Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about Chicago Tribune

Marilyn Katz Uses Yesterday’s Tragedy as an Opportunity to Scold Bicyclists

By John Greenfield | Jun 16, 2016 | 40 Comments

For a person who makes a living doing PR, Marilyn Katz, head of River North-based MK communications, sure has trouble getting her facts straight. In the wake of the tragic death of bike courier Blaine Klingenberg, 29, fatally struck yesterday evening by a tour bus driver at Oak and Michigan, Katz fired off an inaccurate […]

Other Reasons Why The 606 Gets More Ridership Than the Major Taylor Trail

By John Greenfield | May 11, 2016 | 5 Comments

The Chicago Tribune’s new transportation columnist Mary Wisniewski, a former Sun-Times transportation reporter, is off to a good start. She’s written a number of article that show an interest in promoting sustainable transportation, rather than the windshield perspective that has been all-to-common in the mainstream media. For example, her articles about bicycling have asked *what* […]

Silly Tribune, Speed Cameras Aren’t Just for Kids — They Make Everyone Safer

By John Greenfield | Nov 25, 2015 | 61 Comments

[Today the Chicago Reader launched a new weekly transportation column written by Streetsblog Chicago editor John Greenfield. This partnership will allow Streetsblog to extend the reach of our livable streets advocacy. We’ll be syndicating a portion of the column on the day it comes out online; you can read the remainder on the Reader’s website […]

Trib Launches War on Speed Cams, CDOT Releases Data Showing They Work

By John Greenfield | Nov 19, 2015 | 29 Comments

The Chicago Tribune’s David Kidwell and his colleagues have written extensively about the city’s red light camera program. Some of that reporting has been constructive, including revelations about the red light cam bribery scandal, unexplained spikes in ticketing, and cameras that were installed in low-crash locations during the Richard M. Daley administration. Other aspects of the […]

More Deets on the Divvy Funding Situation

By John Greenfield | Jul 24, 2015 | 22 Comments

In an article last Friday, the Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch implied that the new price hike for Divvy day passes is a desperate measure the city is taking because the bike-share system is bleeding cash, when that’s not the case at all. “The daily fee to rent a Divvy bike will jump by more than 40 […]

Despite the Day Pass Hike, Divvy Is Already Making Money, Not Losing It

By John Greenfield | Jul 20, 2015 | 24 Comments

In Friday’s Chicago Tribune article about the impending price hike for Divvy day passes, transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch implied that the extra revenue is needed because the bike-share system has been a money loser. In doing so, he ignored a statement he received from the Chicago Department of Transportation noting that, when you factor in […]

Yellow Journalism: Tribune Panics Over “Risky” Stoplight Timing

By Steven Vance and Payton Chung | Dec 23, 2014 | 35 Comments

Day in and day out for at least 30 years (and perhaps for almost a century), over 3,000 stoplights all across Chicago have whirred through tens of millions of cycles the exact same way: green, then yellow for three seconds, then red. Yet today, this three second cycle was suddenly declared a public safety emergency, […]

Why the Tribune’s Red Light Camera Story Is Garbage Journalism

By Steven Vance and Payton Chung | Dec 22, 2014 | 48 Comments

In a huge front-page story Friday, the Chicago Tribune published yet another installment in its long-running vendetta against the city’s photographic traffic enforcement program. Because the Trib chose to obscure key information about the severity of crashes, the story is worthless as an evaluation of the city’s red light camera program. The article lavishes attention […]

When Will the Trib Get to the Bottom of Chicago’s Traffic Violence Problem?

By John Greenfield | Oct 29, 2014 | 28 Comments

Tuesday night, the Chicago Tribune hosted a discussion of its red light camera coverage with members of its investigative reporting team. During the Q & A session, I noted that 48 pedestrians were killed and 398 were seriously injured in Chicago in 2012, the most recent year that we have accurate data for. “It doesn’t seem like you […]

Inspector General Issues a Reality Check on Trib’s Red Light Cam Spin

By John Greenfield | Oct 17, 2014 | 41 Comments

Last summer, the Chicago Tribune reported on the mysterious spikes in red light ticketing at dozens of cameras around the city. Recently, the paper discovered the city had started enforcing violations that took place after slightly shorter yellow phases. This resulted in tens of thousands of additional tickets. Given the track record of corruption in the […]

Trib Bikelash Writer is Confused About the Real Threat to Pedestrian Safety

By John Greenfield | Oct 8, 2014 | 17 Comments

The Tribune is a reliable source of bike backlash articles, and Monday’s op-ed by Ron Grossman was a particularly entertaining example, from a particularly confused reporter. The piece, titled “Maybe Chicago should ban bikes for a day,” argues that lawbreaking cyclists are the leading threat to pedestrians’ safe enjoyment of the city’s vibrant streets. It’s […]

Divvy Is No Cautionary Tale — It’s a Model for Other Bike-Share Systems

By John Greenfield | Aug 27, 2014 | 19 Comments

Yesterday, the Tribune ran an opinion piece slamming the Divvy funding model, written by Diana Sroka Rickert from the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank. Rickert argued that Milwaukee’s brand-new Bublr bike-share system, named after the local term for a water fountain, used a superior method because much of the funding came from private donors, […]

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