SSW 10.19.23 - Transportation Issue

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SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 10, Issue 27 Editor-in-Chief

Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor

Adam Przybyl

Senior Editors Martha Bayne Christopher Good Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Alma Campos Jim Daley Politics Editor Labor Editor Immigration Editor

J. Patrick Patterson Jocelyn Martínez-Rosales Wendy Wei

Community Builder

Chima Ikoro

Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton Contributing Editors

Jocelyn Vega Francisco Ramírez Pinedo

Visuals Editor

Kayla Bickham

Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma Shane Tolentino Director of Fact Checking: Savannah Hugueley Fact Checkers: Rubi Valentin

Isi Frank Ativie Bridget Killian Christopher Good Kate Linderman Layout Editor

Tony Zralka

Program Manager

Malik Jackson

Executive Director

Damani Bolden

Office Manager

Mary Leonard

Advertising Manager

Susan Malone

Webmaster

Pat Sier

The Weekly publishes online weekly and in print every other Thursday. We seek contributions from all over the city.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, please contact: Susan Malone (773) 358-3129 or email: malone@southsideweekly.com For general inquiries, please call: (773) 643-8533

Cover photo by Brittany Sowacke

IN CHICAGO Welcome to the Transportation Issue Chicago boasts one of the best transportation networks in the country. And recently, important steps have been taken to improve it, from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) making progress on the long-awaited Red Line extension to Metra developing a simpler fare system to the transportation department’s commitment to increase the number of low-stress and protected bike lanes.

But problems remain, and some have persisted for decades, as you’ll read in Jasmine Barnes’s poignant essay about the difficulties South Siders face trying to travel between neighborhoods. Barnes celebrates the poetry of public transportation—how it creates opportunities for us to encounter difference by moving between places. She also describes how transit’s potential is thwarted by inefficiencies and inequities in service, many of which existed when Langston Hughes wrote about Chicago’s transit system for the Chicago Defender in 1949, a time when segregation was still legal.

Lucia Whalen’s article highlights the failures of our bike network and uplifts the work South Side bike advocacy groups have done to promote bike safety and demand safer infrastructure for cyclists that could save lives. “Unfortunately, for bikers all over the city—but especially on Chicago’s far South Side, where bike lane infrastructure is still sorely lacking—the decision to bike can be treacherous,” Whalen says.

Reema Saleh sounds the horn on labor issues faced by CTA workers, including staff shortages, low pay for part-time workers, and hazardous working conditions— matters that affect workers’ ability to support their families and deliver consistently high-quality service to riders.

And Kelly Rappaport describes the haunting of Hegewisch, one of many Southeast Side neighborhoods plagued by unreliable transportation, by ghost trains and buses.

This issue tells the story of the in-between—those moments South Siders spend moving from one place to another. I hope you enjoy the diverse articles inside as well as Jim Daley’s “South Side Bus Tracker” crossword puzzle, perhaps while sitting on the train or waiting for a bus. But we hope your wait isn’t too long. As Hughes said, “Nobody likes to be left standing at the corner.” May your waits be short and your rides be quick.

—J. Patrick Patterson, Politics Editor Protesters Call for CTA President Dorval Carter to Resign Last Friday, grassroots transit advocacy group Commuters Take Action held a protest outside CTA headquarters calling for CTA President Dorval Carter’s resignation. On Oct 8, CTA released updated timetables that showed an average reduction of sixty trips on weekday, Saturday, and Sunday schedules—in other words, a twenty-four percent overall reduction compared to pre-pandemic schedules.

“L service has been cut by twenty-four percent since 2020. Bus service has been cut by thirteen percent. With all these cuts, it’s time to #CutCarter,” read a tweet from the group leading up to the protest. Carter came under scrutiny this May when records showed that he only used his agency-issued public transit card on twelve days in all of 2021 and 2022. Despite low ridership, long waits and ghost trains and buses, in 2021 Dorval received a thirty-three percent raise bringing his salary to $350K. Reflecting their complaints, Friday’s protesters held signs that read “CTA has ghosted me more than my ex,” or simply “Run more trains,” and “Cut Carter, not the CTA!”

The Weekly launches a Community Investigations Hub South Side Weekly NFP, which publishes the Weekly and the Hyde Park Herald, is pleased to announce the launch of the Community Investigations Hub (CIH), a project dedicated to deepening residents’ access to local government, broadening their media literacy, and helping them hold powerful people accountable. Weekly senior editor Jim Daley and Herald staff reporter and Invisible Institute fellow Max Blaisdell will serve as its coordinators.

Weekly journalists will source, vet, and act on tips from community members, who are encouraged to get in touch if they know of an issue that needs light shed on it. We offer several options for sending tips, including an online form and, for confidential communications, secure text messaging and encrypted email. Our journalists will follow up on every tip we receive. Not all tips lead to stories, but we will always ensure residents who contact us are connected with resources, including partner organizations, attorneys, and watchdog groups, that can help them with the issues they face. More information about sending tips is here: bit.ly/SSWInvestigates.

IN THIS ISSUE anywhere from anywhere

An essay on getting around in Chicago, in conversation with South Side poetic luminaries

jasmine barnes.........................................4 ghost trains and buses, and few transit options haunt hegewisch commuters

“If there’s no public transportation after a [certain] time, people can’t get to work, and the customers can’t get to a business.”

kelly rappaport.......................................5 trenes y autobuses ‘fantasma’ y pocas opciones de transporte para el lado sureste

“Si no hay transporte público a partir de [cierta] hora, la gente no puede ir a trabajar, y los clientes no pueden llegar a un negocio.”

por kelly rappaport traducido por alma campos..................7 south side cyclists hopeful for bike infrastructure and safety improvements

Will a new mayoral administration make strides on bike infrastructure on the South Side?

lucia whalen...........................................8 workers put pressure on cta to improve working conditions

Three years after a pandemic chipped away at their ranks, an organizing group of CTA workers believe their management has left them behind.

reema saleh...........................................11 public meetings report

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level

scott pemberton and documenters............ 14 promontory point safety addressed at 5th ward town hall

Ald. Yancy said more bike racks are coming and that he will explore measures to prevent cars from entering the park.

michael liptrot, hyde park herald....15 the exchange

The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours

chima ikoro, darrion benson....................18 crossword: south side bus tracker

jim daley..................................................20 changes coming to metra’s fare structure and schedules

Pending approval, the 2024 budget will simplify the ten-zone structure to four zones, and include more frequent service during non-peak hours.

francisco ramírez pinedo.....................21 calendar

Bulletin and events

zoe pharo................................................23

OPINION

Op-Ed: Anywhere From Anywhere

An essay on getting around in Chicago, in conversation with South Side poetic luminaries

BY JASMINE BARNES

F

ive years ago, when I moved to Chicago from Houston, I rode the Brown Line train twenty-four stops from my apartment in Albany Park to the last stop in the heart of downtown, feeling starry-eyed for the L. I would often romanticize the journey, reading and writing poetry as I watched the city fly by though the train car window.

Coming from a place with virtually no public transportation system to a major city like Chicago, I saw the train as a symbol for the kind of serendipity that inspires great art and shapes culture.

During my first year in Chicago, I grappled with my decision to bring my car with me when I moved to the far northwest corner of the city. There would be weeks at a time when my car would go unused because the train and bus were sufficient.

But the city quickly became insular. While I could access groceries, entertainment, my workspace, and more with relative ease, I found myself mainly connecting with people in a five-mile radius of where I lived because traveling to neighborhoods on other sides of the city was time consuming and difficult. I learned that someone benignly asking what neighborhood I live in was actually a coded way to determine the possibility of us sustaining any kind of relationship. This resulted in the deeply uncomfortable experience of living a life that was mostly void of Black folks.

Iconic South Side writer Lorainne Hansberry once perfectly encapsulated my own complex feelings about the city: “Chicago continues [to] fascinate, frighten, charm, and offend me.”

When I moved to the South Side the year before the start of the COVID-19

pandemic, having a car suddenly felt like a necessity. As a current Woodlawn resident whose work and relationships pull me to every corner of the city, I’m constantly shifting modes of transportation, sometimes biking, driving, taking the bus and elevated trains, all in the span of a week.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) was created in 1947 and is the same institution that manages the public transportation systems we use today.

In the late 1940s, as many cities across

transit subway systems,” Hughes wrote.

“Chicago is as large, but it has only street cars, elevated trains, buses, and the I.C. [Illinois Central] railroad. To get anywhere from anywhere, you have to change at least once or twice and it takes a long time.”

When looking at a map of Chicago, it’s clear that the infrastructure of the city was designed to funnel people into its downtown, not to make access between and within neighborhoods easier. As South Side Weekly’s Alma Campos and Chima Ikoro

When looking at a map of Chicago, it’s clear that the infrastructure of the city was designed to funnel people into its downtown, not to create access between and within neighborhoods easier. the United States were industrializing and modernizing, Chicago’s lack of an interconnected subway system remained a notable barrier to its growth. Renowned American poet Langston Hughes penned an essay for the Chicago Defender in 1949 that critiqued just that. “Paris, London, New York and Buenos Aires have rapid

4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

put it in WTTW’s Firsthand: Segregation series, “Chicago’s continued segregation rests not only on policy, but on the physical barriers that enforce dividing lines to this day. The idea to separate people by race or class has persisted and has seeped into this city’s built environment.”

The reality of switching between

modes of transportation and experiencing extreme delays not only persists but has increased exponentially since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly plaguing public transit users on the South Side. A new volunteer-led initiative called Ghost Bus project was created in response to the growing trends of buses appearing on transit apps but never arriving in real life, leaving travelers stranded for extended periods of time. The tracking project allows individuals using public transit in Chicago to report instances of delayed and missing buses as a way to inform other commuters and provide data to city leaders about the impacts of CTA staff shortages. Perhaps the most frustrating part of this phenomena is the CTA’s refusal to acknowledge that it doesn’t have enough bus and train operators to provide all its scheduled services.

Influential Black writers like Hughes, Hansberry, and Gwendolyn Brooks speak to the wonderfully rich, but also challenging and restrictive experience of living on the South Side of the city in what were then, and largely still are, majority Black neighborhoods. The city’s longstanding legacy of segregation stands out amongst other more integrated metropolises, such as New York City, whose transportation system has challenges but isn’t as steeped in segregation. Famously, during Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1966 visit to Chicago, he publicly referred to the city as a “closed society.” The disparate and disconnected public transportation system continues to support his assessment.

Some of the most utilized buses, many of which serve South Side residents, are also some of the least reliable and most likely to have ghost buses. Per Ghost Bus data, the

TRANSPORTATION

62nd and Archer bus, 63rd street bus, and 9 Ashland Express bus service around 6,000, 7,000, and 10,000 Chicagoans a week, respectively, and one in every five weekday buses on each of these lines ghosts CTA riders. That’s a twenty percent chance on any given day that the bus scheduled to pick you up on one of these lines will not arrive.

