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I am unashamed of my desire to see new high speed rail links brought to the Chicago region and elsewhere. But recently, two commentators have reminded us that as exciting as HSR projects would be, they may not really represent our most pressing transit needs. Just today, John McCarron pens a Tribune Op-Ed arguing [...] A couple weeks ago, I posted about Zipcar adding I-Pass to all their Chicago cars. Via their Facebook page, I see that I-Go is now on the case as well, starting with their Evanston and Oak Park cars, and soon to the entire fleet. Speaking for myself, I’m quite happy to see this [...] Yesterday’s WIndy Citizen offered an extensive look at the Wilson Station on the Red Line, in honor of it’s selection as the systems “Most Crusty” station in a Red Eye reader poll. (Via Uptown Update.) Every couple of days recently I’ve run across an article about Christopher Steiner’s new book, $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better. One of the more interesting ones is a recent piece in Forbes by Steiner himself exploring the relationship between gas [...] Courtesy of today’s Getting Around column in the tribune, two updates of interest to CTA riders: The CTA has abandoned plans to convert more rail cars to the “Maxi” configuration with fewer seats and more room for standing passengers. (However, existing Maxi cars, which I believe all remain on the Brown Line, will not [...] The Sun Times published a nifty interactive graphic on its web site this week that gives approximate costs to the various kinds of regular capital expenditures made by the CTA. (I can’t quite determine what article it relates to, but this gives me an excuse to link to the Sun Times’ transportation blog, The [...] Chicago Bus Tracker Gadget After writing about bus tracking goodness on the iPhone a couple weeks ago, I’ve been looking for other tools that access CTA’s bus data. It turns out that Kevin Zolkiewicz, the guy behind the excellent ChicagoBus.org created a bus tracking widget for MacOS X, and then another local developer, [...] Gold Line Proposal It’s not really a new story, but today’s Tribune has a nice write up about the grassroots “Gold Line” proposal to bring better mass transit to parts of the city’s South Side. Much like the earlier “Gray Line” proposal (second item in link), a key component to the plan involves [...] In today’s Chicago Tribune, Jon Hilkevich wades into the CTA’s somewhat complicated fare structure, suggesting that because of recent changes, many riders might want to re-evaluate whether or not switching to a 30-day pass would save them money. Excellent advice, although I ‘d also add that if you regularly use mass transit you should [...] In the book, I write quite a bit about the true costs of owning and operating a car, and offer tools and tips for figuring out just how much money you may be spending on your big metal dependent every year. But there’s a whole other side to this that I barely touch on [...] (Note: Originally, the book had longer narrative descriptions of the local commuter rail lines. The final format simply didn’t allow for all this material, so periodically I’ll post selected entries here with updates when appropriate.) The Union Pacific/Northwest Line serves a fair chunk of Chicago, starting with Ukrainian Village and Old Irving Park, and [...] Good news via Zipcar’s Facebook page: As of this weekend, Zipcar’s Chicago vehicles will include EZ-Pass transmitters allowing Zipsters to use automatic tolling lanes and open road tolling (compatible with Illinois I-Pass). The announcement doesn’t specify, but I assume the tolls automatically get added to the reservation invoice. This is a huge convenience; let’s [...] This is actually New York-related, but I thought this short animation from StreetFilms was a particularly well made piece of transit advocacy. (Via Freakonomics.) (Updated to embed YouTube version instead of original Flash movie.) |
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Copyright © 2010 Jason Rothstein - All Rights Reserved |
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