Kiyanna Salters, 17, was killed in a shooting on a No. 71 bus Sunday night. The incident happened around 10 p.m. as the bus approached the intersection of Cottage Grove and 71st Street. A man on the bus got into an argument with another passenger before exiting the bus. Shortly after exiting the bus, the man opened fire into the bus before fleeing the scene. Kiyanna was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where she was......

CTA head Ron Huberman and other local transit officials faced the City Council today and faced criticism on potential fare hikes and the debacle that is the Block 37 project. On the subject of a fare increase, Huberman said: Ultra-low diesel, which is what we use on our buses, has increased 80 percent. Next year, we will be spending $50 million more for the same quantity of fuel than we spent the prior year.......

After all the huffing and puffing, a group of bar owners with establishments by Wrigley Field agreed to the controversial alcohol cut-off after the seventh inning of series-clinching games. In case you somehow missed it, today's bailout failure pushed the Dow to its biggest drop ever. Also, Lynn Sweet has a list of how Illinois' reps voted today. Seven Dems and two Republicans voted yes, four Dems and five Republicans voted no, and Jerry......

We are loving these handmade pocket mirrors created using real CTA maps. For $6, you can personalize your mirror by specifying your neighborhood or "L" stop, or just gamble for a random one. The mirrors measure 2.25 inches across and come packaged in a drawstring bag. How 'bout that! We didn't even know it was time to get a pocket mirror, but this one = want.......

Kiss these seats good-bye. Photo by staceyviera. Have you found squishing your way onto the L train a little less difficult? If so, you may have already ridden one of the new reduced-seat "MAX" L train cars the CTA has been testing out on the Brown Line during rush hour since September 12. The number of seats on these new cars has been reduced by 12 or 14, freeing up space for an additional......

In an effort to keep riders up to date with delays and announcements, the CTA Tattler has initiated CTATweet, an unofficial Twitter site to enable CTA riders to share alerts including reroutes, stoppages, and other CTA-related issues immediately with other riders. Given the CTA's tendency to randomly shutdown or reroute buses without much notice to riders, this sounds good to me.......

Photo by efroten Nine people were injured this afternoon when the No. 63 CTA bus was involved in a wreck with another car near the intersection of 63rd and S. Artesian Ave. A teenage girl was sexually assaulted in Seward Park this weekend and police are seeking multiple suspects in connection with the crime. Chicago ranks first among the 2016 Summer Olympic Candidate Cities, at least according to the Olympic Bid Power Index in......

In a deal with Titan Outdoor, the CTA is bringing digital ad screens to train stations and even to some buses. The first sign will be tested on the No. 124 Navy Pier bus to see how durable the sign is. The CTA hopes to eventually put such signs on over 100 buses and in all 144 train stations where the signs will also alert commuters to the time until the next train's arrival. Money......

Photo by jlurie The 6-year-old boy who was attacked by pitbulls on Friday evening remains hospitalized after undergoing plastic surgery. Six people were hurt, four critically, in a West Side car wreck Saturday night. The head-on collision happened just after 11 p.m. at the intersection of North Cicero and West Iowa Street. Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica and Assistant State's Attorney Anita Alvarez participated in a State's Attorney candidate forum for 200 students on Saturday.......

And the hits just keep on coming: Mayor Daley made it dramatically clear Monday what he thinks of recent accusations from Gov. Blagojevich that the city is to blame for a potential CTA fare hike. "Cuckoo," Daley said in a high-pitched voice. Daley then said he's "not getting into an argument" with the Governor. Classy! Just in case there's another photo illustration in the news tomorrow, we wanted to get a head start. [S-T, Trib]......

I have to be at work at 4am, and early commuters get to see a whole different, much emptier side of the city that most (sober) people rarely experience. Most of the time, it's quiet, save for the few occasional drunks. At most, the worst part about the commute is the smell that permeates the two-car Red Line train at 3:25 in the morning. But sometimes things do get scary—and dangerous. If they're around, this......

Ooooh, it looks like our favorite CTA calligraphy enthusiast has struck again, this time at the Fullterton Red/Brown/Purple Line stop. So great.......

Seen on a rush hour northbound Blue Line train, 9/11/2008.......

Photo by Morydd. Click for detail. Hats off to the calligraphy aficionado who works at the Chicago Brown Line stop. I know I'm a cheese, but I love when people make things nicer than they need to be.......

A day after the CTA announced cutbacks to pay for a budget shortfall and began making moves towards an eventual fare increase, Mayor Daley implicitly put the blame on Gov. Blagojevich, especially on the topic of the free rides Blago demanded for seniors. You want to give everybody a free ride, but who pays for it? CTA has to pay for it....Everybody’s lining up. Where do you get the money?...You don’t get it from heaven...You......