This kind of neglect and oversight isn’t just inconvenient, it creates unreasonable barriers for folks who may already have to take two or three modes of transportation one way to simply get groceries or take their children to school.

Innovative ideas and interventions around transportation help address the symptoms of the problems Hughes noted nearly eighty years ago, but they don’t quite address the root causes: structural segregation and inequity. We can see this most clearly in the unrealized vision of a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system on Ashland avenue that would have helped connect the North and South Sides, and the long-fought battle to extend the CTA’s Red Line which is only coming to fruition through financial intervention from the federal government and redistributed TIF funds. Both the abandoned BRT plan and the hard won journey to an extended Red Line are indicative of the uphill battle that’s still being fought for truly accessible transportation in Chicago’s most disinvested communities.

While efforts to hold the CTA accountable and advocate for better transportation have continued to hold strong over the decades, many marginalized folks have turned to mutual aid and community care to address many of the city’s oversights. My weeks are often mapped around intentional carpooling, splitting the costs of rideshares and timing evening trips on public transportation

so friends, especially those who may be vulnerable to assault and harassment, aren’t riding alone.

For Chicago to transform its legacy of inaccessibility for South Siders, it must start by taking accountability for decades-long racial segregation and the disparate impacts of unreliable and inefficient transportation.

Public transportation in its highest form not only allows for efficient, safe commutes but invites cultural cross-pollination and exposure. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the bus humanizes us in ways that our city and society urgently need as we move further into the twenty-first century.

Gwendolyn Brooks, a poetic giant who spent virtually her entire life on the South Side, shared in a 1960s interview, “I feel now that it was better for me to have grown up in Chicago because in my writing I am proud to feature people and their concerns—their troubles as well as their joys. The city is the place to observe man en masse and in his infinite variety.”

Public transportation has the potential to encourage this encountering of difference; to bridge separation and shrink current disparities. The starry-eyed romanticism I had when first riding the L years ago is a kind warm swell of emotion that should be available to everyone traversing the city.

Brooks called Chicago her “forever,” and I believe Chicago can warrant that kind of devotion from all of its citizens if it chooses to devote itself to them in policy and practice. Jasmine is a writer and space maker based in Woodlawn with a deep commitment to relational healing and creative self expression. As a self-identified “disciple of joy,” she brings a deep curiosity to all aspects of her life.

Ghost Trains and Buses and Few Transit Options Haunt Hegewisch Commuters The Hegewisch neighborhood, which already has very few public transit options, is one of many haunted by ghost trains in which transit trackers will continually state a false arrival time.

BY KELLY RAPPAPORT

R

esidents across the Southeast Side are all too familiar with the promise of a train or bus that never comes. Between unreliable schedules, insufficient routes, and ghost trains and buses, for many people in the 10th Ward commuting is a struggle. For those who rely on public transit, these issues can lead to safety risks and make it difficult to keep a job.

Insufficient public transit can have a disproportionate effect on unhoused people, according to Arnold Bradford, the executive director of Crossroads Collaborative, a community advocacy group focused on issues related to transportation and planning.

He recalled a young unhoused man he knew who was trying to find a job and support his child. Bradford said the man got the opportunity to interview with CRRC Sifang America, a company that manufactures rail cars for the CTA in Hegewisch.

“He finally got a [route] 30 bus, which was late of course. He got off [the bus], he couldn’t get to the [company] because there’s a railroad track there,” Bradford said.

“So he had to take a Pace bus, gets off of that

Pace bus, then he has to transfer to another Pace bus going in the opposite direction toward the plant…so he finally figured it out. After all these transfers, you lose your time. He gets to the plant gate and he has to walk half a mile to the building down a dirt road. When he finally gets there, he’s a half hour late.”

Bradford said the man was told his interview time was over, and he would have to reschedule. “A desperate man, and this is what happens because of the bus.”

Hegewisch, sixteen miles southeast of the Loop, was home to Eastern European immigrants who worked in the community’s many steel mills in the early 20th century. Its population is now about one-third white, one-third Latinx, and one-third Black. While many of the steel mills have closed or moved, Hegewisch remains surrounded by railways and surrounded by heavy industry, including the Ford Motor Company’s oldest automobile plant. The neighborhood is home to many well-frequented businesses: Chicago Pita Kitchen, Steve’s Lounge, and Baltimore Food and Liquors (formerly known as Drago’s), home to famous marinated shish kabobs.

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

TRANSPORTATION But south of these staples near the intersection of Avenue O and South Brainard Avenue, the South Shore Line’s Hegewisch station is a skeleton of a building: structurally sound, but gutted.

An automated voice chimes at the station, “Passengers may encounter a delay of ten to fifteen minutes.” The sound echoes against the off-white walls and burnt red tile. After fifteen minutes, the voice plays again.

Hegewisch is one of many neighborhoods in the Southeast Side haunted by “ghost trains,” a term coined to describe trains that transit trackers say are coming, but don’t arrive. A tracker might say an arrival is due in ten minutes, but after ten minutes, the timer on the tracker resets.

Every two weeks, in-home caretaker Ana Buda, who is seventy-two, sits on a bench at the Hegewisch station and waits for her train home after work. As a recent immigrant from Ukraine, she does not have a driver’s license, much less a car.

Although she works in Hegewisch, her home is actually in Belmont Cragin on the Northwest Side. The trip is about fortyfive minutes by car. Buda said it takes her almost three hours to go one-way via public transit. The South Shore train will take her to Millennium Station, where she will catch a bus to the nearest CTA Blue Line station and a train home.

That time doesn’t even factor in travel for errands and necessities.“I was going to an appointment for a shot for my osteoporosis at 12pm, and I did not get back until 10pm,” she said. The woman Buda takes care of was left alone for longer than anticipated so she said she had to ask a neighbor to stay with her. For residents without cars, which the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) estimates is around 11.7 percent of Hegewisch, there can be no other option to get around.

Bradford said former 10th Ward Alderwoman Susan Sadlowski-Garza shares his frustration and has tried for years to improve Hegewisch’s public transportation. “If she can’t move the CTA, who can?”

Garza criticized the CTA, and specifically CTA President Dorval R. Carter Jr., who hasn’t shown up to past City Council hearings about South Side public transit. “CTA has not been at the forefront of transparency,” Garza said. “I’d like to see the CTA run more buses and have a more cohesive schedule with some stability, so

The #30 South Chicago bus makes a stop in front of the Hegewisch South Shore station in the Hegewisch neighborhood.

PHOTO BY ALMA CAMPOS

people know if they’re going to catch a bus, it’s going to be there.”

A recent investigation by Block Club Chicago found that despite years of unreliable and unsafe service, Carter’s salary has continued to climb by tens of thousands of dollars every six months.

Another major transit issue is sporadic scheduling, which often leaves South Siders stranded downtown for long periods of time. “If I got done with meetings at 12:15pm, I would have to wait until three o’clock to catch the [Metra] train, because there was nothing coming back down

130th Street, running on the west side of Hegewisch. “This historic investment will finally provide affordable access to historically underserved and predominantly African-American people on the far South Side—benefitting not only residents and businesses south of 95th Street but also finally connecting that community by rail with the rest of the city,” the CTA wrote.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2026 and estimated to finish in 2029.

“I think it’s huge, it’s giving people more access,” Garza said. “But where the station is gonna be, people in Hegewisch

“If there’s no public transportation after a [certain] time, people can’t get to work, and the customers can’t get to a business.”

“Transportation controls everything.”

– Arthur Larson south,” Garza said. “Back when I was a kid, they would go every fifteen minutes.”

South Shore Line train rider Arthur Larson, eighty-two, said the infrequency of Hegewisch trains and buses is particularly bad in the evenings. “If there’s no public transportation after a [certain] time, people can’t get to work, and customers can’t get to a business,” Larson said. “Transportation controls everything.”

While the CTA declined an interview, they responded via email to an inquiry regarding the Red Line extension, which will extend the Red Line as far south as

6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

have no way to get to the station. There are no buses that run east-west.”

Although the proposed station would be close to Hegewisch residents, it would be located on the opposite side of I-94, making it difficult to access on foot.

Peter Chico, the 10th Ward’s new Alderperson, did not respond to questions from the Weekly about his plans to address few transit options, ghost buses and trains, and his thoughts about the Red Line Extension.

And for the next six years or so, residents are stuck with the current public

transit system, which some still find difficult to access. Vanessa Schwartz, executive director of Metropolitan Family Services’ Southeast Chicago Center, said she is particularly concerned for residents living in Chicago’s only mobile home community, located in Hegewisch.

Schwartz said she has seen residents of the mobile home community walking upwards of two or three miles from the Hegewisch station back to their homes due to insufficient bus routes. “And there’s no sidewalks in that area, so that becomes pretty dangerous,” Schwartz said. “I’ve seen people at nighttime in the pitch black dark walking, and I’m thinking ‘Oh my God, if I didn’t see them, I could’ve run them over.’”

Another concern for Schwartz is the cost of train fare, which is $6.25 one-way to Millennium Station or $181.25 for a monthly pass on the South Shore Line, not including transfer costs. For comparison, the Metra Electric Line that goes through South Chicago costs $3 one-way from the station nearest to Hegewisch, and $100 monthly.

Some Southeast Side residents say they feel disconnected or even separate from the rest of the city, which Schwartz chalks up to a lack of investment. “I think because it is a Black and Brown community, it’s not given high priority,” Schwartz said.

But residents from all backgrounds say they feel the divestment in the area. George Tamvakis owns a law firm with offices in Hegewisch and the Loop, making frequent trips downtown. Between Hegewisch’s remote location and the lack of quality mass transit, Tamvakis said he doesn’t feel like Hegewisch is even part of Chicago.

“There are no city services here,” Tamvakis said. “We barely have a police car.”

Schwartz said most people— even Chicagoans—don’t know where Hegewisch is.

“Hegewisch is a really forgotten part of the city,” she said. “There are a lot of needs that go unfulfilled.” Kelly Rappaport is a student journalist at Northwestern University with experience in reporting, editing, graphic design, and photography. This is her first story for the Weekly.

TRANSPORTE

Trenes y autobuses ‘fantasma’ y pocas opciones de transporte para el lado sureste El barrio de Hegewisch, que ya cuenta con pocas opciones de transporte público, es uno de los vecindarios más afectados por trenes y autobuses infrecuentes, para los cuales los rastreadores de tránsito indican continuamente una hora de llegada que no se cumple.

POR KELLY RAPPAPORT TRADUCIDO POR ALMA CAMPOS

L

os residentes del lado sureste están demasiado familiarizados con la promesa de un tren o autobús que nunca llega. Entre horarios poco confiables, rutas insuficientes, y trenes y autobuses que no llegan, para muchos habitantes del Distrito 10, viajar por transporte público es un verdadero martirio. Para quienes dependen del transporte público, estos factores pueden provocar riesgos de seguridad y hacer difícil conservar un empleo.

