Merry Christmas, bicycle friends!

Time to gather around the switch heaters for a toasty yule log night.

This sidewalk block has been going strong for 116 years 💪🏽 since 1909! Pedestrian infrastructure is a good investment! 💵🚶🌇 #walkchi (as long as cars don’t drive on it) I’m sick on Xmas, so I’m gonna distract myself with a thread of old sidewalk blocks in Chicago’s Jefferson park

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan… * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M So YES this has been a huge success.

The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

Adventure day! Xmas shopping is more fun if you’re not fighting parking Also, they need to run more Metra trains on weekends lol

Holy crap

Reminder: “1% of the US population” is 3,420,000 people. That is more than the total populations of Nevada, Kansas, or Maine. Imagine telling yourself that it would be okay to criminalize the people of West Virginia because they’re “less than 1% of the population.” Fix your hearts or die.

Saw Gia Biagi @illinoisdot.bsky.social bike by on a Divvy today @divvybikes.bsky.social so that’s fun and fitting 🚲

This is why you never give an inch to the bigots. All those centrists dems (Newsom, Mayo Pete) claiming there are concerns around trans kids, you're complicit in this. This doesn't get rid of trans people, it just makes them suffer unbearably. Get your head straight: trans rights are human rights.

This is just five minutes. Please watch this and share it with anyone you think might be moved by it. And then call your US rep and tell them to vote AGAINST all of the anti-trans bills Republicans are pushing this week. Find your rep at reps.fyi

“We are on the verge of delivering a world class transportation network… that makes transit safer and more reliable. Thank you all for making that happen! Including the tenacious environmental advocates” @govpritzker.illinois.gov

ICE blocked from grocery entrance ✊ 12/11/25 St.Paul, Minnesota

UUs #1 belief is in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Hell yeah pastor Jane

Hundreds of people walking along northwest highway & rand road tonight from at least Norwood Park to Des Plaines for the annual pilgrimage of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But they have to walk in the road under the highway because there’s no sidewalk! Wtf @illinoisdot.bsky.social please build a sidewalk!

I’ve been in a weeks-long struggle to get the sidewalk to the Jefferson Park Metra station shoveled. 📞 Metra says they’ll do it, they don’t 🚞 Metra says it’s the city’s job 🌃 311 says it’s Metra’s job 🤷‍♂️ Alderman says it’s Union Pacific’s job Why is this so difficult???

UPDATE — For those who want to help, there’s now a way to donate directly to the 7500 South Shore Tenants Union to help with emergency relocation costs as residents “vacate in one of the snowiest winters in Chicago’s history.” Details in our story. thetriibe.com/2025/12/judg...

Park district staff using a sidewalk plow, need these everywhere #PlowTheSidewalks

A close-up of a Tufted Titmouse with his/her tuft blowing in the wind. I love their black eyelashes. The thin black feathers around the break are rictal bristles, which are common in many birds but their size and placement differs between species.

Adulthood is for making snow forts

and again, this attack on trans identity has been withering, brutal, and extended. if you are concerned about free speech, you need to be very concerned about a university firing a trans grad student for trying to do her job!

"[S]uburban riders could see a streamlined fare system, more frequent trains and more transit-oriented development, some suburban lawmakers and advocates say, following the recent passage of a $1.5 billion state funding bill for mass transit." www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/25/s...

1. A landmark study was just published in The Journal of Pediatrics. It found a 68% reduction in suicidality for trans youth getting HRT. It also found only 7 of more than 400 stopped taking HRT... and of those that did, 4 still identified as gender-diverse. Transgender care saves lives.

Walter Payton uses a paper transfer to ride public transit on the 1979 RTA commercial.

Let this radicalize you

Great environmental town hall on the far northwest side tonight, doing a deep dive on #cleanenergy and #datacenters with @elpcenter.bsky.social @ilenviro.bsky.social & @cubillinois.baky.social. Thank you Rep LaPointe and Sen Martwick for being environmental champions! 🚉☀️⚡️💪🏽

those of us laid off from Teen Vogue were really fortunate to complete our fundraising goal — the laid-off staffers at VIBE deserve the same support, as Black media outlets and journalists continue to be targeted and discriminated against in “austerity” measures

Ah-mazing Love stormwater management

It says it all

My job contracts with this brilliant PhD student in Wisconsin who is doing phenomenal research for us. But his whole lab lost federal funding & schools nationwide are cutting back so he’s gotta pause his studies or move to Canada if he wants to finish. We are losing so many smart minds :(

I was wondering why a major meat supplier was now advertising the involvement of USDA food inspectors in their safety standards. That shouldn’t be a marketable fact.

Alps is our favorite breakfast place, down the block from my folks. I heard a girl I went to elementary school with got kidnapped too. ICE is tearing apart our communities and every one of them should rot in hell

in retrospect the metoo movement did not go too far and in fact should have been given spanish inquisition levels of power and authority

My latest for the Reader, a story about how Chicagoans made it really, really rough on out-of-town goons who tried to abduct Black folks off their streets. chicagoreader.com/city-life/ch...

Chicago Transit AuthAuroraty

In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last. The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes. Why? It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.

On a frigid Veterans Day, a big group of antiwar Veterans in Chicago is marching for - No ICE, No cuts, & No military occupation

If your name was Richard and you preferred to go by Ricky, but a group of bullies at school decided to make your life a living hell by calling you a dick and incessantly chanting “dick dick dick” you’d want the school to step in and stop the bullying. The Supreme Court is unleashing torment

In case you needed even MORE evidence how bad at business and the economy Trump and right-wing ideologues are.

I love that the ruling is “Chicago fucking rules, fuck the liars and the haters”

No matter how hard people try to convince us having empathy is wrong, it is right. No matter how hard people try to convince us that diversity is a weakness, it is a strength. No matter how hard people try to convince us that love is limited, it is unlimited.

Don't forget that Zohran Mamdani spent his entire campaign standing proudly beside the trans community. He went to trans rights rallies just to show support. He proudly waved trans rights flags without hesitation. He refused to back down in support of trans rights. That makes me happy.

Now that is the kind of victory announcement I appreciate, hell yeah New York, nice work

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...

😭

NEWS: Federal agents crashed with woman’s car, pointed guns at her, dragged her out by legs, tossed her in a minivan, held her and (eventually) let her go without charges. This as Chicagoans say the immigration blitz is out of control. (DHS blames her.) www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/03/c...

Over 100 people rallied in Brighton Park Saturday to support tamalero Fausto Valladares Alvarez, who was taken by federal agents. “My dad is not a criminal,” his daughter said. blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/01/b...

That was a hell of a last 2 minutes holy crap #beardown

Chicago transit-to-trails hot tip: Take the Metra MD-N line to Forest Glen to access the north branch trail - biking & hiking fall beauty. Also pretty close to the Foster bus at LeClaire!

Just got this action alert, I think from @betterstreetschicago.org Sign a witness slip immediately for the transit funding bill. Info in alt text mbl.ms/mKgZnW7m-BQ