Category Archives: News

News

Wheels In Motion For New Cyclist, Pedestrian Group In Edgewater

The 48th Ward is rolling out a new transportation group aimed at creating a sustainable future for cyclists and pedestrians in Edgewater.

Ald. Harry Osterman’s office is holding a meeting from 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday at the Broadway Armory, 5917 N. Broadway, with the city’s Department of Transportation to discuss the creation of a working group that will help advise the alderman on how to best implement travel by bike and foot.

The group will ultimately work with Osterman’s office to help communicate issues regarding transportation safety in the neighborhood, oversee planning of community bike rides and walks and provide feedback on ways to implement transportation-related changes throughout the ward.

In the fall, Osterman confirmed a southbound ”contra-flow” bike lane on Glenwood Avenue would be coming in 2017.

The idea was first pitched in the summer of 2015 by Osterman and transportation department officials, saying many people, mostly families and kids, already biked on Glenwood, but often going in the opposite direction of car traffic, because they felt safer than on main roadways like Clark or Broadway.

Another “greenway” bike lane was proposed at Edgewater’s northern end, this one set to jut through Rogers Park all the way to Evanston.

In 2015, the “Go Edgewater” campaign also launched in the lakefront neighborhood — a collaboration between the Department of Transportation and the Active Transportation Alliance that encouraged residents to drive less and walk and bike more.

This year, the Edgewater Historical Society and Edgewater Environmental Sustainability Project will take over ownership of the group, including the popular neighborhood tours and bike rides.

News

Metra Fare Increases Kick In Today

It gets more expensive to ride Metra starting Wednesday as new fare hikes kick in.

One-way tickets go up by 25 cents as across-the-board fare increases begin in an effort by Metra to pay for $16.1 million in overdue capital projects.

Ten-ride tickets will go up by $2.75 and monthly passes will cost $11.75 more per month.

Reduced-fare tickets will also go up by 25 cents for one-way tickets, $1.50 for 10-ride tickets and $7.50 for a monthly pass.

“We understand raising fares will affect our riders, but this increase will be strictly allocated as an investment in our trains and our system,” Metra Executive Director and CEO Don Orseno said in a statement. “Metra is committed to improving the quality of service and creating a better passenger experience, while addressing a serious capital funding shortfall.”

Metra will devote all of the new revenue to capital projects.

The agency said it needs $11.7 billion over the next 10 years, or approximately $1.2 billion annually, to cover the backlog of needed repairs but brings in only $300 million a year to cover the costs.

This is the third year in a row Metra has raised fares in an effort to close its funding gap for capital projects.

News

This New Year, Cross Learning To Cook Off Your List Of Resolutions

You could go out to eat. You could order in. Or, you could get together with a table full of your friends – or strangers — to make a meal, learn something new along the way and share the joys of prepping, cooking and dining together.

This is where The Social Table, located in Lincoln Park, comes in: why not try something new for the new year?

This North Side culinary space offers public classes for intimate groups of eight to 12 as well as private events for up to 24 people per kitchen.  The chef-instructors are knowledgeable, fun, and they have a passion for teaching groups how to expand their culinary repertoire and bring people together in the process. With three to five days a week set aside for public classes and a flexible private event schedule, bonding with new people while making homemade pasta can certainly help you make good on that New Year’s resolution to cook more and expand your social circle.

“In this day and age, people are setting more personal life goals, like learning a skill and spending more time with friends,” says Rebecca Goldfarb, creator and owner of The Social Table. “We are really trying to tap into this.”

The Social Table’s classes are unique because they build camaraderie in the kitchen. And, private parties – bachelorette brunches, couples nights, office outings, and family dinners – are fast becoming popular and booking up weeks in advance.