Según Arnold Bradford, director ejecutivo de Crossroads Collaborative, un grupo de activistas de la comunidad enfocado en cuestiones relacionadas con el transporte y la planificación, la insuficiencia del transporte público puede tener un efecto desproporcionado en las personas sin vivienda estable.

Bradford recuerda el caso de un joven sin vivienda que intentaba encontrar trabajo y mantener a su hijo. Bradford dijo que el hombre tuvo la oportunidad de entrevistar con CRRC Sifang America, una empresa que fabrica vagones para la CTA en Hegewisch.

“Finalmente encontró un autobús [de la ruta] 30, que por supuesto llegaba tarde.

Se bajó [del autobús], no pudo llegar a la [empresa] porque hay una vía de ferrocarril allí”, dijo Bradford. “Así que tuvo que tomar un autobús Pace, se baja de ese autobús, luego tiene que hacer transbordo a otro autobús Pace que va en dirección contraria hacia la planta. Con todos estos transbordos, se va el tiempo. Llega a la puerta de la planta y tiene que caminar media milla hasta el edificio por un camino de tierra. Cuando por fin llega, es media hora tarde”.

Bradford dijo que cuando llegó a la compañía le dijeron que se le había acabado el tiempo de la entrevista y que tendría que cambiar la cita. “Un hombre desesperado, y esto es lo que pasa por culpa del autobús”.

Hegewisch, a dieciséis millas al sureste del centro de la ciudad, era el hogar de inmigrantes del este de Europa que trabajaban en las numerosas fábricas de acero de la comunidad a principios del siglo XX. Su población actual es de un tercio de blancos anglosajoes, un tercio de latinos y un tercio de negros.

retraso de diez a quince minutos”. El sonido resuena en las paredes blancas y azulejo rojo. A los quince minutos, la voz vuelve a sonar.

Hegewisch es uno de los muchos barrios del lado sureste de la ciudad que sufren el fenómeno de los “trenes fantasma”, un término creado para describir los trenes que, según los sistemas rastreadores de tráfico, están a punto de llegar, pero no llegan. Un localizador puede decir que un tren llegará en diez minutos, pero al cabo de diez minutos, el reloj del aparato se reinicia.

“Si no hay transporte público a partir de [cierta] hora, la gente no puede ir a trabajar, y los clientes no pueden llegar a un negocio. El transporte lo controla todo”. - Arthur Larson Aunque muchas de las acerías han cerrado o se han trasladado, Hegewisch sigue rodeado de vías de ferrocarril y de industria a gran escala, incluyendo la planta de automóviles más antigua: Ford Motor Company. El barrio cuenta con muchos negocios frecuentados: Chicago Pita Kitchen, Steve’s Lounge y Baltimore Food and Liquors (antes conocido como Drago' s), hogar de famosas brochetas.

Pero al sur de estos lugares, cerca de la avenida O y la avenida South Brainard, la estación de tren de la línea South Shore en Hegewisch es un edificio esquelético: estructuralmente sólido, pero vacío. Una voz automatizada anuncia en la estación: “Los pasajeros pueden experimentar un

Cada dos semanas, Ana Buda, una cuidadora a domicilio de setenta y dos años se sienta en una banca de la estación de Hegewisch y espera el tren para volver a casa después de trabajar. Recién llegada de Ucrania, no tiene permiso de conducir y mucho menos carro. Aunque trabaja en Hegewisch, vive en Belmont Cragin, en el lado noroeste.

El viaje dura unos cuarenta y cinco minutos en coche. Buda dice que tarda casi tres horas en ir de ida en transporte público.

El tren South Shore la llevará a la estación Millennium Station, donde podrá tomar un autobús a la estación más cercana de la línea azul de la CTA y volver a casa en tren.

Y eso sin contar los viajes para hacer

mandados y atender otras necesidades.

“Iba a una cita para ponerme una inyección contra la osteoporosis a las 12 de la tarde y no volví hasta las 10 de la noche”, explicó.

La mujer a la que cuida Buda se quedó sola más tiempo del anticipado, por lo que tuvo que pedirle a un vecino que se quedara con ella. Para los residentes sin carro, que según la Agencia Metropolitana de Planificación de Chicago (CMAP) son alrededor del 11.7% de la población de Hegewisch, no puede haber otra opción para moverse.

Bradford dijo que la ex concejala del Distrito 10, Susan Sadlowski-Garza, comparte su frustración y ha intentado durante años mejorar el transporte público de Hegewisch. “Si ella no puede hacer mover a la CTA, ¿quién puede?”.

Garza criticó a la CTA, y específicamente al presidente de la CTA, Dorval R. Carter Jr., que no se ha aparecido en las pasadas audiencias del Concejo Municipal sobre el transporte público y como afecta a residentes del sur de Chicago.

“La CTA no ha estado a la vanguardia de la transparencia”, dijo Garza. “Me gustaría ver a la CTA poner en marcha más autobuses y tener un horario más cohesivo con cierta estabilidad, para que la gente sepa que si van a tomar un autobús, va a llegar”.

Una reciente investigación de Block Club Chicago encontró que a pesar de años de servicio poco confiable e inseguro, el salario de Carter ha seguido aumentando por decenas de miles de dólares cada seis meses.

Otro problema importante son los horarios irregulares, que dejan a los residentes del sur de la ciudad sin poder llegar a casa desde el centro de Chicago por periodos largos. “Si termino mis reuniones

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

TRANSPORTE

a las 12:15pm, tengo que esperar hasta las 3pm para tomar el tren [Metra], porque no hay nada que vaya hacia el sur”, dijo Garza.

“Cuando era niña, [el tren] pasaban cada quince minutos”.

Arthur Larson, de ochenta y dos años, usuario del tren de la línea South Shore, dijo que la escasa frecuencia de los trenes y autobuses de Hegewisch es especialmente mala por las tardes. "Si no hay transporte público a partir de [cierta] hora, la gente no puede ir a trabajar, y los clientes no pueden llegar a un negocio”, dijo Larson.

“El transporte lo controla todo”.

Aunque la CTA se negó a conceder una entrevista, respondió por correo electrónico a una pregunta sobre la ampliación de la Línea Roja, que será extendida hasta el sur de la calle 130, pasando por el lado oeste de Hegewisch.

“Esta inversión histórica proporcionará por fin un acceso asequible a la población históricamente marginada y predominantemente afroamericana del lado sur beneficiando no sólo a los residentes y negocios al sur de la calle 95, sino también conectando por fin esa comunidad con el resto de la ciudad por ferrocarril”, escribió la CTA. Está previsto que la construcción comience en 2026 y finalice en 2029.

“Creo que es enorme, está dando a la gente más acceso”, dijo Garza. “Pero donde va a estar la estación, la gente de Hegewisch no tiene manera de llegar a la estación. No hay autobuses que circulen de este a oeste”.

Aunque la estación propuesta estaría cerca de los residentes de Hegewisch, estaría situada en el lado opuesto de la Interestatal 94, lo que dificultará el acceso a pie.

Peter Chico, el nuevo concejal del Distrito 10, no respondió a preguntas del Weekly sobre sus planes para hacer frente a las escasas opciones de transporte público, los trenes y autobuses fantasma y los planes sobre la ampliación de la línea roja.

Por los próximos seis años más o menos, los residentes están atrapados con el actual sistema de transporte público, que algunos todavía encuentran difícil de acceder. Vanessa Schwartz, directora ejecutiva de Metropolitan Family Services del lado sureste dijo que está especialmente preocupada por los residentes que viven en la única comunidad de casas móviles de Chicago, situada en Hegewisch.

Schwartz dijo que ha visto a residentes de la comunidad de casas móviles caminar más de dos o tres millas desde la estación de Hegewisch de regreso a sus hogares debido a la insuficiencia de rutas de autobús.

“Y no hay aceras en esa zona, así que eso es bastante peligroso”, dijo Schwartz.

“He visto a gente por la noche, en plena oscuridad caminando, y pienso: ‘Dios mío, si no los hubiera visto, podría haberlos atropellado’”.

Otra preocupación de Schwartz es el costo del tren, que es de $6.25 por viaje de ida a la estación Millennium o $181.25 por un pase mensual en la línea South Shore, sin incluir los costos de transbordo. En comparación, el tren de la línea eléctrica de Metra que pasa por el barrio de South Chicago cuesta $3.00 por viaje desde la estación más cercana a Hegewisch, y $100.00 dólares al mes.

Algunos residentes del lado sureste dicen sentirse desconectados o incluso separados del resto de la ciudad, lo que Schwartz atribuye a la falta de inversión.

“Creo que, por ser una comunidad negra y latina, no se le da prioridad”, afirma Schwartz.

Pero residentes de todas las procedencias dicen sentir la desinversión en la zona. George Tamvakis tiene un despacho de abogados con oficinas en Hegewisch y el centro de la ciudad. Entre la ubicación remota de Hegewisch y la falta de transporte público de calidad, Tamvakis dijo que ni siquiera siente que Hegewisch sea parte de Chicago.

“Aquí no hay servicios municipales”, afirmó Tamvakis. “Muy apenas tenemos una patrulla”.

Schwartz dijo que la mayoría de la gente, incluso los residentes de Chicago, no sabe dónde se encuentra el barrio de Hegewisch.

“Hegewisch es una parte realmente olvidada de la ciudad”, dijo. “Hay muchas necesidades que no se atienden”. Kelly Rappaport es una estudiante de periodismo de la Universidad Northwestern con experiencia en reportajes, edición, diseño gráfico y fotografía. Este es su primer reportaje para el Weekly.

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

South Side Cyclists Hopeful for Bike Infrastructure and Safety Improvements Will a new mayoral administration make strides on bike infrastructure on the South Side?

BY LUCIA WHALEN

O

n September 14, Mayor Brandon Johnson posted a video of himself riding a bicycle from his West Side home to City Hall with the caption “Good morning, Chicago! It’s a great day for a ride from Austin to the Hall. See you in City Council!”

Later that day he posted a photo of his ride, saying, “I took a slightly different commute today. The opportunity to ride from the West Side to the Loop is a special one. Bike safety is public safety, and I’m committed to improving biking and transit infrastructure, equitably, so that all Chicagoans can move around our city safely.”

While the mayor’s posts indicate the possibility of a greater focus on infrastructure from his administration, the reality for bikers on the South Side is more immediate. A week after Johnson’s post, seventy-five-year-old Ron Rodriguez was hit and badly injured by a vehicle in the unprotected intersection of 111th and Halsted while he was biking to his volunteer position at Pullman National Monument.

Rodriguez, a Little Village native currently residing in Oak Lawn who has been biking in a serious capacity for nearly thirty years, sustained full-body injuries resulting in two spinal fractures, eleven

stitches on his upper thigh, and bruising all over his body, including his head.

