This is a neighborhood that knows it’s a streetcar suburb, that they’re a short distance from downtown, and that bikes are a perfectly reasonable way to get around.

Des Moines just put two Chicago suburbs together to name a neighborhood.

My kingdom for a busway using the extant right-of-way between Bellwood, Maywood, and Forest Park. Why build more highway median transit when a parallel historic corridor exists?

Born on this date, Nov. 26, 1878: Marshall "Major" Taylor, aka the Worcester Whirlwind, 1889 world champion cyclist, author of "The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World." Grateful to Alex from @massbike.bsky.social at Worcester Public Library for the glow-up.

@transit.app updates be like: No service tomorrow on over the river. 18% fewer departures tomorrow on through the woods.

Not the kind of growth farmers generally want to see...

last month, 68 groups with the illinois network for pretrial justice called on cook county commissioners to freeze spending on law enforcement to preserve vital programs that have been slashed by the trump admin. instead, the county board voted to give the sheriff and the state's attorney a raise.

Here is the Rockford Mass Transit District east transfer bus station. Greyhound only knows why I’m here.

There’s a lot of old rail stations around here.

Here we have where Moline is ready to receive their end of the passenger rail connection.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Iowa River right now feels like commentary on the state of water quality in Iowa.

Studies show: up to 80% drivers believe that are above average drivers. Our database shows that is not the case.

Also, for an urban-friendly college town, these pedestrian overpasses are numerous and not ADA-compliant.

Hey, it’s the bus system everyone is talking about. The headways are about what you’d expect, it is not turn-up-and-go.

Today’s bus ride. Destination sign not indicative of actual destination.

“Additional reforms are also necessary everywhere in Illinois: curbing delays and additional costs from project-by-project exactions for perceived impacts that aren’t based on empirical standards;” Don’t let the suburbs act like mobsters.

“This is not about a lack of money. Rather, laws written decades ago for a very different (circumstance) continue to dictate what our government can and cannot do. So-called “solutions" are fractured among numerous and inconsistent programs.” It’s time to end ‘move slowly but still break things’.

Ride Your Bike

This was tonight’s top story on the local news.

The most ridiculous bike lane design I've ever ridden is one where parking is explicitly allowed.

Farmers of Iowa, suburbia is coming for your land. (But sure, complain about solar farms taking farmland...)

Truly impressive pruning.

The Des Moines metro has a population of 779,000, the 79th-largest in the country. It does not need this many lanes of interstate highway, especially not on a bypass route like this.

This nondescript, pragmatic candidate has worked to ensure efficiency and transparency in the state's bureaucracy. He's the most moderate moderate you could possibly find, and should probably be the next governor of Iowa.

This is why kids don't walk to school anymore. Urbandale put an elementary school on the outskirts of town, but most nearby housing is on the other side of this road. The only crossing that connects to the neighborhood has no stop sign, stoplight, or refuge space on a four-lane speedway.

A suburban murmuration

From Des Moines, where the water quality is a political landmine, it's #ManholeCoverMonday

This is the Krause Gateway Center in downtown Des Moines, by starchitect Renzo Piano. It used to be the HQ of the infamously-named Kum & Go gas stations, but the family sold that and now it's the home of their USL League Two and Italian Serie A side soccer teams, a trucking firm, and a sheep farm.

Ok this is a cute idea.

The IRS has determined it to cost $0.70/mile to drive, and the IRS usually has a good idea of what it costs to do something. That’s before parking costs.

Outstanding in their field!

This is an "Operation Safe Streets Enforcement Community".

When your railtrail doesn't either become a trail or stay a rail:

If this strung-together intersection surrounded by cornfields can meet PROWAG accessibility standards, then what's the excuse for anywhere else?

I think this is mostly San Francisco finally shrugging off the pandemic, but it is *really* funny that rent prices in San Francisco shot up *immediately* after the city banned RealPage and other algorithmic price setting software. My pre trends are incredible!

We are so back

Part of the problem with Des Moines' bike lanes are how few blocks they go before disappearing. The buffered lanes are parallel by half a block to this car-free bridge crossing, which doesn't continue on either side. It's just a way to cross from either bank of the riverwalk.

Here's an unusual combo of a buffered bike lane with back-in angled parking on Court Avenue in Des Moines.

Highlights from the Papajohn sculpture park in Des Moines, a public art collection that punches well over the weight of this city's cultural prestige.

44th Ward is taking feedback on delivery robots-

CDOT finally installed a protected intersection — the gold standard for bike and pedestrian safety — and Ald. Pat Dowell is making them tear it out and install “mixing zones” where cars ram into bikes, causing injuries and deaths.

To have taxpayer funds invested in your neighborhood like this, in a way that data shows reduce congestion, make the community safer, and spur economic growth, and not do the community educational work to build strong local support is gross incompetence. And to retreat is nothing but cowardice.

Checked out this new development just south of downtown Des Moines, which appears to be following some new urbanist tenets (separated sidewalk-level cycletrack, townhomes with sidewalk frontage, hidden parking structures).

Wait, one of the only protected intersections in the city is going to be removed before it is even able to save a life?

Here's the BCycle system in Des Moines, run by local non-profit Street Collective.

So @patdowell3rdward.bsky.social was lying when the ward office replied to everyone saying CDOT paused the project. It was her all along! (shocked)

Remember that (unless you plan to view tonight’s tree lighting), the shutdown of Michigan near the cultural center makes traveling in the Loop extra messy. It never gets enough advance mitigation planning.

Congratulations to La Grange Park for doing what Chicago's City Council won't do: lower a major road's speed limit by 5 mph. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/18/l...