Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about equity

The Only Problem the Illiana Solves Is a Political One

By Steven Vance | Mar 4, 2014 | No Comments

The Illiana Tollway is a solution in search of a problem, and the Illinois DOT’s final document in preparation to receive federal approval to build the tollway is a case study in backwards transportation planning. IDOT’s playbook went like this: Design a new road, have consultants review traffic patterns on existing roads to find issues to underpin […]

Study: Civil Rights Protections Lack Teeth When It Comes to Transportation

By Angie Schmitt | Feb 14, 2014 | No Comments

American transportation policy has a woeful history of civil rights abuses. For a good part of the 1950s and ’60s, using highways to level black neighborhoods was a matter of national policy. And the white flight and segregation that those highways engendered have left a legacy that continues to shape much of America in the […]

The Challenge of Making Divvy Accessible to People Without Bank Accounts

By Steven Vance | Sep 5, 2013 | 40 Comments

To use Divvy you must have a debit or credit card. Currently, there’s no way around that, so even though an annual Divvy pass is a bargain at $75, the system is unavailable for many Chicagoans. A significant share of city households — 12.7 percent — don’t have bank accounts, according to graduate research by […]

CTA: Poor People Will Register Ventra Cards, Won’t Get Debit Card Hard Sell

By John Greenfield | Aug 2, 2013 | 41 Comments

A recent discussion of Ventra, the new fare payment system for the CTA and Pace, with CTA spokesman Brian Steele, has allayed some, if not all, of my concerns about the impact on low-income Chicagoans. The cost of a single-ride ticket will rise from $2.25 to $3. This price hike can be avoided by purchasing […]

Ventra to Launch August 5; Concerns Remain About Impact on Poor People

By John Greenfield | Jul 29, 2013 | 37 Comments

Today the CTA and Pace announced they’ll begin rolling out the new Ventra fare payment system for select customers on August 5, with access for all riders starting on September 9. The agencies are touting Ventra as a more up-to-date, efficient and convenient replacement for the nearly 20-year-old swipe card technology. However, as the launch […]

South and West Side Residents Discuss Divvy Equity Issues

By John Greenfield | Jul 3, 2013 | 10 Comments

Last month I talked to Scott Kubly, deputy commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, about the city’s efforts to make sure the new Divvy bike-share system benefits all Chicagoans, including those in low-income neighborhoods and/or communities of color. Surveys in bike-share cities like Washington, D.C., and Denver have shown that use of their publicly-funded […]

CDOT Provides an Update on Efforts to Ensure Divvy System Is Equitable

By John Greenfield | Jun 19, 2013 | 25 Comments

Imagine if almost everybody who rode the Chicago Transit Authority, a public transportation system subsidized with taxpayer money, was Caucasian. Denver found itself in an analogous situation last year, when a survey revealed that, in a city where almost half of residents are people of color, 89.9 percent the people using the publicly funded Denver […]