Rodriguez was wearing a multicolor jersey, bright yellow helmet, and military backpack the day of the accident, but like for many cyclists, even with protective gear, he said the possibility of a crash always lurked around each corner.

“You don’t know when it’s going to happen, but you know you’re going to have an incident, he said. “You know you’re going to have motorists at a four-way intersection not giving you time to go through. You become a car crossing an intersection,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez’s experience is not uncommon. Unfortunately, for cyclists all over the city—but especially on Chicago’s far South Side, where bike lane infrastructure is still sorely lacking—the decision to bike can be treacherous.

A recent analysis by nonprofit PeopleForBikes found Chicago to be one of the least bikeable cities in the world, ranking 1,616 out of 1,733. The report rated the quality of a city’s bike network, with factors including safe speeds for bikes and cars to mix, protected bike lanes, and intersection treatments such as traffic signals and crossing islands. A snapshot of Chicago’s interactive map is overwhelmingly red, indicating high-stress bike conditions in

TRANSPORTATION

Cody Cynoweth and Aren Ciminillo program managers of blackstone bike works.

PHOTO BY BRITTANY SOWACKE

almost all parts of the city. A 2020 report by the Active Transportation Alliance noted that a pedestrian or bicyclist was killed every third day in the Chicago region, defined as Cook, DuPage, Lake, McHenry, Kane, Kendall, and Will Counties.

Bike groups on Chicago’s South Side have long been working to get people out and cycling together, while simultaneously pushing the city to install better infrastructure. Bike safety advocate Deloris Lucas has been organizing group rides in her neighborhood of Riverdale since 2015, when she founded We Keep You Rollin’ Bike and Wellness Group. In addition to promoting biking and a more sustainable community, the group educates residents on the importance of wearing safety gear.

Lucas has spent the past four years advocating for the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) to install a bike path on 130th St.. The proposed trail would provide unbroken sidewalk and bike lanes for residents and could also connect street lanes to more established trails, like the Cal-Sag and Major Taylor trails.

A former CPS teacher who served as the far South Side representative to former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Bicycle Advisory Council, Lucas expressed frustration at the slow rate of infrastructure improvement she’s seen. Lightfoot’s administration released a “vision” for a citywide network of trails and corridors that included Riverdale in March 2022. Now, Lucas

pedestrian infrastructure through the establishment of a Chicago Bike and Walk Fund.”

Some of the transition report’s longterm recommendations are to improve walkable and bikeable connections between neighborhoods, implement a connected citywide network of protected bike lanes, and improve safety and access to the lakefront trails and parks.

This spring, CDOT released the “Chicago Cycling Strategy,” which outlines the department’s plan to expand Chicago’s bike network and increase low-stress biking options (such as neighborhood greenways, protected bike lanes, and off-trail streets).

The department has a list of completed and upcoming 2023 bikeway installations that would add or improve 63.25 miles of bike lanes in the city, and as part of the Bike Chicago plan, CDOT has committed

The creation of improved bike lane infrastructure and safety on the South Side is about more than just health and wellness; it’s an issue of equity and justice. said she’s concerned about the time it will take to reintroduce these plans to the new administration.

“We need someone to champion our project to the mayor. There is very little biking infrastructure installed in my community. We deserve a trail out here just like any other part of the city. We’ve been overlooked, we’re isolated, and we’ve been underserved,” she said. “There’s a lot of goodness out here; we want to be uplifted, and hopefully this bike path will be the thing to uplift us.”

Johnson has expressed his commitment to prioritizing bike safety, even taking part in Active Transportation Alliance’s annual Bike the Drive event. In his 2023 Mayoral Transition Report, where environmental justice was highlighted as one of eleven key policy areas, the mayor’s transition team recommended the city “provide dedicated and sustainable funding for bicycle and

to distributing 5,000 bikes to Chicago residents by 2026. Johnson has not yet appointed a CDOT commissioner to replace Gia Biagi, who stepped down in August.

We Keep You Rollin’ is ready to keep the pressure up; on October 21, it will host a group ride and take part in the Lake Calumet Bike Network Study. The route will go through the proposed 130th Street Sidepath to the Major Taylor Trail, with the ultimate goal of advocating for CDOT’s installation of protected bike lanes on the 130th Street Sidepath.

The creation of improved bike lane infrastructure and safety on the South Side is about more than just health and wellness; it’s an issue of equity and justice. A 2021 study in Transportation Research found that on average, Chicago’s predominantly white neighborhoods had fifty percent more bike lanes than predominantly Black neighborhoods.

The study, which investigated the connection between deficiencies in transportation and disproportionate policing in Chicago neighborhoods, also found that from 2017 to 2019, cyclists in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods were eight times as likely to be ticketed by police as those riding in white neighborhoods.

Many of those tickets would not have been issued if protected bike lanes—which are “disproportionately absent” from Black

PHOTO BY BRITTANY SOWACKE

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

TRANSPORTATION

Protesters at Daley Plaza on Friday, September 29.

and Latino neighborhoods—had been available, the researchers found.

Black residents on the South Side who participated in the study’s focus groups expressed frustration with getting ticketed when there was no safe alternative to the sidewalk.

W

hen bike infrastructure is lacking, residents face another barrier in their ability to access resources such as grocery stores. The lack of bike infrastructure on the South Side can exacerbate existing problems, such as food deserts, as a result.

At Blackstone Bicycle Works in Woodlawn,these issues go hand in hand.The shop, located at the Experimental Station (where the Weekly’s office is also located), offers fall and summer programming to youth that includes instruction on how to build and fix bikes, along with instruction on bike safety protocol. The program exposes youth to bicycling as a career pathway, providing valuable skills that can be applied to work in the biking industry. Because the Experimental Station also functions as a hub for sustainable food systems and fresh food accessibility, Blackstone’s programs include modules related to urban agriculture, along with academic counseling.

Aren Chynoweth and Cody

PHOTO BY BRITTANY SOWACKE

Ciminillo, both program managers at Blackstone Bicycle Works who lead the youth bicycle programs, say that they see a direct connection between food justice and infrastructure issues, and the way in which getting access to a bike is a means of freedom and independence for the youth they work with.

“When I was biking [as a kid], it was just about doing tricks or going faster.

But all of these kids just want baskets [installed],” Chynoweth said. “The young ones, the old ones, they just want to put baskets on their bike because it is a means of travel that is very serious to them.”

Ciminillo jumped in to explain the concept of the “grocery getter,” or a “beater” bike with baskets that can be used to run errands. However, the lack of bike lanes on the South Side makes that a challenge.

The shop places a huge emphasis on educating youth on bike safety, in part due to the hazardous nature of street riding in Hyde Park, which currently only has three bike lanes. Woodlawn also has three.

Chynoweth and Ciminillo work to develop safe riding routes for youth, along with driving home the critical importance of wearing a bike helmet, which can be a challenging concept to convince teenagers of. They take the task of safety education extremely seriously in their program, and they draw upon their own experiences of

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

collisions to stress the seriousness to their students.

“I have been hit four or five times,” Chynoweth said. “You’re almost used to it at that point. And that’s the worst part.

You should never get used to a steel vehicle running into you.”

“It’s a super serious issue because of where we are,” Ciminillo said. “If there were protected bike lanes everywhere, we wouldn’t have to stress how we’ve been hurt or hit by cars. But because of the reality [of riding] in the city, and especially the South Side, it’s a dire situation.”

Chynoweth and Ciminillo said they hope to increase advocacy efforts at Blackstone in order to push for better infrastructure. They both take part in bike rides through Critical Mass, a large groupbicycling event that takes place the last Friday of every month, and Bike Grid Now, a grassroots campaign advocating for ten percent of Chicago streets to be prioritized for pedestrians and cyclists.

They also hope to see permanent representation for bikers in the mayor’s office.

Groups like We Keep You Rollin’, Critical Mass, and Bike Grid Now all serve to empower individuals to get out and bike with the protection of a group ride.

However, without the city taking enough action to create safe, protected bike lanes in abundance throughout the city, Chicago

likely won’t see increased numbers of people outside biking.

“It’s a known fact that if it’s safe for people to ride bikes, they are going to because it’s usually a better option,” Ciminillo said. “So we need to get out there and push the city to make decisions that give us the safety we need to get around, to get things as simple as groceries.”

For individuals currently interested in increasing their safety while riding, Active Transportation Alliance provides educational resources online, including updates on trail conditions via social media and crash support resources for people who have been hit while riding.

As for Rodriguez, his injuries have forced him to take a break from cycling until the spring. While the accident has made him more cautious, he is undeterred.

“You have to realize you’re not invincible, but if you put fear into your mind, you’re never going to get onto your bike,” he said.

“You have two choices: you can give up or continue on.”

Wear a helmet, he emphasized. Lucia Whalen is a writer and multimedia journalist focused on health, science, and the environment; she is also a cofounder of Trashy Magazine. She last wrote about farmers markets during COVID for the Weekly. You can find her at @whalenlucia.

PHOTO BY BRITTANY SOWACKE

LABOR

CTA Workers Put Pressure on Agency to Improve Working Conditions Three years after a pandemic chipped away at their ranks, an organizing group of Chicago Transit Authority workers believe their management has left them behind.

BY REEMA SALEH

E

ric Basir started working at the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) five years ago. When he was younger, he wanted to become a rail operator, and he came in through an entrylevel position. He loved interacting with riders and coworkers while he worked his way to becoming a rail operator and, eventually, a train mechanic. But now, he sees his time at the CTA differently: as a series of jobs full of burnout, hazardous conditions, and mismanagement.

“The CTA has been saving money hand over fist, cutting back on labor, quadrupling productivity.…It’s a superhuman ability of these train operators, what they’re doing now,” Basir said. “I always wanted to be a motorman ever since I was little. But I grew up when there were conductors [and] twoperson crews. They’re undergoing so much mental [and] physical trauma. “They say this is the most hated job—train operators.

And it’s highly exploitative.”

Basir first came to the CTA as a customer service assistant before becoming a flagger working alongside rail operators to signal the way for passing trains. After five years, he now works as a mechanic, fixing trains. He also serves as a union steward with Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 308, the union representing rail operators and other CTA workers.

(Bus drivers have a separate local number, 241.) As a union steward, he volunteers to assist other workers with any questions or problems with CTA, advocates on their behalf, and served as a delegate to the larger Amalgamated Transit Union last year.

In 2019, he and other CTA workers formed the Chicago Transit Justice Coalition to empower fellow workers and hold union leadership accountable. Basir says the group was initially developed to

Workers and riders protested unfair working conditions at an off-the-clock protest outside the Blue Line's Forest Park terminal in July..

PHOTO BY REEMA SALEH

empower part-time workers in Local 308, who had to pay full dues to the union despite not receiving full employment benefits.

“The inequities and the low wages are just too much for our part-time workers.

So it started because we were promoting a revision to the bylaws of our ATU Local 308 to establish a fifty percent [due] for all part-time work,” Basir said.

