Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about Bus Rapid Transit

Debating Bus Rapid Transit With the Ashland-Western Coalition

By Lindsay Bayley | Sep 4, 2013 | 76 Comments

Guest contributor Lindsay Bayley lives with her husband in the Noble Square neighborhood, steps from the future Ashland bus rapid transit corridor, and is a year-round bicycle commuter. She works as a senior planner with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), specializing in parking policy. The views expressed here do not represent CMAP’s stance […]

Deconstructing the Misleading Info in an Ashland-Western Coalition Flyer

By John Greenfield | Sep 3, 2013 | 68 Comments

Here’s a flyer from the anti-bus rapid transit group the Ashland-Western Coalition, which I came across today at a café on Ashland Avenue in the East Village. The AWC is a consortium of business and community groups on the Near West Side, led by Roger Romanelli, executive director of the Randolph/Fulton Market Association. Let’s take […]

Ashland Bus Rapid Transit NIMBYs Cling to Anonymity

By John Greenfield | Aug 21, 2013 | 57 Comments

After I wrote about a June 25 meeting of the anti-bus rapid transit group the Ashland-Western Coalition, Roger Romanelli, executive director of the Randolph/Fulton Market Association, emailed me with some objections. “You incorrectly name me as the leader of the Ashland-Western Coalition, and I seek a retraction,” he wrote. “Our group is a volunteer coalition, […]

Chicago Already Has a “Traffic Disaster” – Transit and Bikes Are the Solution

By John Greenfield | Aug 9, 2013 | 4 Comments

John McCarron, a freelance writer, adjunct lecturer at DePaul University, and contributing columnist for the Tribune, suffers from Jeckyll-and-Hyde syndrome when it comes to writing about transportation. Back in November 2011 he wrote a clueless opinion piece for the Trib accusing Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein of waging a “war on cars.” […]

Survey: Most Chicagoans Support Bus Rapid Transit

By John Greenfield | Jul 26, 2013 | 46 Comments

While the anti-bus rapid transit crowd would have you believe there’s little backing for the city’s plan for fast, reliable service on Ashland Avenue, a new survey found that a majority of Chicago voters support BRT as a solution to the city’s transit needs. The new opinion data comes in addition to the 23 local […]

Ashland Bus Rapid Transit NIMBYs Try to Win Over Aldermen

By John Greenfield | Jun 27, 2013 | 64 Comments

The BRT NIMBYs are at it again. In January, the Ashland-Western Coalition, a consortium of chambers of commerce and community development groups on the Near West Side, hosted a public meeting where business owners panicked that the CTA’s plan to build bus rapid transit on Ashland would ruin them. Earlier this month the coalition announced […]

Check Out MPC’s New Video Introducing Bus Rapid Transit to Chicagoans

By John Greenfield | Jun 25, 2013 | 36 Comments

The city’s plan for “gold-standard” bus rapid transit on Ashland between 95th and Irving Park will create a fast, reliable north-south public transportation route by converting travel lanes into dedicated bus lanes, helping more people move efficiently though the city. That’s a hard concept for many Chicagoans to wrap their heads around, as evidenced by […]

Talking Transportation With Alderman Bob Fioretti

By John Greenfield | Jun 24, 2013 | 70 Comments

[This article also ran in Checkerboard City, John Greenfield’s column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Wednesday evenings.] Second Ward Alderman Robert “Bob” Fioretti reelection chances got tougher after last year’s ward remap. His district currently includes portions of several neighborhoods on the Near South and Near West sides, but in […]

New Grant Will Help Chicago Spread the Word About the Benefits of BRT

By John Greenfield | Apr 10, 2013 | 17 Comments

The toughest part of the city’s effort to create bus rapid transit in the downtown East-West Transit and the Western/Ashland BRT corridors will be convincing Chicagoans that it’s a good idea to remove travel lanes on major streets to make room for dedicated bus lanes. Help arrived today in the form of a $1.2 million […]

Taking the Guesswork Out of Rating BRT: An Interview With Walter Hook

By John Greenfield | Mar 12, 2013 | 21 Comments

There’s a new global benchmark for rating bus rapid transit projects. Today the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy released the BRT Standard 2013, which lays out the requirements for bus routes to qualify as BRT and scores 50 systems in 35 cities around the world as basic, bronze, silver, or gold based on various […]

It’s Up to Chicago to Set a Bold New Standard for American BRT

By John Greenfield | Mar 4, 2013 | 11 Comments

“We knew how important it was for federal policy makers to see innovation and new ideas bubbling up from important cities around the country,” said Nick Turner, managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation at a bus rapid transit roundtable last Friday. The foundation has provided roughly $2.8 million in grants to Chicago’s BRT program for […]

Confused Walter Jacobson Worries BRT “Bike Plan” Will Create Gridlock

By John Greenfield | Feb 27, 2013 | 22 Comments

In a recent CBS Chicago TV editorial, veteran news personality Walter Jacobson panicked that the city’s proposal for the Central Loop BRT corridor would “create a gridlock of the world,” but he’s wildly unclear on the concept. The plan would create dedicated bus lanes with island boarding platforms on Washington and Madison; the proposed Washington […]

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