Menu options span a range of cuisines, introducing groups to fun and new ingredients, and recipes that offer learning experiences for both the novice and the seasoned home cook.  The Winter Italian menu, featuring Italian stuffed flank steaks and handmade gnudi, and the Taste of Spain menu, featuring a chicken, chorizo & mussel paella, are favorites this time of year.  With expanding menu options that rotate every five to six weeks, The Social Table team offers guests the opportunity to come back regularly and experience something new every time. Because the student-to-instructor ratio is kept small, participants can really get their hands dirty, bond with their classmates and walk away with a meaningful experience.

“Many people are often surprised by how amazing the dinner was, even though they made it,” Goldfarb says. “The whole experience shows that an impressive dinner isn’t out of their reach.”

Goldfarb adds that The Social Table experience is about more than just cooking. It’s about connecting with other people through food.

“We try to bridge that gap between people who say, ‘I can’t cook. I can’t ever have people over, I have to go out and eat,’ to this idea that cooking is something you can do,” she says. “It’s fun and something you can do with other people to challenge yourself and to socialize with your friends.”

Interested in joining a class or scheduling a private event  at The Social Table? Visit the website for more information.

By Adrienne Samuels Gibbs, DNAinfo Creative

News, Review

Cubs End Print-At-Home Tickets To Slow Down Counterfeiters

The Chicago Cubs are cracking down on counterfeiters, moving to phase out print-at-home tickets for single-game tickets at Wrigley Field.

The postseason proved lucrative not only for the Cubs, but also for scammers who passed off hundreds of fake tickets to unwitting fans who were subsequently turned away at the gates.

To lessen the risk, the club said it will stop offering tickets that can be printed at home for the 2017 season, leaving single-game customers with options like getting tickets mailed or printed at will call.

The only instant delivery option will be via the Major League Baseball Ballpark smartphone app.

It was not clear how fans will access tickets they buy through StubHub, a sanctioned venue for secondhand tickets. Currently, the resold tickets are delivered electronically to be downloaded and printed.

The Cubs said more information on mobile ticketing and StubHub resales will be available when single-game tickets go on sale Feb. 24.

Season ticket holders will still receive the commemorative tickets, but can also access tickets on the Ballpark app, the club said. The change will not affect tickets for concerts at Wrigley Field.

During the Cubs Convention, Colin Faulkner, vice president of sales and marketing, said the lucrative resale market created “an incentive for people to commit fraud,” something the team found “disheartening” in turning away fans with printed tickets that turned out to be phony.

Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts said the team was working persistently to address scalpers and ticket brokers gobbling up seats, even as season ticket holders, primarily to sell them at a profit.

“It can be a problem at times,” he said. Ricketts said the team monitors its database of season ticket holders and “we try to weed those people out” by removing them.

“It’s really hard to control,” he added. “We try to keep real tickets in the hands of real fans, but it’s not as easy as it looks.”

In October, the Cubs went so far as to offer pointers on how to spot fake tickets, while still recommending that fans avoid the risk by using the affiliated StubHub website for secondhand buys.

Several examples of print-at-home tickets that turned out to be fakes had glaring errors like overlapping blocks of text, blurry barcodes or ticket receipts passed off as actual tickets.

But no matter how convincing a counterfeit ticket might appear, its barcode will be invalid, Cubs spokesman Julian Green said during the postseason.

“They’re working very hard to try to beat the system,” Green said of scammers. Tickets reselling for up to $14,500 “suggests to criminals that there is tremendous value to be made,” he added.

News, Review

Union Station Could Be Test of Chicago’s Future During Trump Administration

If President Donald Trump is serious about his promise to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure, Chicago officials have a plan ready to go that would modernize and expand Union Station.

Trump — who campaigned on a pledge to spend $1 trillion on repairing the nation’s roads, airports and bridges — reaffirmed that vow during his Inaugural Address, no doubt boosting Chicago officials’ hope that their bid for a $1 billion low-interest federal loan won’t fall on deaf ears.

“America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay,” Trump said after taking the oath of office.

While Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — who urged the new president Monday to focus on issues that matter rather than the size of the crowd at his inauguration — and Trump don’t agree on much, Emanuel has said he hopes to work with the White House on issues like the need to renovate the 14-acre train station at 225 S. Canal St.