The coalition emerged that December as it began drawing attention to labor grievances and calling for massive reforms to the way CTA runs. They began uniting with bus drivers in Local 241. The Justice Coalition is not a union or an officially recognized representative body. While Basir is a union steward with Local 308, he and the Justice Coalition do not represent the union’s positions. The group does not hold strikes, relying on off-the-clock protests or social media to get their message out.

With the onset of the pandemic, their organizing expanded to address more

issues, including worker safety and hazard pay.

“As the first wave hit, we organized meetings among bus and rail workers to establish a campaign to fight for hazard pay,” Basir said. “No punishment, no discipline, paid time off for all the workers who were getting sick and establishing what we call mass virtual membership meetings so that we could plan actions and force the CTA, the state, and federal government to ensure our safety and our job security.”

COVID-19 brought on new challenges for the CTA, which is currently dealing with one of its greatest employee shortages in recent history. Like other transit systems across the country, the pandemic sparked a transit workforce shortage that Chicago is still experiencing. Overtime has become much more common. Last year, a WTTW analysis found that nearly fourteen percent of workers were working an average of fifty hours or more a week and that some

employees were working over eighty hours a week.

“People are quitting, people are resigning, people are retiring early,” said one CTA worker who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation. The worker said some employees are retiring early to collect disability benefits instead of staying until retirement age and a higher pension value.

“People are running for the hills.”

Public transit has changed tremendously since the pandemic, and lagging service has become commonplace.

Following the CTA’s optimization of services, Chicagoans have seen a more than twenty percent cut on rail and a thirteen percent cut on bus service compared to 2020, the norm according to the transit activist group Commuters Take Action. Organizer Brandon McFadden, who independently analyzes system-wide data, found there is still slight unreliability in the service that the CTA has been able to deliver.

“Until the CTA improves working conditions for CTA employees, we’re not going to make any progress on hiring. It’s just that simple,” said McFadden at a rider’s protest last week calling for CTA President Dorval Carter’s removal. “They still rely on operators to build extra time and overwork their schedules beyond what a normal fortyhour work week looks like. You can’t rely on people to bend over every single week and overwork themselves just to run the minimum schedule that you think you can.”

Bus operator Aundra Thompson has worked at the CTA for over thirty years. He organizes with the Justice Coalition partly because the runs that the CTA schedules have become less realistic over time.

“It's a manpower problem because people are not attracted to want to work here,” Thompson said. He believes that is

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

LABOR one of the major reasons behind service unreliability—what some commuters have called “ghost buses”—a problem that has persisted even after the CTA cut scheduled services to try to address it.

Since launching its Meeting the Moment Plan last year, the CTA has created a public data portal to monitor its progress toward delivering reliable service, enhancing safety and security, and investing in employees.

“We’ve made noticeable improvements to virtually every aspect of our riders’ experience,” Carter said this August in a statement. “And while we are encouraged by the progress we’ve seen since implementing a variety of new initiatives, we know there’s still more work to be done.”

The CTA has characterized its closures of service gaps as “schedule optimization,” but transit advocacy groups like Commuters Take Action and the Active Transportation Alliance have criticized that as overworking employees. Making those runs with ongoing staff shortages has come with a personal cost for some workers.

“They don’t have the manpower that they need to provide all of those time slots for those buses that you see on the schedule.…Those runs can’t go out without a driver,” Thompson added. “It’s just scattered through the city, of runs that's not supposed to be out there but was already paid for to be out there by the public.”

With fewer bus operators clocking in compared to before the pandemic, routes are scheduled to be faster, leaving less room for breaks or recovery time at the end of them.

“At the end of the line, they have what’s called recovery time. That’s the amount of time that the bus sits before it heads back out. Over the years, CTA has been dwindling that recovery time. They even got some routes in our garage where you only get three minutes,” said one worker who requested anonymity. “And then when you get to the end of the line, you only got three minutes to use the bathroom, stretch your legs. You need more than three minutes. And CTA has done that with a lot of the routes that we have. They have tried to squeeze more work out of the worker and eliminate more of your break time.”

In an email, CTA spokesperson Kathleen Woodruff wrote, “There were a few routes that saw average layover times decrease as part of recent schedule optimization efforts. However, overall

Data is through August 2023. Source: RTAMS.

Data is through August 2023, including Combined Rail Operators, Rapid Transit Operators, Extra Board, Switch Workers, Tower Workers, and Flaggers. Source: RTAMS

and systemwide, the average layover time increased.” According to documents obtained by the Chicago Reader, current recovery periods last around five or six minutes or occasionally less when they used to last fifteen to twenty.

Thompson said this has meant shortening the time CTA workers have between shifts and adding more stress to the job.

“Sometimes the operators are forced to mess the schedule up because they need more than four minutes. With CTA, it used to be twenty to thirty minutes at the end of the line,” Thompson said. “What CTA said is, instead of getting four trips out of the worker, we’re going to get five or six trips out of them and give him the same amount of time.”

The pandemic catalyzed worker

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

departures, and its aftereffects on the transit workforce have lingered. The CTA has cited an aging workforce and nationwide transit operator shortage as contributing to a mass workforce decline. Last year, a survey by the American Public Transportation Association found that ninety-six percent of transit agencies were having workforce challenges, and eighty-four percent reported that their staffing shortages were impacting service.

“During the pandemic, the CTA workforce was revealed to have had many preexisting conditions or underlying health effects that would have made them susceptible to contracting COVID. If they did, they would have had a very difficult time getting through it,” said P.S. Sriraj, the director of UIC’s Urban Transportation Center. But in addition to the hits the

workforce took from the pandemic, Sriraj said the decline “has been years in the making” because of growing opportunities for operators to find better work environments and higher pay elsewhere.

While the CTA has made progress toward filling the nearly 1,000 vacancies Carter said the pandemic left in its wake, workforce has a long way to go before it has fully rebounded. An analysis by the Weekly of publicly available data from the Regional Transportation Authority, the Illinois agency overseeing CTA, Metra, and Pace, shows that as of August the number of CTA bus operators and rail operators (including operators and flaggers) were still down by fifteen percent and sixteen percent, respectively, compared to 2019.

“It becomes a very vicious cycle. If you do not have enough operators, then you’re unable to provide service...but you’re still obligated to provide the same frequency of service in order to attract the riders back,” Sriraj said. “If you don't have the operators, then you put up a schedule, and it doesn’t show up in reality. Then people start worrying about the reliability of the service.”

Workers with the Justice Coalition argue the staffing shortage is to the detriment of workers themselves, who bear the brunt of the losses. But they also say poor workforce conditions predate the pandemic.

Last December, the Justice Coalition held an off-the-clock demonstration focused on Second Chance Program participants. The CTA's Second Chance Program reserves job opportunities for prospective employees with criminal records or other barriers to entering the workforce.

That day, the Chicago Transit Justice Coalition protested CTA management for poor working conditions and a lack of full benefits for program participants.

“It's a second-class program. They got these poor people in our rail yards, walking around cleaning trains out in the railyard,” Basir said.

The CTA says that since 2011, the Second Chance Program has hired over 2,000 justice-system-involved people, 550 into permanent positions. It opens doors into the agency by partnering with reentry programs by many of Chicago's social service organizations, helping people overcome employment barriers, like past involvement with the justice system, surviving abuse or domestic violence, or housing insecurities. It lasts up to a year

LABOR and offers full-time work and training to fully enter the workforce. But some workers argue that the program is letting its participants down on pay and benefits.

“The CTA is in a position to create better pathways, jobs with better benefits.

But for whatever reason or another, they still have these minimum-wage jobs....These people that come in the Second Chance Program make $15.40 [now $15.80], are cleaning the buses, and they clean the buses overnight. They don't clean the buses during the day,” said a CTA worker who preferred to remain anonymous. “And they're dealing with chemicals all day long.

They get no benefits. No health care, no dental, no vision.”

With no guarantee of future work, some graduates of the program were left disappointed. After completing the Second Chance Program and being unable to find a permanent job at the CTA, one employee told the Reader, “You know what happens when you graduate from the Second Chance Program? You graduate to the unemployment line.”

In her email, Woodruff wrote that the CTA doesn’t “have a mechanism to track graduates who find employment outside of CTA,” but that they have “heard from employees and social service organizations” that “many have gone on to work in the private sector and have been successful in other career paths.”

For Thompson, the Second Chance Program creates divisions among CTA workers, especially when Second Chance Program participants are doing work comparable to those making higher wages at the CTA. “All this is creating stress. All these tiers of workers are doing the same job,” Thompson said. “How do you think they feel standing next to another guy making $40 an hour, and they’re not making enough? They’re pitting workers against each other. It's creating more stress among all workers.”

In February, members of Chicago Transit Justice protested outside the Jefferson Park Transit Center, calling for better working conditions and accountable leadership. On July 14, the Chicago Transit Justice Coalition protested outside the CTA Blue Line's Forest Park terminal.

Joined by Commuters Take Action, Chicago Democratic Socialists of America, and other organizations, workers shared stories of alleged wrongful termination

and called attention to the CTA contract, which is expiring at the end of the year.

T

hough it took place years before she began working at the CTA, Kathryn Strzelecki, a switcher for thirty-four years, still remembers Chicago’s last transit strike in 1979. Local 241 and Local 308 held a three-day strike as both bus and rail operators walked off the job to demand a higher cost-of-living adjustment from the city.

Strzelecki, who retired in 2018 and spends her free time organizing with the Transit Justice Coalition, says conditions have gotten bad in recent years. “We are working under stress and wages that don’t keep up with the cost of living. It used to be a good blue-collar job, where you could buy a home, you could send your kids to school, you could take vacations. But it’s not that kind of job anymore,” she said. “It’s not an entryway into the middle class for bluecollar workers.”

Five years after the 1979 strike, Illinois enacted the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act, which prevents public safety workers like police officers, firefighters, and paramedics from striking. While other public employees can strike under certain conditions, current and past collective bargaining agreements between the CTA and Local 241 and Local 308 outlaw striking in favor of interest arbitration.

Since Local 241 represents bus operators separately from other workers in Local 308, negotiations happen separately, even though their interests often align.

CTA employees can often work months or even years without a contract while it is being negotiated, and receive concessions for past work retroactively.

From 2016 to 2018, CTA workers worked without a contract. In the middle of those two years of negotiations, Local 308 voted to authorize a strike, while the CTA maintained that the union did not have the right to strike in the first place. The current contract covers 2020 to the year’s end but was approved in 2022. For Strzelecki, this arbitration process has lost Locals 241 and 308 much of their bargaining power.

“Even when I started in 1984, people used to say, ‘It’s the union and the CTA against the membership.’ When you look at the contract, the CTA has always won,” Strzelecki said. “The union leadership, anywhere, not just at the ATU—you can’t talk your way into a good contract. If you’re

not threatening to strike or actually going on strike, the bosses are gonna do what they want to do.”

