Category archive for ‘Planning’ 
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CTA Homeless Harassment Update
No, the Chicago Transit Authority has not yet budged from its thinly veiled discriminatory policy of throwing homeless people out of the ‘L’ system at terminals. Over the weekend in these pages and on my Huffington Post Chicago byline I posted a series of questions about the policy that I had submitted to CTA’s media relations department along with the seriously spin-meistered answers that I received back. Yesterday, those posts unexpectedly made waves locally and nationally.
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CTA’s Holiday Homeless Harassment
During the past few weeks of waning daylight, waxing chill, and growing holiday spirit, the Chicago Transit Authority has been busy installing new signage at rail terminals on the CTA ‘L’. The message on the signs is clear, and a bit ominous: they demand an additional fare from any rider who wants to depart the terminal in the opposite direction from which they arrived. Are the signs aimed at the homeless?
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If You Fund It, Will It Operate?
No one could be more thrilled than I am about the end to the CTA operating funding impasse. For transit users like me, the draconian cuts threatened in January would have essentially confined me to my neighborhood–and most likely have pushed me and many others out of Chicago.
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Block the Vote for CHA Residents?
The Chicago Reporter reveals that the Chicago Housing Authority ‘Plan for Transformation’ may have helped disenfranchise thousands of Windy City public-housing voters. And the CHA is taking no responsibility for the problem.
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“Downtown Local” Podcast Debuts on Chicago Carless
Given me and my big mouth, it had to happen sometime. Today debuts Downtown Local, my (most likely allegedly) weekly podcast look at life, love, and folly from the heart of downtown Chicago. I’ll use the podcast to expand on issues I cover in my regular blog posts, as well as to share new stories–and, of course, rants.
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“Lots more rabbits and squirrels…”
The title a beautifully incisive quote from New East Side resident Eric Frost, poobah of the nascent downtown discussion board WindyChat, when asked why his kids prefer to romp in the playground of Daley Bicentennial Plaza instead of in Lakeshore East Park. I interviewed him over coffee at the Randolph Street Intelligentsia in an effort to delve deeper into the residential opposition to the Chicago Children’s Museum’s planned move from Navy Pier to Grant Park.
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10 More Things Brendan Reilly Should Stick in a Cave
Of all the things I thought downtown’s 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly would offer as a compromise in the ongoing controversy over the Chicago Children’s Museum’s proposed move from Navy Pier to Daley Bicentennial Plaza, agreeing with a reporter’s suggestion to ‘put the museum in a cave’ wasn’t one of them.
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Explaining the Chicago Children’s Museum
On Friday, I was given unfettered access to interview the administrative staff of the Chicago Children’s Museum. I wanted to learn about the museum’s civic importance, programs, and reputation–all things Chicago dailies have ignored in their ongoing coverage of the controversy surrounding the museum’s proposed move from Navy Pier to Grant Park.
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New Eastside Elitism
On a recent downtown walk through the Chicago Park District’s new Lakeshore East Park, imagine my surprise to find neighborhood developers had posted several signs declaring the place ‘Private Property.’ Um, try again.
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Chicago’s Most Important Open-Space Issue in 20 Years
So far this week, we’ve seen the Chicago Tribune and 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly go toe-to-toe with Mayor Daley and a prominent Pritzker over the Chicago Children’s Museum’s proposed move to the ‘forever free and clear’ Grant Park. Whoever is left standing in the end, no one is coming out of this mess untarnished.
