Empty Waymo blocks bus lane (Photograph, 2026)

One of the most inspiring parts of being a Chicagoan is the angry mob that instantly materializes any time Redefine the Drive is being discussed by a state or local entity. I love it.

Downtown Oakland is peppered with sweet little Alysa Liu banners and signs

The average new 30-year fixed rate mortgage is back below 6% for the first time since September 2022. (5.98%)

365 days until the 2027 Chicago Mayoral Election

Not surprised at all that CPD’s innovative new proposal for Soldier Field is spending $500m to put more cars in the parks

here's my summary of the six land use, housing, and zoning reforms that Governor Pritzker and six legislators introduced on Wednesday. www.stevencanplan.com/2026/02/okay...

Scrambling to get my Supreme Court Tariff Strike Down Trump Response Bingo Card ready in time please send suggestions

The McCaskeys should sell the bears to Clay Bennett

With Walter (Redmond) Burnett talking about the demand for West Loop greenspace today, I am once again urging us to turn Randolph St. (left) into our version of Barcelona's La Rambla pedestrian boulevard (right).

Chicago Plan Commission recommended to support this today!

Food for thought... Compare to the 25mph speed limit vote breakdown from exactly one year ago. I count 9 Yes->No or No->Yes Votes* here. *New Alders in 35 and 27 since this vote was taken.

Honestly one of the most fascinating city council splits I've seen in a while. Almost the entire North lakefront, not a single South Side vote, and an ideologically mixed bag of SW side support.

I’ll be emailing my alderman to demand at least 20% of parking spots are reserved as affordable to Cubs fans in under baseball served communities 💪🙌⚾️

I’m always talking about how I wish the Cubs would tear down an old domestic violence shelter to add 2 acres of surface parking lot 👍 😃

Lake forever false spring for now.

San Diego is the first large U.S. Metro Area to regain 90% of their 2019 transit ridership across all modes! Large sunbelt metros (except Atlanta) have seen strong recoveries. NYC still leads the Northeast, but D.C. is not far behind after taking another big leap this year.

The low-assist mode E-divvys are fantastic. I’d take this over a classic or paying for full e-assist. A little slow to get up to speed but I can sustain 14-15mph with minimal effort once I’m moving. I wish it was available every time.

Got a survey response request gauging interest of a new White Sox stadium at the 78, next to the new Fire stadium. Proposed a state-owned stadium, .5B investment from Sox ownership, and a hotel tax extension. Also polled sentiment on the other Chicago pro teams and owners.

Tribune asked Johnson about all his high profile vacancies last week and he treated it like a big joke. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/04/c...

Chicagoland Transit Recoveries through 2025. 380 Million rides in 2025 puts the metro at 69% (nice) of 2019 figures.

CTA weekday rail service by line for the last 6 months. Brown line was getting back in a groove the first half on January but fell wayyy off last week.

A lot going on here so bear with me but... Saturday and Sunday run way closer to their pre-covid numbers than weekdays do, especially in the summer and fall. They're much more sensitive to seasonality than weekdays. Monday and Friday run slightly behind Wed-Thurs but follow the same annual trends.

Marathon week 2025 was once again the busiest week for CTA rail. St. Pats (3/15: 569,090) was the highest individual day.

Unfortunately a slight dip in population along the south lakefront from '23 to '24 (-1,511). Slight growth around UChicago, but not enough to offset declines in Bronzeville and South Shore.

The fastest growing Chicago zipcode from '23 to '24 covers Lawndale & Little Village (60623). 4,216 in net growth was double the next highest zipcode (60607 - West Loop - +2,195), and larger than the overall growth of 3,309 in the zipcodes shown.

2024 ACS updates for Chicago Population. Pulled zip codes so there is some fuzzyness around the edges here. Downtown (including West Loop) population is up ~100,000 since 2000. Total change from 2023 to 2024 is a slight gain.

Details for the memorial ride for Alex Pretti in Chicago this weekend. - Meet at 1:15pm, Roll at 1:30pm - John Walsh Park (E end of The 606) - Route to come, we will roll @ party pace (casual, no drop) toward the VA on Damen where a memorial is set up for Alex. See you Saturday.

a few nights ago i rode a bus for about 15 minutes or so. once it got close to the stop near my home i hit the button to request a stop. soon after, the bus driver stopped the bus and let me off

Smart Streets through EOY 2025: nearly $1.7m in fines, focused primarily on Bike and Bus lane violations in the downtown core. A moderate bump in weekly fines issued the end of last year, a trend I expect to continue as the pilot scope and enforcement area expand over this year.

Updated this to the latest ACS data, tried to be faithful to the original. Continued outward growth of the High Income areas, including a ring of Median income tracts around the edge.

While many of you are likely yelling "GO PATRIOTS" or "GO CHARGERS!" I'm yelling "GO JEROME POWELL and the independent federal reserve!"

Fantastic timing for the Mamdani admin to come in after congestion pricing is an established, proven success in NY, but still in time to ride a lot of that new momentum on the way to their lofty streets and transit goals.

Last day of State/Lake operation until 2029

Strong Towns Chicago deployed my location crash report dashboard 🤝 @strongtownschicago.bsky.social Use this to generate crash reports for intersections, corridors, or your own ward. Best experienced on desktop 🗺️ www.strongtownschicago.org/chicago-cras...

Seems bad that like half my city’s municipal functions are headed by interim leaders with seemingly no timeline for permanent appointments. I can count CPS, CDOT, CTA, CHA, (and Zoning Committee!) off the top of my head. Any others?

Sucks that from this winter on I’ll always associate Chance The Rapper’s voice with standing in the freezing cold waiting for my train to show up.

Sucks that the Cool Zone on this diagram is functionally nonexistent in the US

Going to balance the city budget off of Bears home playoff games

I scored 90% on the Chicago local news quiz 2025! Take the quiz at: lauriemerrell.com/chicago-news...

New from me! Chicago has far too many bus stops to provide efficient service for its riders—nearly twice the national standard. I reimagined what Chicago's bus network could do to make it look like its peers. citythatworks.substack.com/p/a-plan-for...

Speed Matters. Some thoughts about transit and speed, life, space and time. open.substack.com/pub/marcochi...

The CTA told me traffic keeps wasting bus operator time so I asked how many bus operators they have and they said they just go to the job fair and get a new operator afterwards so I said it sounds like they're just feeding bus operators to traffic and then bus riders started crying.

After peaking in September, CTA rail staffing has slipped back to just over the 2019 benchmark.

Honestly embarrassing that the alders and city hall have been doing so much mud slinging over the budget, making personal attacks and constantly being at each other’s throats on X and facebook the last couple weeks. They should be doing it here. On Bluesky.

Chicago Plan Commission approved 90 more homes at 3746-3766 S Michigan Ave today. Four 4-floor buildings. 20% ARO Affordable 19 1-bd 71 2-bd 56 Parking Spaces Easy walk to the Green Line and Mariano's $267k/unit construction cost.

CDOT is putting out hundreds of new bike racks all across Chicago this month. Here are some of the greatest hits.

Don’t know how split people are on these but personally I’d choose these two-way bike paths over separate curbside PBLs whenever possible.

"I love my townhouse in the heart of the city!" The townhouse in the heart of the city: