulations.gov/FRA-2025-012...

Didn't know about this until today but Grant appears to be correct about this. 1919 IL law required installation of fire escapes on all 4+ story apartment buildings (both new and existing).

Chicago's first (ever?) single stair hearing today went very well

After spending two weeks in the Seattle City Archives looking at the history of their single-stair code, I can tell you the wood industry may have pushed for allowing more wood in buildings generally but there is NO evidence they supported single-stair. It was led by the building dept. entirely.

DOB deputy shares comparison with IBC 2027 as proposed for adoption, as well as New York and Honolulu. Says that IBC voters typically don’t think of multifamily buildings in dense urban environments with tight setbacks.

Ald. Conway: If this ordinance had said 3 stories instead of 6, would CFD still be opposed? CFD: Yes. I want two stairwells for anything above ground.

High fossil fuel prices are driving higher revenue for transit. Illinois democrats are considering diverting that revenue away from transit. Maybe we should fund alternative transportation so people don’t have to buy gas? But what do I know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ capitolfax.com/2026/05/30/t...

After the Grenfell fire, England changed its building codes to cap single-stair buildings at just 18 meters (or ~60 ft) high. Their own regulatory cost analysis found that if they capped it at 30m instead, it would achieve 90% of the benefits while cutting the overall societal cost by almost half.

Now we have to make sure states & cities adopting IBC 2027 don't remove the provision or add unnecessary requirements

Congressmember in 1967: Why has Europe made much more progress in reducing fire deaths than the U.S.? NFPA rep:

Interesting argument against sprinklers by the concrete industry. What goes unsaid is the true reason they didn't want sprinklers (it helps neutralize the main pitfall of their chief rival: wood/timber - their fire risk). Safe to say that concrete lost that fight. www.pci.org/pci_docs/Des...

He'll also be working with me on our egress-related proposals for the 2030 I-Codes, likely including bringing scissor stairs to the national model code, and bringing winder treads back to single-family houses. Email @willskud.bsky.social at [email protected] if you want to discuss.

He has also done a ton of interesting historical research on Seattle's single-stair code section. It has a lot of twists and turns that speak to today's challenges and how they can be overcome, and while I am derelict in editing it, it will be published later this year.

Excited (and grateful) for the opportunity to work with Stephen and @pipedreaming.bsky.social!

Round 1 of the Amtrak v. MTA track access dispute goes to the MTA:

Pretty good video comparing fire code history between NYC and Chicago, ft. a fleeting single-stair reference

per Derwinski at the final Metra Citizens Advisory Board meeting, IDOT hopes to award the consultant RFP "as early as June."

I have to say I'm surprised by this data on historic district permitting from my hometown. Two of the historic districts in Oak Park are probably unnecessary and the Historic Preservation Commission often engages in navel gazing over pointless details like window frames.

Everyone, please clap for : Jason Ashmore, mayor of Sesser Andrew Goczkowski, mayor of Des Plaines Spencer Johansen, mayor of Lexington Vicki Scaman, village president of Oak Park www.chicagotribune.com/2026/05/13/o...

This is unfortunate. Any FDA commissioner this admin nominated was going to do some stupid shit on Rx drug/vaccine approvals. At least Makary pushed the envelope in nonprescription drugs, an area the US is woefully behind on. The first new sunscreen filter in 25+ years was approved under him!

today's entry in life imitating art

MTA has responded to Amtrak's lawsuit, basically saying their agreements only cover passenger service, which does not include test trains. @ndhapple.bsky.social storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

This is a big reason why the U.S. built environment has so many undesirable outcomes. (e.g. high labor costs -> buildings use light wood to reduce labor costs as its easier to work with -> increased risk of fire -> many costly requirements added to code to address increased fire risk)

oh what I would do to get ANY major US city building department to adopt this mindset...the things we could achieve in the development space. @stephenjacobsmith.com

If MBJ ended Chicago’s Century of Humiliation early he would be written down as as a successful mayor despite his many steppings on rakes.

BGA reports it has secured ‘concrete commitments’ from legislative leaders for searchable archived video

Great article by @nikhunder.com. Only concern I have is, would this diminish the coverage of the removal of parking requirements that are based on bus stops (from either the statewide People over Parking Act and the Chicago-specific ordinance)? citythatworks.substack.com/p/a-plan-for...

Looks like Gov. Pritzker is signing the transit bill tomorrow! gov-pritzker-newsroom.prezly.com/daily-public... @starlinechicago.bsky.social @mclean.bsky.social @stevevance.net

Wang's point here about the Anglosphere's reliance on the more litigious common law system being a bottleneck to building is convincing to me. The problem though is that its so ingrained in our governance that there is no obvious solution to it beyond playing CA-style NIMBY legislation whack-a-mole.

Weird request: anybody in Minneapolis want to take a field trip and look at a stairway for me? 630 Cedar Ave. S. had a big fire, and has scissor stairs. The state report about the fire implies that the stairways were open to one another (no wall separating them) – I'd like to confirm that was true.

Coming from a Chicago perspective, I would kill to have NYC's transit leadership and governance structure here. There are so many things in here that Janno talks about that I would love to do in Chicago. Hopefully the transit bill succeeds in getting us closer to NY.

Tangentially: Why do so many French people visit NYC??? Without fail, I have heard French being spoken within 24 hours of landing in NYC. I have not heard any other non-English/Spanish people, just French.

With the transit bill being effective 6/1/26, I do wonder what the “legacy” boards will do before then. Are they still going ahead with the fare hikes? The 1-year freeze only starts on 6/1. Not clear on how much of the $$ becomes available on 6/1, will Paratransit & CTA need $$ before then?

Rereading the transit bill language, saw a provision I don’t think has been discussed much. It forces Metra to ditch its noncompete agreement with NICTD, meaning you could take South Shore trains for trips that start and end in Chicago. I suspect Rep. Buckner added it. @starlinechicago.bsky.social

New details about transit funding in line with what Mary Ann Ahern and Paris Schutz were saying

Looks like there are signs of life for the transit bill nitter.net/paschutz/sta...

idk this seems sort of insane. Fire Dept. has access to plan docs but neglects to inform the developer that they have jurisdiction but they don’t realize it until inspecting the building and then tell them to rip things out??? And then proceed to blame the builder??

I can live with the streaming tax but the loss of the 15-vote override is a bitter pill to swallow especially considering the legislature doesn't need a 60% threshold. Maybe the Senate can bring it back.

An upside [for Canadians] to the deterioration in the Canada-US relationship is that Ottawa is now more open to the idea of adopting EU standards over US ones. Hopefully this continues to building standards as well. motorillustrated.com/volkswagen-c...

"On the Amtrak route between Washington, D.C., and New York City, the highest-trafficked stretch of train track in the country, there are no grade crossings. The last one was eliminated in the 1980s. There are 331 grade crossings along the Brightline route in South Florida."

This is just letting perfect being the enemy of (very) good. They're going to be used to create a new commuter rail operation for god sake! and Caltrain gets some cash. www.trains.com/pro/regulato...

This is the most important quote of the article for me. With the recent reduction in the funding gap, I was hoping this was a possibility as I don't want the governance reforms watered-down just to get to 60% if we don't need it to take effect right away. Glad to hear that is under consideration.

Lots of examples of tribalism in early building code history