Chicago Daily Observer

As the Chicago Transit Authority lurches towards another mass transit doomsday, one wonders if there is anyway to apply the brakes to this runaway train?

Austerity and economy are two words which have been permanently banished from the vocabularies of local bureaucrats and politicians. Faced with an imminent budget crisis, the only solution proposed is more government spending to bail out the profligate transit agency. The Illinois General Assembly, which cannot manage to get its own financial house in order, must rescue the CTA, once again.

Under the administration of Frank Kruesi, the former head of the CTA, money flowed like water as the transit agency embarked upon an ambitious rebuilding and construction maintenance program. Older elevated stations were to be modernized or replaced. Train platforms were to be enlarged to accommodate longer trains. Remodeled stations were to be made fully accessible to the handicapped. New technology was ... Read More...

Al Gore is to receive a Nobel prize for his crusade against global warming, which was the focus of his documentary movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Back in Chicago, where Rich Daley has been mayor for 18-plus years, where corruption flourishes, and where property taxes are about to surge, there is also an “inconvenient truth” – namely: that Chicagoans love their mayor. Polar icecaps may be melting, and Al Sharpton may be invading Chicago, but there has been no cooling of popular affection for Daley. Not yet.
There are times – indeed, many times – when the mayor appears to be frazzled, fumbling, bumbling, and nearly incomprehensible, but these shortcomings are offset by the urban “livability index” theory. In short, when crime rates are declining, education performance is increasing, taxes are tolerable, city services are acceptable, property values are stable or growing, the economy is robust, and the city ... Read More...

Round two of the battle over the glorified bus stop known as the Polish Triangle

From his office window Zygmunt Dyrkacz can see everything that happens at the Polish Triangle. It’s a bleak, brick-paved island at the intersection of Ashland, Division, and Milwaukee, three graffiti-covered bus shelters and a Blue Line entrance sharing space with some honey locusts and a fountain. A Polish emigre, Dyrkacz owns the Chopin Theatre, across from the Triangle on the south side of Division. He lives above the theater with his wife and their two children, and the little plaza is the closest thing they have to a front yard. For the second time now, he’s caught up in a fight over its future.