ChiTown Traffic Tattler

Via TeleNav: (Both men and women) agreed that texting while driving should be illegal (89 percent of both men and women), it seems that neither men nor women are fully practicing what they preach. Nearly 25 percent of both male and female respondents reported sending at least one text message while driving per week. Men [...]

Since mid-November, Northwest Indiana commuters have been dealing with the closure of a 4-mile stretch of Cline Avenue between Calumet Avenue in Hammond and Michigan Avenue in East Chicago.

The Indiana Department of Transportation closed the section — which in the past was the scene of tragedy of some –because of significant structural damage.

A telephone survey of 800 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 found a quarter of them have sent text messages while behind the wheel. Boys and girls were just as likely to be the offenders the study found, which was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. CNet reported [...]

The ChiTown Tattler has joined up to help sponsor an “Ugly Christmas Sweater” party next Thursday evening to celebrate the holidays, and we’re teaming up with several other great local sites to pull it off in style. The party is being held at Black Rock Bar on Thursday, December 10th starting at 7 p.m. The [...]

Chicago motorists — the calendar says it’s time to watch where you park overnight. The city’s overnight parking ban begins Tuesday. Covering 107 miles of city streets considered “critical arterial streets,” the ban means no parking on those streets from 3 to 7 a.m. The streets affected include: — 103rd Street from Pulaski Road to [...]

Last-minute travel planning may be the right route Still deciding whether to drive, fly or stay home this Thanksgiving?

Curious about the number of fatal accidents that have taken place along your favorite route to work? There’s an app for that. Danger Zones is an iPhone app that displays five years of vehicle fatality locations across the country and plots the accidents as points on a Google map. The GPS Location service shows your [...]

Glossed over in Monday’s media coverage that Apple and the Chicago Transit Association have been in talks over a nearly $4 million agreement to renovate the Red Line’s North and Clybourn station in exchange for right of first refusal to name the public transit station is the ordinance which states the Chicago City Council must [...]

Violation fines for leased parking-meter spots take in $7 million more than last year Your chances of receiving a parking ticket in Chicago have shot up from last year, and the pace has accelerated even more in recent months.

In launching a new Web site containing structural ratings for state-maintained bridges, the Illinois Department of Transportation promises to offer more access and be more transparency for motorists. The initiative will allow motorists to learn how safe the state’s nearly 27,000 bridges are, according to a IDOT news release announcing Web site. “We want the [...]

According to a report from the Texas Transportation Institute, motorists across the country in 2007 combined to spend the equivalent of 175 million days in traffic and purchase an extra 2.8 billion gallons of fuel due to congestion. The 2009 Urban Mobility Report, which the institute released in July, states the figures actually represent a [...]

Upgrade aims to locate car breakdowns, other emergencies more easily It might seem like an expensive exercise in sign clutter to some drivers.

Projects done by towns, counties fared better than IDOT in study The sidewalk that was constructed along Techny Road in Northbrook represented so much more than merely blocks of concrete to Floyd Mittleman.

The Chicago Tribune this week published a pretty good Q&A as Richard Wronski sat down with one of two new members of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority Board, Paula Wolff. Among the insights gleaned : Wolff thinks audits are important, the tolls are within the national average and Wolff — who sits on the [...]

I say sorry to the unions, but the idea to privatize snow plowing might make sense — with one caveat courtesy of Garrard McClendon: Let it only be on side streets. McClendon on his Chicago Now blog was one of the first to say we should all get in the “Yes” line. “I’m going to [...]

Are you a distracted driver? See if you can make it home safely using this online test from @centurycouncil … http://bit.ly/QjpQ6

The Chicago Tribune reports that a proposal to designate  “green lane” is back as Pace and the Illinois Tollway begin to push a plan to designate the express bus and carpool lanes on the Tri-State Tollway. “The agencies are seeking $200 million in federal stimulus funding to get express buses running between job-scarce areas in the [...]

In it’s Sept. 2 report, the International Olympic Committee voiced concerns about Chicago’s transportation system. But it wasn’t the first time. Back in March 2008′s Games of the XXXI Olympiad 2016 Working Group Report, IOC officials made similar comments. The March 2008 report cites Chicago’s wish to create one of the most compact and convenient [...]

Among the Chicago transportation initiatives that the IOC highlighted in its Sept. 2 evaluation is an extensive “Olympic lane” highway system that would move everyday local traffic to what the Chicago 2016 committee called 2,392 miles of city roads. The Chicago 2016 Bid Book cites the Dan Ryan reconstruction project as an example of what [...]

With the release of Wednesday’s report from the International Olympic Committee on Chicago’s plan to host the 2016 Olympic Games, each of the city’s news outlets found something to point out. But the majority ran with the obvious: traffic and congestion. And why not? The IOC came right out and said that transportation for an [...]