This summer, in response to Mayor Brandon Johnson's 2023 transition report, the Chicago Transit Justice Coalition issued a list of goals for reforming the CTA, including eliminating part-time jobs, expanding two-person crews, and investing in workers and facilities.

Since February 2022, bus operators have been recruited directly into fulltime service. Rail operators aren’t. Before becoming a rail operator, entry-level employees must work as flaggers—a full time temporary job, which CTA says can take six months to a year to be promoted to a permanent position in the rail division.

According to some employees, parttime employees working in train stations, cleaning, or customer service are stuck in this cycle.

Woodruff wrote that it’s the collective bargaining agreement “between the CTA and its unions—not a CTA policy—that determines the pick process, as well as the creation of full- and part-time positions.”

Thompson believes that this cycle of part-time work is making life worse for workers, especially for the CTA's majorityBlack workforce, which comprised nearly seventy percent of all CTA employees in 2021.

“How could anybody get out of poverty working for CTA?” he said. “They come to work because they think it's a good job and they really needed a job, but that's not helping them get out of poverty.”

Another proposal the Justice Coalition is pushing forward is a call for two-person crews—a shift from a sole driver operating the train and handling issues in the cars.

“You cannot fulfill your duties as a train operator. You can't by yourself.

It's impossible to maintain on-time performance,” Basir said. “You're putting out fires. You're dealing with customers that have lost and found items, you need directions, fights, people overdosing, people having heart attacks, people jumping off the track. You got workers doing work on the side of the track.”

With two-person crews, a second conductor opens doors, checks for safety issues and handles anything that comes up along the way. Now, a conductor does both jobs. Two-person crews was a practice that CTA ended over two decades ago, but bringing back a second conductor as

a new set of eyes and ears is something that Basir believes is the key to keeping rail conductors focused on driving and passengers safe from harm.

“It used to be two people operating the train.…It's too stressful for one person to operate an eight-car train and have to do everything, plus drive the train,” Thompson said.

Some critics argue that two-person crews do not increase safety, and could exacerbate existing workforce shortages.

But the Justice Coalition's members say that two-person crews would decrease worker fatigue and enable conductors to watch for safety issues or passenger disruptions in the cars.

Thompson also drew attention to other issues at the CTA, particularly the lack of brick-and-mortar bathrooms for bus operators.

“Who wants to go on a porta potty at nighttime and it’s zero degrees outside?

They should have brick-and-mortar bathrooms with running water and heat to be safe, with locks on the door.”

Woodruff wrote that the “construction of permanent restroom facilities along bus routes is logistically and financially challenging” and would allow less flexibility in the event of route changes. “The CTA has also secured access to nearly one hundred other permanent restrooms at retail stores, commercial and public buildings, and other locations along bus routes and rail lines.”

Alongside these reforms, the Chicago Transit Justice Coalition is pushing for an overall change in leadership at the CTA, including replacing the CTA’s current board of directors and replacing it with an elected board composed of riders and workers. For the Justice Coalition, solutions to the CTA's workforce problems can only come with putting CTA workers first.

“I think what people need to know is that people work long hours on the CTA, and they don't get the proper sleep. It’s physically taxing, and it's mentally and physically [and] very stressful,” Strzelecki said. “But I think everybody is facing a lot of the same conditions.”. Reema Saleh is an writer, journalist, and digital media producer. She last wrote about South Shore’s fight for affordable housing protections.

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

POLITICS

Public Meetings Report ILLUSTRATION BY HOLLEY APPOLD/SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

A recap of select open meetings at the local, county, and state level

BY SCOTT PEMBERTON AND DOCUMENTERS

September 27 Larry Snelling, a thirty-one-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, was unanimously confirmed as the department’s superintendent at a special meeting of the City Council. Snelling became the first superintendent to be vetted by the newly created Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, as the Weekly reported. Among the public comments were a plea for more support for asylum seekers and a request by a former police academy cadet for Mayor Brandon Johnson to review his expulsion. Virtual attendance was announced as 277. Several council members spoke in favor of Snelling, while others raised concerns about police accountability and trust in the department.

At its regular monthly meeting, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) moved forward with an amendment to Chicago Police Department General Order G08-03. Last updated in 1997, the order bans Chicago police from active memberships in “criminal or biased” organizations, primarily targeting street gangs. After CPD came under fire for retaining officers with ties to extremist groups (the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, for example), the CCPSA has asked CPD to update and publicize its list of prohibited organizations. The amendment would extend the prohibitions to involvement with hate and terrorism groups, including interaction on social media. The CCPSA was gathering community feedback in preparation for a vote.

September 29 Nine public commenters voiced concerns over the thousands of migrants being bused to Chicago at the start of a meeting of the City Council Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Seventy-eight viewers were watching a live stream, a number that eventually approached 300. Commenters warned about pitting different oppressed groups against each other; objected to using tents as housing; pointed out the need to reduce civil unrest; called for cancellation of a contract with a company that “dehumanizes migrants”; asked that the compassion for migrants be extended to unhoused veterans; and also complained about decreasing property values. Chicago had taken in more than 15,000 migrants as of this meeting, many fleeing the Venezuelan economy. Of some $145 million spent to date in 2023, $56 million has been provided by the City. Twenty-one open shelters offer a total of 9,308 beds.

An annual report from Chicago’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed that investigatory and traffic stops of Black drivers were over four times more likely than stops of white drivers, the Chicago City Council Joint Committee: Public Safety; Police and Fire learned at a meeting. Statistics consistent across the city’s twenty-two police districts showed that stops involving Black drivers were also more likely to lead to “use of force interaction.” The OIG report recommended that seventeen CPD disciplinary cases be reopened and suggested that the use of an arbitrator for some cases would not increase 14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

transparency and accountability.

September 30 At a meeting, members of the Chicago Police District Councils Nominating Committee reviewed progress on its task to provide a list of twenty-eight candidates to fill all seven of the seats on the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA).

Mayor Brandon Johnson selects members from that list. The nominating committee, which consists of one representative from each of the twenty-two police district councils, is developing an application review procedure, soliciting community input, and coming up with an outreach strategy. Some committee members have begun the process in their districts by distributing questionnaires and conducting discussions with the community.

October 2 At its meeting, the City Council Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development learned more about new clean-energy credits offered by the federal government through the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s the first time that governmental and tax-exempt entities can qualify for the credits, which are designed to help meet climate goals and decrease the longer term costs of implementing clean-energy measures and decarbonization. The City of Chicago could recoup as much as thirty percent of the cost of such efforts. Although eligible entities must qualify, the credits differ from loans or grants in that they aren’t competitive or capped. They are provided either directly as payments or via tax credits. The committee also received updates on the new $42 million Chicago Electric initiative announced in April as part of Chicago’s 2022 Climate Action Plan.

The goal is to see one hundred percent of the City’s municipal fleet made up of “electric vehicles or zero admission alternatives by 2035.”

October 3 The health impact of environmental hazards is the topic of a new report that members of the Chicago City Council Joint Committee: Environmental Protection and Energy; Health and Human Relations reviewed at their meeting. After a fifteen-month process, a “Cumulative Impact Assessment” was published last month. The report was designed to address repeated environmental injustices faced by Black and brown Chicagoans on the South and West sides, where such environmental issues are most heavily concentrated.

The report recommends more regulations for developing and implementing pollution mitigations and to employ community-centered decision-making in that process.

October 4 The Bring Chicago Home resolution and the Treatment Not Trauma proposal moved forward during a required Chicago City Council public hearing. Both had stalled during the Lightfoot administration. The Bring Chicago Home resolution calls for the City to increase taxes on property sales of more than one million dollars. The resulting revenue is to be used to create permanent affordable housing and wraparound services for unhoused Chicagoans. Treatment Not Trauma calls for the expansion of mental health clinics and services and non-police responses to mental health crises. The Council passed an ordinance to establish a new Mental Health System Working Group tasked with reopening publicly funded mental health clinics and creating a non-police mental health response team that includes trained healthcare and social workers. The group is scheduled to report to the mayor and the Committee on Health and Human Relations by May 31 of next year.

October 6 The City Council voted to end the “subminimum wage” for tipped workers in the city during its meeting. Under the One Fair Wage Ordinance, introduced in July by Council Member Jessie Fuentes (26th ward), businesses would be required to begin paying minimum wage to all employees, without factoring in tips. Negotiations between the Council and representatives of the restaurant and hospitality industry amended the proposed ordinance to introduce a five-year phase-in. Under this proposal, tipped workers will earn the same minimum wage as other positions by 2028 after five eight percent annual raises beginning July 2024.

This information was collected and curated by the Weekly in large part using reporting from City Bureau’s Documenters at documenters.org.

TRANSPORTATION

Promontory Point Safety Addressed at 5th Ward Town Hall

Ald. Yancy said more bike racks are coming and that he will explore measures to prevent cars from entering the park.

BY MICHAEL LIPTROT, HYDE PARK HERALD This story was originally published by the Hyde Park Herald on October 6. Reprinted with permission.

robberies, vehicular carjacking and motor vehicle theft,” said Clark. “Motor vehicle thefts are at an all-time high.”

Noting that motor vehicle thefts are at an all-time high citywide, Clark said that Kias, Hyundais and Nissans are most frequently targeted for their ease of hotwiring.

Since Sept. 25, one Hyundai parked in Hyde Park has been taken and three other vehicles have been broken into, according to reports from the University of Chicago Police Department.

Motorists can also contact their local police district to receive a wheel lock to deter thieves with proof of residency.

Though the last month saw an uptick in local robberies, Clark said, they’ve been on the decline for the last year in the 2nd Police District. According to Clark, burglaries have declined twentyfive percent from this time last year, and vehicular hijackings have declined about sixty percent.

A

t a well-attended 5th Ward town hall several weeks ago, Alderman Desmon Yancy shared updates on mid-South Side developments big and small, covering everything from new bike racks to a measure to stem displacement in South Shore.

Community members from Hyde Park, Woodlawn, South Shore and Greater Grand Crossing filled the fieldhouse at Nichols Park, 1355 E. 53rd St. on Tuesday evening, October 3.

“Things have been nothing short of awesome. We have the best ward in the city, if I do say so myself,” said Yancy, enthusiastically opening the meeting. “I’m honored and privileged to be representing these amazing communities.”

Lakeshore Hotel migrant shelter Following opening pleasantries, Yancy turned to the ongoing migrant crisis. He emphasized a commitment to transparency as more asylum seekers are moved into the city-run shelter at East Hyde Park’s Lakeshore Hotel, 4900B S. Lake Shore Dr., and local police stations.

“Lake Shore Hotel currently has a census of 598 [migrants], and those are families,” Yancy said, encouraging people to reach out to his office with questions.

“As we know, this crisis isn’t going away.”

As of this week, more than 17,000 migrants have arrived in Chicago since late August of last year, according to the

South Shore Housing Preservation Ordinance Ald. Desmon Yancy (5th) hosts a town hall at the Nichols Park field house, 1355 E. 53rd St., on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.

