Steven Vance
Transportation planner and advocate. Steven also created Chicago Cityscape, a site that tracks neighborhood developments across the city.
Recent Posts
Policies and Politics, Not TODs, Are to Blame for Affordable Housing Crunch
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Yesterday the Tribune’s Mary Wisniewski further explored a topic Streetsblog’s John Greenfield covered two weeks ago for the Reader. Virtually all of Chicago’s new transit-oriented development projects are upscale buildings in affluent or gentrifying neighborhoods. TOD advocates argue that adding housing in these communities will take pressure off the rental market. But some Logan Square residents […]
Rotterdam Station Treats Cyclists With Same Respect Drivers Get in Chicago
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As a former bicycle parking planner for the Chicago Department of Transportation on sabbatical in northern Europe, I’m impressed by how much better the long- and short-term bike storage is here than what I’m used to in the states. Too often in the U.S., bike parking is an afterthought even though secure and convenient parking […]
Indiana Will Fund Rewriting Faulty Illiana Environmental Impact Statement
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The Illiana Tollway, a proposed highway boondoggle that would run through land south of the Chicago metro area, is the project that just won’t die. The tollway would be a joint project of the Illinois and Indiana transportation departments and cost Illinois taxpayers a minimum of $500 million. That’s $500 million that might otherwise be spent on necessary […]
CNT’s “AllTransit” Tool Can Help Legislators Understand Transit Needs
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A new tool shows just how much advantage residents in some Illinois cities might have over others accessing jobs with low-cost transit, and just how much difference state legislators could make if they chose to fund more transit. AllTransit, an analysis tool from the Center for Neighborhood Technology and TransitCenter (a Streetsblog Chicago funder), shows […]
Cast Your Vote for the Milwaukee Avenue Bike Counter Design
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Here’s a chance to have your say on what Chicago’s newest piece of bike infrastructure will look like. The real estate company LG Development, in conjunction with the Chicago Department of Transportation, is planning to install a bike counter in […]
People Will Win if Wrigley Field Streets are Closed to Vehicle Traffic
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Two local politicians have proposed changing the streets around Wrigley Field to help defend it from terrorist attacks. Instead we should be looking at ways to protect the area from an excess of car traffic. U.S. representative Mike Quigley (5th district) recently floated the idea of pedestrianizing Clark and Addison Streets during game days to prevent […]
Why Does Ramirez-Rosa Want to Rezone a Parking Lot by the Logan Stop?
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A parking lot next to the Logan Square Blue Line station that’s ripe for redevelopment is under review for a zoning change. 35th Ward alder Carlos Ramirez-Rosa intends to change the zoning district from a very low-density, mixed-use B1-1 designation to RT-4, a residential district designation. That type of zoning allows only single-family homes and two-flats. Rodrigo Anzures-Oyorzabal, […]
South Shore Line Launches Long-Awaited Bikes-on-Board Pilot Program
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The South Shore Line, a commuter train service between Chicago and northern Indiana, started its weekend-only bikes-on-train pilot last Saturday. Alex Elich, a reporter with the WSBT radio station, demonstrated how to use the racks that hold the bike steady on the train. The Northern Indiana Commuter Transit District, the agency that runs the South Shore, […]
NYC’s Sadik-Khan Charted Path for Major Street Changes There, Nationwide
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One of the country’s most successful city transportation commissioners spoke on Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Planning Council about her experience working in New York City for seven years. Janette Sadik-Khan was hired by former mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2007 to implement the radical – for NYC and for that time in the United States – […]
CTA Reports Huge Ridership Gains on Blue Line, Losses on South Side
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New ridership numbers for the Chicago Transit Authority’s ‘L’ stations show some interesting changes over the past 17 years. The increases in ridership at some stations have been obvious, but the decreases at other stations are a little surprising. Last year the CTA’s ‘L’ had its highest-ever total recorded ridership. From November 1998 to November 2015, the earliest […]
West Side Residents Tell CDOT Where New Bikeways Should Be Built
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Last night the Chicago Department of Transportation held a meeting at the Austin neighborhood library to get feedback from residents on which routes should be prioritized as the city builds out the planned bike network on the West Side. A second West Side public input meeting takes place tomorrow night from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. at the Legler Library, 115 […]
RTA: Pace and Metra Operate Efficiently But Collect Little Rider Revenue
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The Regional Transportation Authority’s newest report, issued last week, compares the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace, to their respective peers around the country. The report found that the CTA is efficient, relative to rapid transit systems in Atlanta, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, D.C. The RTA also compared Metra, using 2014 performance figures, […]