public transportation Archives

an illustration by Megan Kirby of people on a bus looking out the window, each with a word bubble that reads out collectively Look Out More Windows

Let us stare out the windows

by Megan Kirby December 16, 2022December 16, 2022

Last month, I had the misfortune of catching the Lunchables bus. Have you seen it yet? The windows and doors are obscured by a full-wrap ad that creates the illusion of a stack of crackers, meat, and cheese moving horizontally along the street. I boarded the Lunchables bus and found my window blocked by a […]

A view from the inside of a Chicago Transit Authority red line subway car, looking out the window at the Addison stop

Best of Chicago

Best reason to dare riding the CTA in the middle of a pandemic

by Katie Prout March 3, 2022March 18, 2022

When my boyfriend and I moved to Edgewater in June 2020, I had quiet weird feelings about becoming yet another white, north side Chicagoan, but the move brought me to the Red Line—and the Red Line brought me back to the world. Ten months later, I put on my mask, walked to the Thorndale stop, […]

Music

Improvising trio Icepick renew jazz’s love affair with the El on their third LP, Hellraiser

by Bill Meyer June 19, 2020August 18, 2021

Sun Ra may have told everyone he was from Saturn, but the Afrofuturistic avant-gardist spent the 1950s in Chicago. While he was here, he recorded “El Is a Sound of Joy,” jazz’s greatest tribute to the city’s public transport system. No one in improvising trio Icepick—bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, trumpeter Nate Wooley, and drummer Chris […]

City Life

Ode to the Green Line

by W.D. Floyd October 17, 2019August 18, 2021

A vital—and vexing—vehicle that connects Chicago’s Black communities on the south and west sides

Columns & Opinion

CTA’s cloth seat coverings, source of public transit horror stories, might be replaced

by John Greenfield October 9, 2017August 18, 2021

The agency is testing more sanitary plastic seat inserts. Will riders be willing to sacrifice comfort for a guarantee of a dry seat?

Blogs

Police-brutality protests continued over the weekend and other Chicago news

by Kate Shepherd July 11, 2016August 18, 2021

Also, Rahm’s “body man” is leaving City Hall for watch and leather goods company Shinola.

Blogs

Jackie Robinson West parents say their children were exploited, Ford looks beyond cars with the help of Chicago design firm, and other Chicago news

by Kate Shepherd February 16, 2016August 18, 2021

Also, Kanye’s longtime local cowriter says the rapper needs spiritual and mental help, and a major step in the redevelopment of Children’s Memorial Hospital site in Lincoln Park.