CHICAGO CARLESS

(Photo: Never underestimate the power of compassionate thinking.)

Yesterday, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless announced on its blog that the organization will “track any efforts to crack down on homeless people riding the CTA.” The statement highlighted and was in direct response to my recent opinion pieces here and on Huffington Post Chicago decrying recently installed Chicago Transit Authority signage barring “continuous riding” that the agency appears intent on applying only to homeless riders.

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(Photo: The Chicago Transit Authority’s holiday train––no room for the homeless? Credit: morydd.)

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.

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(Photo: The Chicago Transit Authority wants you to believe that this sign is not aimed directly at the homeless. Really.)

[The following entry is cross-posted on my Huffington Post Chicago byline.]

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–an example of which appears above–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.

The reason for the signs is a lot murkier.

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(Photo: A new day dawns for Chicago public transportation, but headaches from the dark night of budget woes remain. Credit: karla kaulfuss.)

No one could be more thrilled than me 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 (although a happy downtown neighborhood it is), and most likely have pushed me out of Chicago.

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(Photo: Out of sight, out of the franchise. Credit: Zoe Strauss.)

I love The Chicago Reporter. No other investigative journal in Chitown makes its entire raison d’etre the scrutinization of social- and racial-justice issues.

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(Photo: A dangerous drug is GarageBand…)

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 “Downtown Local” to expand on issues I cover in my regular blogposts, as well as to share new stories–and, of course, rants.

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(Photo: Nary a beast in Lakeshore East?)

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 asked him over coffee at the Randolph Street Intelligentsia (my beloved local haunt), 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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