Lakeview says No Kings

Again, this is a liquidation of the union in all but letter of the law. This is reverse secessionism engineered by a central government.

with all due respect to the Illinois Policy Institute (how much respect is due is at the reader's discretion), this argument has been made for decades in every city in America, and it's the argument of someone who knows next to nothing about transit in particular, or the public sector in general

This cannot just be about healthcare. The existing constitutional system hangs in the balance. The rule of law is now baked into this shutdown in a huge way.

posts designed to make a foamer's eye twitch

Gov. JB Pritzker has joined a public health coalition of Democratic governors to counter the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

No such thing as a trans ally NIMBY

Leni says they need to welcome folks fleeing those states. That's right. My community in the south is fucking terrified. They are being genocided. Build more housing here.

The Broadway upzoning passes the land use commission 15-2. Loud cheers break out

Mask off moment for Edgewater NIMBYs This morning, a trans person at the zoning committee told their story about being displaced from Missouri, and how we need to build more housing for other people like them who will seek refuge in Chicago. They were heckled by the crowd.

It's not hard to be a good ally. Ask us what you can do to help, then do those things. Showing up to Pride is a nice gesture; funding our healthcare, and waging legal battles against those who seek to harm us, actually helps. You can tell who sees us as a box to check, and who sees us as people

3. Zohran Mamdani, a New York City mayoral candidate, released a two-minute advertisement steeped in transgender history and direct commitments to the community. The ad was set to a SOPHIE song, the legendary late transgender artist. Watch it here:

i think this fundamentally misstates the constraint: if he uses the police to directly obstruct ICE operations, he gets hit with the Insurrection Act. if he puts the cops in a position where they have to choose which orders to follow, they will currently not pick the governor.

thinking again this morning about how the purple line is 17 minutes faster than the red line between howard and belmont but 9 minutes slower than the red line between belmont and lake street and how the existing track configuration makes this very difficult to remedy without causing other problems

For the millionth time

Pritzker needs to take some sort of demonstrative action against this. But nothing he does will stop this. Still, liberal voters and elected leaders are confronted by the fact that the police are not democratically accountable. They have no interest in protecting you or your rights from the feds.

If Chicago is a “war zone” it’s because we’ve been invaded by a hostile military force

October 3, 2025 One day in Illinois

5 mile ride on the 9, thinking about her the whole way wishing everyone who played a part in killing this project a happy [redacted]

these are so soothing and great second-screen material while doing work, like transit-oriented white noise. love this

quick while the government is shut down let’s all switch to metric

This isn’t a government worth funding

a) worrying sign for RLX here in Chicago b) one has to wonder what blue states stand to gain for continuing to participate in a system that has severed all legal principles on which the relationship between local, state, and federal government rests

Another map to distract from the horrors! After noticing that Metra has three or four different system maps, depending on where you look, and that all of them are varying degrees of horrible to look at, I decided to make my own, single, official Metra map, with all the information you need

not content with being a mouthpiece for disgruntled bad-faith republican suburbanites, the trib has decided to ditch the pretense, eliminate the middle man, and become the official mouthpiece of the authoritarian regime proper

Aldermanic Prerogative needs to thrown out like yesterday's trash, but we could limit the damage a lot by just making buildings like this legal by right on every parcel 1/2 mile from a rail station and 1/4 mile from a major bus line

Babe’s has opened in Logan Square, giving women’s sports fans a place to call home. blockclubchi.co/46AbXUf

As a trans woman who is proudly anti-fascist, I'm just wondering if Trump designating me a terrorist TWICE cancels out? Am I back to upstanding citizen? Or am I a SUPER DUPER terrorist?

KIM KITSURAGI - "What is it, detective? Can you make it out?" BULLET - "if you read this you are gay lmao" 1. "It, um, doesn't say anything." 2. "Transgender ideology. My old foe." 3. [Espirit de Corps - Medium 10] "I think you should read it for yourself, Kim."

I think the lame duck Republican Congress changing all the locks and barricading the doors rather than letting the newly minted Democrat majority be seated in January 2027 will be what finally makes these people wake up and smell the coffee Absolutely maddening that that's what it'll take, though

BBC News captures Doctor Who himself Sylvester McCoy at the Trump protest seemingly unaware of who they're interviewing.

Long but hopefully fulfilling transit nerd thread incoming: I want to talk about that I’m super proud of, and which is a culmination of things we’ve done in the past as well as things I’ve seen elsewhere that I wanted to bring home to Chicago: New digital at RPM stations that we hope to expand!

after NYC, the top three cities are one where it snows a lot, one with a ton of hills, and one where it rains a lot. seems like biking is just the healthiest and most economical way of moving around a city! imagine how many people would bike if we had a @bikegridnow.org

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed an executive order which permits pharmacists and other medical personnel to administer vaccines recommended by state officials, no prior prescription needed. The order also requires insurance companies to cover the vaccines.

Recently, to distract myself from The Horrors, I've been getting back into my mapmaking hobby, with a focus on transit maps. I thought it'd be nice to share a piece of work I've done recently! This is a former home of mine, Columbus, Ohio, and the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) system!

lived in DC for a while and had a job in a not particularly transit friendly part of Greenbelt, for a time i just left my car in the Metro Green Line park and ride and just used it as the last leg of the commute. faster than driving or transit the whole way and no car in the district proper. win win

Does this 7 story building make sense on Milwaukee Avenue? Attend this Wicker Park Committee meeting on Wednesday night to tell them “Yes” @abundanthousingil.bsky.social

4. For trans youth, there were many changes. I have a list of clinics that have shuttered under Trump threats in blue states. Many states that were previously "safest" for trans youth have seen mass clinic shutdowns, with state AGs not enforcing civil rights laws against those hospitals.

3 of the biggest health providers in Chicago - Advocate, Rush, and UChicago - have all announced they will end trans health care for minors. There is no federal law forcing this - it is entirely preemptive capitulation in fear of illegal lawsuits from the federal government.

i was just talking with a friend of mine yesterday about how hard it is to get cis people to see the difference between "things keep getting worse" and "things keep getting materially worse in a way that's directly pointed at us, like, weekly if not daily and having to keep adapting to the horrors"

I said this months ago but I really need a BLUE STATE COMPACT IMMEDIATELY. Bring together all health depts, all education depts, etc... under one umbrella. Collectivize guidance, ensure that disabled students get what they need, etc... An emergency meeting of all Blue State Governors is overdue.

So, not only is my kid's healthcare illegal for doctors to provide him in the state we live in, he can no longer be treated out of state and risks losing access to the evidence backed peer reviewed medication that has changed his life for the better because we are ruled by monsters and cowards

one month from today: no more parking mandates in 74% of Chicago

Illinois Gov. Pritzker vows to pursue Trump officials who participate in an illegal National Guard deployment to Chicago: "If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me - not time or political circumstance - from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law."

Good morning from Chicago!

I wrote an unusually strongly worded thing about the transit crisis in Pennsylvania, which is coming soon to Oregon and Illinois. humantransit.org/2025/08/the-...

Illinois is launching a first-of-its-kind legal hotline for LGBTQ+ individuals — Illinois Pride Connect. As the only state in the nation that will provide free legal advice to protect the LGBTQ+ community, we'll help fight ignorance with information and cruelty with compassion.