PHOTO BY OWEN M. LAWSON III

city. The Lake Shore Hotel is among more than a dozen city-run shelters created to meet the housing crisis, along with police stations and a proposed tent city.

Addressing safety concerns regarding migrants, Yancy said his office has been working with new 2nd District Commander Yakimba Phillips to have a police presence and provide safety surrounding the shelter.

Robberies, other crimes on the decline locally Second District Captain Nicole Clark followed a few general public safety updates for the district, which includes parts of Bronzeville, Kenwood, Hyde Park and Washington Park.

“The biggest problems right now that the whole city basically is facing are

The meeting then turned to Yancy’s recently introduced South Shore Housing Preservation Ordinance.

The product of a years-long push by community members, the proposed ordinance seeks to stem displacement of South Shore renters and homeowners alike through a number of targeted policies and funds.

If passed by Chicago City Council, the measure would require sixty percent of new developments be reserved for

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

households that earn less than thirty percent of the city’s median income, or roughly $20,000, and reserve all cityowned vacant lots in the neighborhood for affordable housing developments.

It would also expand protections for renters and offer grants to homeowners for property tax relief and home improvements.

“This is my proudest thing I’ve done in my life, and I’m able to do it within the first one hundred or so days with folks from the community,” said Yancy, a South Shore resident. “South Shore has suffered through almost thirty years of disinvestment … we’re going to protect people with the ordinance.”

To provide more details about the proposal, Yancy turned the floor over to organizers from the community group Not Me We, a member of the Obama CBA Coalition and a champion of the ordinance.

“We want to keep folks who are here.

We want to welcome new folks and grow things,” said Dixon Romeo, executive director of Not Me We. He emphasized that a major focus of the ordinance is a grant for house and condo owners to fix up their properties, noting that sixty percent of the funds the ordinance proposes creating will go towards homeowners.

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Bikes, cars and jet skis at the Point Yancy concluded the town hall with updates on smaller projects around Hyde Park.

In response to an influx of calls, his office is working with the city’s Department of Transportation to add more bicycle racks to 55th Street and at Promontory Point.

The subject of far more complaints to the 5th Ward office, Yancy said, is the issue of motorists driving at Promontory Point and along the Lakefront Trail— ostensibly car-free zones.

“The sheer volume of phone calls, emails and tags on social media that we have gotten about people driving on the Point seemed like a lot. As it turns out, this isn’t a new thing … There’s been an uptick in people just doing their own thing.”

To mitigate this issue, Yancy’s office has been meeting with the 2nd Police

District and the Chicago Park District since late summer. In recent weeks, a long-lowered retractable bollard at the 55t Street pedestrian tunnel to the Point has been raised, and concrete dividers have been placed along a portion of the 5500 block of South DuSable Lake Shore Drive to deter cars from exiting onto the adjacent lakefront trail.

But more intervention is needed, he added, noting that his staff have seen cars drive around the barriers.

In other Point concerns, Yancy said his office is also working on the annual problem of jet skis and other watercrafts endangering swimmers. ”We’ve got to figure out a way to keep swimmers and jet skiers separate,” he said. Noting that swimming is technically prohibited at the Point, a rule the city generally turns a blind eye to, he reiterated his commitment to finding ways to keep swimmers safe.

“Though (swimming) has been prohibited, it has been widely accepted in Hyde Park for generations,” Yancy told the Herald after the meeting. Come springtime, he said the 5th Ward office plans to revisit the issue with community members, suggesting signage and a social media campaign to help keep jet skiers out of swimming areas.

In other Hyde Park developments, a traffic study is coming to the intersection of Cornell Avenue and 51st Street, which receives frequent complaints of drivers speeding through stop lights.

The study will explore the possibility of raised crosswalks, speed bumps and other interventions to better control the flow of traffic and ensure pedestrian safety. That said, cost remains a major concern for the ward.

“We’re trying to figure out what is the best way to mitigate these issues, but also something that’s cost effective,” Yancy said. “As of today, our menu money is still only $1.2 million. When you live in a ward that is as disinvested in as the 5th Ward, the amount of resources versus the amount of work that needs to be done are out of alignment.”

More information on ward developments is available on Yancy’s social media here. To subscribe to the 5th Ward newsletter, email Ward05@ CityOfChicago.org. ¬

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LIT

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Our thoughts in exchange for yours. he Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

the color of girlhood by chima “naira” ikoro

1. my sister says “Chima, do you hate the color pink?” “no. i don’t, why do you ask?” she says that she’s sorry if i felt like she forced it on me her birthright, choosing the bedding and cabinets and decorations in a room we shared; the tv, the headboards, the matching pajamas from Bobby Jack everything was pink a very specific pink Pepto-Barbie-Aurora pink. i honestly didn’t mind. i didn’t even notice. i was just happy to feel included.

2. i was told my favorite color is blue because only one person could like pink, and younger siblings are blegh, she likes blue, she skinned her knee three times this summer and only cried the first time she was almost a boy, someone has to like blue everyone can’t like pink everyone can’t be Blossom someone’s gotta be Buttercup someone’s gotta be Bubbles little sisters are made of velcro, made of cling wrap, little sisters like blue unless you’re an older brother, then they like pink, in an annoying “girls are so dumb” kind of way. in my mind, pink is a power. if you don’t choose it for yourself it won’t work.

3. if i was so fine with it, why did i paint everything white when she went away to law school? everything. her headboard, the walls, turned the entire room into a blank space, something about it massaged my brain. it wasn’t intentional, neither was the pinkifacation of my childhood. i wore blue because to fulfill my duties as the assigned antithesis. i was good at my job in more ways than my parents preferred 4. i bought my first pink purse last year and i really like it. for some reason i keep letting her know she can borrow it. at my first salaried job, my boss asks me what my favorite color is and i took the time to consider it. green. actually. i really like green. another person asked me, my friends asked me around my birthday, each time i say green, i have learned that anything can be powerful if you choose it, if it feels like yours.

5. a couple months ago a child asked me “Chima what is your favorite color” before i could reply she says she says “mine is blue,” a younger sister herself, and i had to stop myself from saying “mine too.”

Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WRITE A LOVE LETTER OR A LETTER OF CONFESSION TO A COLOR OR OBJECT” This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces.

Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

LIT

FEATURED BELOW IS A RESPONSE TO A PREVIOUS PROMPT FROM A READER WHO IS CURRENTLY INCARCERATED.

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

GAMES

croSSWord: "South Side Bus Tracker" JIM DALEY 1

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ACROSS 1 "Shook Ones" duo ____ Deep 5 MEGATRON rapper Nicki 10 Therefore 14 Cain's brother 15 "_ ____ man once said..."

16 Supper e.g.

17 NFL star and CTE victim Junior 18 It won't keep you up at night 19 Tinder meeting 20 CTA #2 bus, with "Express" 22 Glasses or paintings parts 24 Kesha song "This __ __" 25 Conceptual software artist Casey 26 They may be green or red 29 CTA #39 bus, or WWI American general 33 Don't worship false ones

34 "My baby don't mess around" Outkast song 35 Regret 36 Bebop record label Blue ____ 37 Trumpets and shofars 38 Journalist Ifill 39 1984 album by Hamiet Bluiett 40 Good or bad fate 41 Inexperienced 42 CTA bus routes #49 and #49B; or High Noon and Rio Bravo 44 Large, angry wasp 45 Bronte heroine Jane 46 Unable to hear 47 Tennis star Andre 50 With "South," CTA #34 bus, or the lake 54 Cosmos creator Sagan 55 Finnish steam bath 57 European river 58 Actor Idris 59 Beginning 60 Flowery necklaces 61 Soap "____ of Our Lives"

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

56

51 57

62 Paris cathedral, with "Dame" 63 PhDs and BAs (abbrev) DOWN 1 1970s Alan Alda TV show 2 Shepard Fairey brand 3 It can be made of glass or sweat 4 CTA #60 bus, for short 5 Chairwomen, e.g.

6 Advice: "If _ ____ you" 7 Cave of the Bad Seeds 8 Civil Rights leader ___ Phillip Randolph 9 CTA buses Jump, Local, and Manor Express 10 Linear punctuation 11 Printer load 12 Scandal suffix 13 Toreador cheers 21 Ads about forest fires, seat belts, and drunk driving 23 Tabula ____ 25 Los Relampagos Del Norte singer Cornelio

26 Connector of muscle and bone 27 Photoshop brand 28 Seated yoga pose 29 Crimps and finger waves 30 Aussie animal lover Steve 31 Nine (Spanish) 32 French existentialist Jean 34 Jazz vocalist Lena 37 CTA #7 bus, or ninth U.S. president 38 CTA #55 bus, or a cartoon cat 40 Singer Alicia 41 Ark-builder 43 Cybertrucks and Model Ys 44 Greek goddess of witchcraft 46 It may be Greek or Tom's 47 Nailed, as a test 48 Fundraising party 49 Purveyor of roast beef sandwiches 50 Have to 51 Mirth 52 "It's not _ ___ deal!"

53 Untouchable Eliot 56 Year (Portuguese) Solution to crossword puzzle on page 23

TRANSPORTATION

Changes Coming to Metra’s Fare Structure and Schedules

Pending approval, the 2024 budget will simplify the ten-zone structure to four zones, and include more frequent service during non-peak hours.

BY FRANCISCO RAMÍREZ PINEDO

A

s part of its 2024 budget proposal, Metra is envisioning a new way to use its service, including a simplified fare structure. Since June, Metra officials have been asking for community input on a plan to change their current ten-zone fare structure to a more streamlined four-zone structure.

Now, with Metra’s 2024 budget proposal available for public comment and up for ratification later this year, that plan is much closer to reality.

Under Metra’s current system, the Chicago metro area is divided into ten different zones. Union Station in the Loop is the hub, with tickets getting progressively more expensive the farther from the city one travels. Currently, the tickets start at $4 and go as high as $9.50 to reach the farthest stations in the suburbs and into Wisconsin and Indiana. In Metra’s simplified proposal, zones would still radiate out from the Loop, but most Chicago stations and nearby suburbs would fall into Zone 2. Under this plan, most trips that depart from within the city and surrounding suburbs would cost $3.75 going into downtown, with fares going up to $5.50 from Zone 3 and $6.75 from Zone 4. Any one-way trips that don’t go in or out of downtown will be $3.75.

One of the more consequential updates included in next year’s budget is Metra's anticipated elimination of the Fair Transit South Cook pilot program, in which Cook County subsidized half of the fare amount for the Metra Electric and Rock Island lines. Conceived to counter the financial crunch felt by many during the COVID-19 pandemic, the subsidy was introduced by Cook County’s Department of Transportation in January 2021.

According to a 2022 report on the pilot, the subsidized lines “recover[ed] ridership faster than the other Metra lines, although

Proposed 2023 Metra system fare zone map

by a smaller margin than in the first year of the pilot.” The same report stated that the pilot saw benefits for people from low-

PHOTO BY OWEN M. LAWSON III

income neighborhoods, and that ridership increased relative to 2021.