You can’t have a 21st century economy on a 20th century foundation, and that’s what we have here,” Emanuel said Jan. 12 at an event where he announced that the city had moved one step closer to securing the loan during the final days of the Obama Administration.

The master plan for the station includes expanded platforms, bigger entryways and an upgraded heating and air conditioning system designed to improve the air quality in the station, officials said. In addition, plans call for pedestrian tunnels to be built to the nearby Ogilvie Transportation Center and CTA Blue Line stop at Clinton.

More than 300 trains arrive and depart from Union Station five days a week, moving 120,000 passengers past the grand staircase immortalized by the movie “The Untouchables.” That is roughly the same amount of people who travel through Midway Airport every week, officials said.

Emanuel said he talked about the ways a Trump administration could help the city with transportation and infrastructure projects during his meeting with Republican businessman turned reality television star turned politician at Trump Tower during the presidential transition.

A list of 50 infrastructure projects obtained by the Kansas City Star under consideration by Trump’s team includes the Union Station project as well as the $2.1 billion effort to modernize the Red and Purple CTA train lines, which was approved Jan. 8 by the Obama Administration.

If the city does get the loan from the federal government, it would be paired with an effort by Amtrak — the station’s owner — to attract a private developer to the project that could include the construction of a skyscraper next to the station.

Trump has endorsed those sort of public-private partnerships, which could also win support from the Republican-controlled House and Senate, where members are leering about big-ticket spending programs.

“Union Station has a very rich history and it will have a remarkable future,” Emanuel said, acknowledging that there is “no guarantee” that Trump or his appointees will keep the long-in-the-works project moving forward.

But, Emanuel said, if Trump does what he has said he wants to do, it is “ideal.”

News

Want To Shape Recreation Along The Chicago River? Go To This Workshop

If you want to see more recreation, better water quality and job opportunities along the Chicago River, you’ll soon have a chance to say something about it.

Great Rivers Chicago — a partnership between the City of Chicago, Metropolitan Planning Council, Friends of the Chicago River and others — will host a workshop for organizations, groups and neighborhood folks on Feb. 16 from 9 a.m.-noon at the Chicago Maritime Museum, 1200 W. 35th St.

The workshop — “Transform Your Riverfront: Ideas to Action” — is where neighborhood folks will have an opportunity to share feedback, brainstorm ideas and shape a long-term vision for the Chicago River, as well as the Calumet and Des Plaines rivers.

News

Police to Crack Down on Drunken Drivers On the Southwest Side this Weekend

Police will be on the lookout for drunken drivers on the Southwest Side this weekend.

Officers will conduct a DUI strike force patrol in the Chicago Lawn District from 6 p.m. Saturday-2 a.m. Sunday, police said.

Police will saturate the district looking for drivers who are drunk, speeding or not wearing their seat belts.

The Chicago Lawn District serves a number of South Side neighborhoods including Clearing, Garfield Ridge, Archer Heights and West Lawn.

A DUI strike force in the Gresham District on Jan. 7-8 led to 110 charges, including 59 unsafe vehicle violations, 12 insurance violations, 15 safety belt violations and 13 driver’s license violations. Four vehicles were towed. No one landed in jail for driving drunk.

News

Feel the Magic at the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival: January 19–29

If you think puppets are just for kids, head out to the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival and prepare to be amazed. The second bi-annual event will feature talented puppetry artists from Chicago, across the country and all over the globe, for 11 days of performances and workshops.

Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival: January 19–29
VIEW FULL SCHEDULE | BUY TICKETS

Chicago will transform into the puppetry capital of the world with contemporary puppetry shows at cultural venues throughout the city. The fest will showcase 24 presenting partners, 25 artists from seven countries at 22 venues for a total of 90 performances.

In addition a free Neighborhood Festival Tour will supply 18 performances in six neighborhoods at venues that include Navy Pier, Chicago Cultural Center and Garfield Park Conservatory.

Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival: January 19–29

Visit chicagopuppetfest.org for the complete lineup, which also includes a number of kid-friendly performances such as “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “Plastique”.

 

News, Review

Too Windy To Walk? High Winds Close Roads, Cancel Flights In Chicago

Tropical storm-like gusts of wind are scattering travel plans for the thousands of spectators descending on McCormick Place for President Barack Obama’s farewell address Tuesday.

Cermak Road was closed between Michigan Avenue and King Drive, officials announced Tuesday afternoon. Event organizers will instead shepherd pedestrians from the CTA directly into the convention center through its west building, they said.

Metra trains departing from Millennium Station between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. will also stop at McCormick Place, officials said.

Wind speeds, intensifying as the day goes on, are expected to reach as high as 40 mph by day’s end, according to Stephen Rodriguez, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Gusts may be as powerful as 60 mph, he said.

“To put that into perspective, those are the kinds of wind speeds you see when we issue a severe thunderstorm warning,” Rodriguez said.

A high wind warning is in effect for the city until 10 p.m. Tuesday.

The wind is also wreaking havoc on the city’s airports, leading to widespread delays and the cancelation of nearly 200 flights out of O’Hare Airport, officials said.

Air Force One is scheduled to touch down at O’Hare at 5:25 p.m.

The president is expected to take a motorcade down the Kennedy Expressway to McCormick Place instead of a helicopter because of the weather.

Commuters should take extra precautions and limit their travel plans Tuesday, Rodriguez said.

“These kinds of winds are going to make any kind of travel difficult, and they’re likely to blow around loose objects, which could lead to property damage,” he said.

Alex Nitkin /dnainfo

News, Review

Chicago Locks Down $1.1 Billion For CTA Just Before Obama Leaves Office

Federal officials announced late Sunday they would give the city a $1 billion grant to cover half the cost of renovating the Red and Purple CTA train lines, in what will likely be President Barack Obama’s farewell gift to his adopted hometown.

In a statement, Mayor Rahm Emanuel billed the $2.1 billion project — expected to start in 2018 and take four or five years to complete — as the largest capital project in CTA history.

“This type of investment in transit is an investment in Chicago’s residents and neighborhoods, connecting them to jobs, education and more,” Emanuel said.

The news of the decision — to be formally announced Monday — came after weeks of scrambling by city officials determined to finalize the grant before Obama’s time in the White House ends. There was no assurance the money would have been available after Jan. 20, when President-elect Donald Trump takes the oath of office.

Before the council approved a new tax increment financing district designed to cover the remaining cost of the project, Ald. Edward Burke (14th) said the project may well shape “the future of Chicago public transportation for the next 50 to 80 years.”

The project is expected to create 5,700 construction jobs, and several aldermen have said they hope it employs Chicagoans struggling to find jobs.

TIF districts capture all growth in the property tax base in a designated area for a set period of time, usually 20 years or more, and divert it into a special fund for projects designed to spur redevelopment and eradicate blight.

The first such district is set to be created between North and Devon avenues along the Red and Purple Line tracks. It is expected to generate $622 million. Those funds — plus $428 million in other CTA money — will be used to match the federal grant and fund the project, officials said.

The project includes plans to rebuild the 100-year-old embankment that supports the track between Lawrence and Bryn Mawr avenues, making it possible for six to eight more trains per hour to travel from Howard to 95th streets on the Red Line.

That should prevent riders from having to wait as packed trains pass by, officials said.

The project also includes plans to build a Belmont flyover that have been met with fierce opposition from some Lakeview residents.

The flyover requires the CTA to acquire and demolish 16 buildings to have enough space to separate Brown Line tracks from Red and Purple line ones and speed train cars through what is now a bottleneck.

To blunt criticism that TIF districts hurt Chicago Public Schools, the school district will not see its share of property tax revenues lowered by the new transit TIF.