Stories by nick blumberg

Outgoing Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter capped his nearly 10-year run leading the massive agency at a board meeting Wednesday, saying he’d be “forever grateful for this opportunity to serve our customers (and) the people of the city of Chicago.”

The proposal comes as the Chicago region’s transit agencies are facing down an estimated $750 million fiscal cliff next year when COVID-19 relief money runs out — and amid conversations in Springfield about tying increased transit funding to major changes to the existing public transit structure.

Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter plans to resign on Jan. 31. He plans to take a job as the president and CEO of Saint Anthony Hospital on the city’s West Side.

The statistics, compiled by the Chicago Department of Transportation by comparing 2021 crash data with information from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, are a key justification for members of the Chicago City Council looking to lower the city’s default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.

The unusual Friday night meeting saw more than an hour and a half of public comment before board members went into closed session to debate Martinez’s fate. In a 6-0 vote, the board dismissed Martinez without cause, which triggers a clause in his contract allowing him to stay on for a six-month transitional period and receive 20 weeks of severance.

Local and federal officials had been racing to finalize funding for the Red Line Extension before the end of the Biden administration. The $1.9 billion in federal transit grant money will help fulfill a decades-old promise to extend the heavily used train line past 95th Street, down to 130th Street.

The companies behind apps for temp workers have drawn millions in funding, hundreds of thousands of workers, and legal action over their labor practices — including here in Illinois.

“Temp workers are injured at a much higher rate than direct hire workers because they don’t get training,” said Chris Williams, a workers’ rights attorney who brought the case on behalf of the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative.

With transit advocates hopeful they’ll see shovels in the ground next year to kick off the long-awaited Red Line Extension, the Chicago Transit Authority is racing to finalize the $1.9 billion in federal funding needed to complete the 5.6-mile project before the Biden administration leaves office.

Board members said improved communication will be key to the agency’s survival as it faces down a projected $539 million fiscal cliff in 2026, after the CTA runs out of pandemic-era relief funding that’s been keeping its operating budget afloat in the first quarter of that year.

The race was eyed by political analysts as the most contested in Illinois, considered the only potential outlier among the heavily partisan boundaries that allowed every other incumbent to glide to victory.

With the GOP looking to retain its slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, all Illinois incumbents won their bids for reelection. 

Chicago’s default speed limit could drop to 25 miles per hour from its current baseline of 30 after a panel of alderpeople on Monday backed the measure aimed at getting drivers to slow down.

The city of Chicago has spent more than $4 million paying outside attorneys to fight a lawsuit that slams the city for failing to make its affordable housing program accessible. In addition to the legal costs, the case could also jeopardize the city’s chance at millions of dollars in grant money. 

The Chicago area’s transit agencies are facing a $730 million fiscal cliff in 2026 when federal COVID relief money runs out, money that’s filling the gap in operating budgets from still-sluggish ridership numbers. Some legislators and advocates back the idea of doing away with RTA, CTA, Metra and Pace in favor of a new regional mega-agency, the Metropolitan Mobility Authority.

A new 311 noise complaint category specifically aimed at catching private haulers flouting the law is live – and the city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation can use those complaints to demand data from companies to prove whether they made unlawful pickups.

The Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee has been meeting since July to grapple with the thorny issue of funding for the Chicago area’s transit system and whether to replace the CTA, Metra, Pace and Regional Transportation Authority with a single agency that will oversee bus, train and paratransit services. The proposal also calls for $1.5 billion in new funding. 

The Chicago area’s public transit system is approaching the precipice of a $730 million fiscal cliff in just over a year’s time. A group of lawmakers and advocates don’t just want to plug the transit agencies’ budget hole — they’re looking to funnel $1.5 billion in additional state funding each year to create a sustainable, world-class public transportation system.

The solution to the Chicago area’s public transportation woes isn’t merging CTA, Metra and Pace into a single entity — it’s finally tackling the “decades-long, discriminatory and racially charged funding policies” that have left transit agencies “fighting over scraps,” according to CTA President Dorval Carter.

While many of those tests merely showed reportable levels of legionella, some found fixtures with potentially dangerous levels of the bacteria — including in a kitchen used by jurors and in the building’s cafeteria, which is open to the public. The fixture in the juror kitchen was found to be contaminated last year, while two cafeteria fixtures tested positive as recently as July.

For more than a decade, the Illinois and Chicago departments of transportation have been holding public meetings on a proposed redesign of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Earlier this month, they held an open house to show off their preferred option — one that doesn’t include a dedicated or shared lane for buses.

U.S. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has been hailed as a party legend at Democratic National Convention guests all week — but even her star power was outshone at a meeting of the Women’s Caucus on Thursday morning when actor and singer Sheryl Lee Ralph took the stage.

Labor leaders tried to draw a sharp contrast Wednesday between Democrats and Republicans at the Illinois delegation’s breakfast on the third day of the Democratic National Convention — saying the GOP and Donald Trump aren’t on the side of working people.

Chicago police officers made 13 arrests Tuesday, the majority of which were related to the fence breach. That incident coincided with the Coalition to March on the DNC, an approved demonstration that saw an extensive police presence along the route. 

Thousands of protesters stretching for several blocks took to the streets on Monday, saying Democrats have no cause to celebrate when tens of thousands of Palestinians are being killed during Israel’s war in Gaza.

Illinois Democrats are putting their money where their mouths are this election cycle — but a change at the top of the ticket and federal campaign finance reporting deadlines mean we won’t have the full picture of the cash influx until later this year.