The Metra Electric is the only Metra

line that is completely within city limits, servicing McCormick Place, Hyde Park, and South Chicago, while Rock Island traverses along the Dan Ryan and into parts of Pullman. The Fair Transit South Cook pilot program also increased service on the Pace Route 352 from the 95th Red Line to Harvey and Chicago Heights. A fare that cost $2 with the pilot program subsidy would increase to $3.75, or a dollar less than the pre-pandemic fare.

Michael Gillis, a spokesperson for Metra, said: “Have we seen ridership increasing on those lines, and have we restored service … and the answer to both those questions is yes, and the Fair Transit South Cook pilot program certainly played a role in that. There are days where the Metra Electric Line, as a percentage of preCOVID ridership, is the most-used line in our system.”

The Cook County Department of Transportation did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Weekly on the fare caps, Ventra integration, incomebased reduced fare, and expanded student pass programs outlined in their Transit Plan.

The County does not directly manage the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which manages and oversees Metra, Pace, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), but its RTA sales tax is the organization's greatest source of revenue for the RTA, which includes the Metra. The Cook County Board of Commissioners and its President, Toni Preckwinkle, also appoint the directors to Metra and the RTA. “The Fair Transit South Cook improved the lives of a lot of people by reducing the barriers to transit usage by cutting the costs in half,” said David Powe, planning director of the Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago transportation advocacy not-for-profit.

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

TRANSPORTATION But “one issue with the pilot from the start, was that the City of Chicago and CTA did not participate in the pilot at all. And so that really showcases the leadership of our county, Metra and Pace come together to improve the lives of people by reducing these costs.”

Though the stay-at-home orders caused by the COVID-19 pandemic ended long ago, they led to an ongoing shift in how Metra envisions its future. Metra was conceived as a commuter rail where people from the suburbs, who usually worked a traditional 9am–5pm work day, could find reliable service during peak hours.

As an official part of its new mission, Metra has included in its 2024 budget a more “regional” approach to public transportation, which would maintain heightened service during peak hours, but where riders could expect more service at regular intervals during non-peak hours.

More frequent and regular-interval service has been a demand of many local advocacy groups, including the Coalition for a Modern Metra Electric, which is comprised of member organizations such as the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference and the Active Transportation Alliance.

The latter was also part of the Cook County Transit Plan Steering Committee, which released its first-ever transit plan in September 2023.

Another proposal would be to eliminate the current ten-ride ticket option and replace it with five separate day passes.

Under the current plan, a rider could purchase ten individual tickets to be used at any time within ninety days. The five day pass model would allow for unlimited rides in a single day with one pass.

In anticipation of a modified service, Metra would also seek better integration with Ventra by expanding the Regional Connect Pass, which offers unlimited CTA and Pace rides for people who purchased a Metra monthly pass and to offer discounts when switching between Metra, Pace, and CTA. “Their integration is one of our goals,” said Gillis. “But it’s really both a technological and a financial issue. The CTA has turnstiles for a bus operator at every point. And their passengers just have to either tap the Ventra Card to get through the turnstile." On the Metra, conductors walk down the aisles and either physically punch a paper ticket or visually scan a

Copy of new Metra fare chart

mobile ticket on a phone. “It’s very difficult to integrate a card like the Ventra Card into a system like ours. There are solutions for how to do that, but they require a lot of infrastructure [and] technological installations to make that work.”

According to the budget, released last week, Metra expects there to be a gap in funding when federal funds such as the CARES Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) run out in 2026. This means that Metra expects a shortfall in funding that could prevent the increase in service that riders demand.

Organizations like Active Transportation Alliance are putting pressure on the state to provide additional transit funding in the region in order to address the projected shortfall. “We’ll be pushing for that this legislative session based on the recommendations outlined in that plan of action for regional transit,”

22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023

PHOTO BY VIDAL N. GRANADOS

said Powe. That request for additional funding would be to fund the demand for more frequent services, such as personnel, tracks, and trains.

The current budget is now available for public comment. Virtual public hearings will take place on November 1 and 2, and people can also send in comments via mail, email, and voicemail; more information is available on the Metra website. If approved in their November meeting, it will be sent for a final vote by the RTA board in December, and then go into effect on February 1, 2024. Francisco Ramírez Pinedo is a freelance journalist based in the Southeast Side.

ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA O'BRIEN

BULLETIN Citywide Hiring Fair

encouraged to BYOB and wear costumes.

(Zoe Pharo)

Various locations, check the schedule for specific locations on each day. Saturday, October 21–Saturday, October 28, 11am– 3pm. Free. bit.ly/Octhiringfair

Community Fall Festival

Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) is hosting a citywide hiring fair on two Saturdays this October at a number of different City Colleges of Chicago locations. (Zoe Pharo)

Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th) is hosting a community fall festival with crafts, refreshments, pony rides, a petting zoo, bounce houses, pumpkin decorating, costume and dance contests and more. (Zoe Pharo)

The Chicago Printers Guild Publishers Fair

Co-Prosperity, 3219 S. Morgan St. Saturday, October 21, 1pm–7pm. Free. bit.ly/PrintersGuildPublishingFair The Chicago Printers Guild is holding its 5th annual Publishers Fair in Bridgeport.

The print market will feature over 30 local printmakers sharing self-published posters, zines, shirts, tote bags and more. A live printmaking will be presented by Instituto Grafico de Chicago, with rare access to printing presses including a risograph and etching press. (Zoe Pharo)

Chicago Monuments Project

Pilsen Arts & Community House, 1637 W. 18th St. Saturday, October 21–Sunday, October 22, 4pm–6:30pm. Free. bit.ly/PilsenLatinaLegacies The Chicago Monument Project, which aims to address the city’s unacknowledged histories, will highlight the histories of Latinas, some of whom are also apart of the LGBTQ+ community, in Pilsen through monuments and education, as part of a series of three teach-ins hosted by Pilsen Arts and Community House. (Zoe Pharo)

Nightmare on 35th Street

1010 W. 35th St. Saturday, October 21, 6pm–8pm. Tickets start at $55. bit.ly/NightmareOn35th Join in for a spooky collage and sip where attendees will have the opportunity to fill in one large sinister image with color-coded magazine clipping. The image will be predrawn by Joieful Kreations. Participants are

Donaghue Charter Academy, 707 E. 37th St. Saturday, October 28, 2pm–5pm. Free. bit.ly/fallfest4thWard

Pilsen SBIF Grants Informational Webinar

Virtual. Wednesday, November 1, 2pm.

Free. bit.ly/SBIFwebinar The SBIF program uses revenue from TIF districts to help owners of commercial and industrial properties remodel their facilities for their own businesses or on behalf of tenants. Grants range from 30 to 90 percent of project costs, with a maximum grant of $150,000 for commercial properties and $250,000 for industrial properties.

Applications open at 9 a.m. on November 1 and close on Thursday, November 30.

Register in advance. (Zoe Pharo)

Bronzeville’s Fall Festival of the Family

Absolutely Anything Essential, 3521 S. King Dr. Saturday, October 28, 2pm–5pm.

General admission is free, a ticket including potpourri making is $20. bit.ly/BronzevilleFallFest The third annual “Educate or Die” themed, not-so-scary harvest season celebration will provide free hair cuts and coats for youth courtesy of This is Life, NFP, live entertainment, a kid-zone and activities for adults, giveaways, local vendors, community resources and programs and a costume contest for kids up to age fourteen. The theme honors the late Phillip Jackson, a former Chicago Housing Authority boss who founded the educational nonprofit the Black Star Project.

Sponsored by BMD Sports and Education Project. RSVP required. (Zoe Pharo)

Von Freeman at 100: Continuing the Legacy

ARTS Black is the Color of the Cosmos: Exhibition Opening Reception

Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Hall, 915 E. 50th St. Tuesday, October 24, 5pm–8:30pm. Free. bit.ly/VonFreeman100

Washington Park Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd. Friday, October 20, 7pm–9pm. Free. bit.ly/CosmosOpening The Washington Arts Incubator is hosting an opening for “Black is the Color of the Cosmos,” a culminating exhibition of the 2022-23 cohort the Arts + Public Life and the Center for the Study of Race, Political, and Cultural 10-month Artists in Residence Program. The exhibit features new works

by Jess Atieno, Shani Crowe and Gloria Talamantes. The exhibit will remain open through December 8. (Zoe Pharo)

18th Street Pilsen Open Studios Various locations, check virtual map.

Saturday, October 21–Sunday, October 22, 1pm–9pm. Free. bit.ly/PilsenOpenStudios

Pilsen Arts & Community House presents the 21st year of one of Chicago’s largest studio artwalks, held each year in Pilsen. Pilsen open studios allows a look into artists’ processes at home in their studios. A few cultural spaces and cafes will be participating as well, to showcase the work of artists who don’t have a studio in the neighborhood. (Zoe Pharo)

Chicago History Museum Walking Tour of Pilsen Murals

Meet outside the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Sunday, October 22, 11:30am. Tickets are $25 for the general public and $22.50 for members. bit.ly/PilsenMuralsWalkingTour

The Logan Center for the Arts is hosting a celebration for legendary tenor saxophonist Von “Vonski” Freeman’s 100th birthday, who helped to bring South Side jazz to the world.

The South Side Jazz Coalition will present a free concert of contemporaries and students of Freeman’s, as he has always stressed the importance of continuing the legacy of jazz music. (Zoe Pharo)

Black Harvest Film Festival

Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Friday, November 3–Thursday, November 16, 7:01pm–6:01pm. Festival passes are $30 for members and $60 for the general public. bit.ly/BlackHarvestFilmFest The 29th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival will showcase films that “celebrate, explore, and share the Black, African American, and African Diaspora experience.” This year’s festival highlights “Revolutionary Visions,” the history, politics and art honoring the legacy of revolutionary struggle across the diaspora, and the intersectionality of Black experiences worldwide. This year’s festival is being curated

by Jada-Amina and Nick Leffel, in honor of film critic and Black Harvest Film Festival co-founder and consultant Sergio Mims, who passed away last fall, this year the Gene Siskel Film Center is also establishing the Sergio Mims Fund for Black Excellence in Filmmaking. Festival lineup coming in early October. (Zoe Pharo) SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Poet and multidisciplinary artist Luis Tubens will be hosting a walking tour of Pilsen’s murals, including the public art on railroad viaducts, buildings and doors, which shows an evolution of the community’s Mexican identity, heritage and activism, in the tradition of Mayan and Aztec practices.Tubens is a former arts educator at the National Museum of Mexican Art. The tour is created in partnership with the Chicago History Museum and Pilsen Public Art Tours. Tour runs one and half to two hours. (Zoe Pharo)

OCTOBER 19, 2023 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

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24 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ OCTOBER 19, 2023