Seatless El cars—which according to plans would be two cars out of an eight-car train—may start running as soon as October, Ron Huberman said today. "We're only going to use them in places where customers currently are standing anyway. They're standing because they can't get on a train. And so we're going to be using them in those corridors where we know we're leaving people on the platforms." CTA ridership, and public transit ridership in......

The CTA is adding Verizon wireless to it's subway services meaning more of you will be able to continue those pesky conversations that the rest of us love listening to even as the Red and Blue lines head underground. Yes, we can hear you now. Ah, we kid, we kid! This is the second wireless company to add subway service, the first being U.S. Cellular.......

Happy is the morning when there's an e-mail with the subject line "you guys like vintage Chicago stuff, right?" sitting in our inbox. Old El signs? Or as the CTA would call them today, signage? Yes, please. Thanks, Marah! [eBay]......

Photo by thirdrail The CTA is holding a hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday night as the first step in creating an extension of the Orange Line to Ford City Mall, which is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The justification for laying out that kind of cash for this project instead of, say, getting the Blue Line able to run faster than 5 m.p.h. is to connect downtown to Bedford Park's booming... hotel......

As Hizzonner continues his whirlwind tour of Beijing, the Trib* took us along for his little train-ride the other day. As it turns out, if you spend $7.7 billion on a transit system, it A) looks nice, B) operates well, and C) would be lovely to have in case an Olympic games somehow ends up in our neck of the woods. Oh, and if we want one, we're gonna have to pony up. Who knew.......

If you’ve paid your CTA fares through an Express Farecard vending machine between March until the middle of July, you might want to double-check your credit card and bank statements. For the past five months, Express Farecard machines across the city failed to perform debit and credit card payments completely…that is, until the transactions caught up with themselves Friday, and all the accumulated charges were taken out of cardholders’ bank accounts at once. Metavante, the......

A 43-year-old man died over the weekend after being electrocuted by the third rail after he fell or was pushed onto the El tracks at the Red Line Roosevelt stop. Daniel McKenzie's death was ruled a homicide today. Three men McKenzie was apparently arguing with on the platform are in police custody, but no charges have been filed. [Trib]......

Aldermen approved a measure today to help the 49X bus be more efficient. Every little bit helps, Alderfolk! Starting in January, the Western Express bus will have the same kinds of traffic-light–changing sensors that ambulances and firetrucks have. Emergency vehicles automatically get traffic priority, but the buses would only get a green light if they're running late and when traffic conditions make it safe. [S-T, photo by saro]......

Construction work on the Blue Line tracks between the Rosemont station and O’Hare is wrapping up four days early, with CTA service expected to be restored tomorrow morning at 3 a.m. Repairs to deteriorating rails, tie plates and spikes will eliminate the 15 m.p.h. slow zones on that particular stretch of track, now giving trains the capacity to travel at speeds up to 55 m.p.h. “With the completion of this work, we now have reduced......

Should the need arise, evacuating Chicago—due to a terrorism or a natural disaster, say—via mass transit could be tough, according to a new report. The National Research Council's Transportation Research Board released a study today detailing 38 metro areas' evacuation plans, and according to "The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation," Chicago's in comparatively good shape. Our transit systems have a communication plan with each other, the CTA says it can evacuate 100,000 people by......

Looks like seatless cars aren't the only changes brewing over at the CTA. It seems the CTA is now exploring the possibilities of grocery stores at El stops in the future, as well as mini-banks and restaurants. It's all part of the CTA's attempt to take commercial advantage of its property, especially with the increase in riders. Early candidates for such a development include the Berwyn, Wilson and North/Clybourn stops on the Red Line. Several......

The CTA will use new, seat-free cars during rush hour on the Brown Line starting this fall. The preliminary plan is to have two (out of eight) cars be seatless, so don't fret, lazies. From the Trib: Stripping out all the seats from some train cars is not the CTA's preference in terms of customer service, [CTA President Ron] Huberman said. But with ridership increasing each month—in large part because of soaring gasoline prices and......

The CTA is building four new structures to meet increased demand for pedal-powered parking. The Midway stop on the Orange Line, the Sox-35th stop on the Red Line, and the Jefferson Park and Damen stops on the Blue Line will each be home to covered, three-walled bike ports that will house a combined total of 382 bicycles. [S-T]......

Photo by Chloeloe Snack foods that sound like sex acts. Oh, cheese nips. The attorney general's office has postponed announcing their decision on whether to retry Alton Logan until at least August. [S-T] Yet another reason Patton Oswalt is one of our favorite comedians working today: this high school commencement speech. The Cubs beat the Giants 3-1 this afternoon. [AP] Police have made an arrest in Chicago jeweler Harry Levinson's murder, 17 years after......

I recently found myself on a nearly-empty Brown Line car during the early evening, when I realized that a man sitting next to me was masturbating. I kicked him and yelled at him to stop, which he did, and he left the train at the next stop. My immediate reaction was to feel relieved that I had so quickly recognized and taken control of the situation. And although I was grossed out, my prevailing feeling......