Lawmakers take on late tollway violation notices, Jon Hilkevitch writes in Getting Around

March 16, 2009

After thousands of drivers received toll violation notices that were several years late and sometimes bogus, state lawmakers are saying enough is enough.

Recent columns

• New airport security rules to require more personal information

  March 9, 2009

  You may have been patted down at airports or suffered the indignity of having your dirty laundry from a vacation searched at screening checkpoints. Now prepare yourself for security to get a little more personal.

• CTA puts out 'for sale' sign

  March 2, 2009

  For commuters looking to buy a home or start a business near a transit line, the Chicago Transit Authority may have just the deal.

• Getting Around: Report warns of flooding risk from lock failures in Illinois

  February 23, 2009

  LOCKPORT LOCK AND DAM—Water levels rise or sink the equivalent of a four-story building each time the lock channel here lifts or lowers mammoth barges laden with coal or other cargo through this tricky stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

• More Getting Around

  February 16, 2009

  Read past Getting Around columns at chicagotribune.com/gettingaround

• Mass-transit 'doomsday' looms yet again

  February 16, 2009

  The sinking economy is driving Chicago-area mass-transit agencies into the ground, according to new data marking a quick return to budget crises.

• Getting Around: 'Green' industry targets pesky potholes

  February 9, 2009

  Unless you were to scratch and sniff a newly patched pothole, you wouldn't necessarily realize what a dirty little business it is to mend the road ruptures.

• Passengers suffering from Amtrak's winter woes

  February 2, 2009

  Perhaps nobody is more eager for winter to end than the people running Amtrak—and their passengers in the Midwest.

• When CTA driver runs light, you pay

  January 26, 2009

  Traffic-enforcement cameras are catching hundreds of buses running red lights in Chicago and the suburbs, and taxpayers are paying most of the tickets.

• A never-ending fight to fix roads

  January 19, 2009

  There's a reason drivers say it literally feels like the roads here are in much worse shape: The resurfacing of arterial streets in Chicago has ground almost to a halt since 2006 because of a cutoff in funding for capital projects like road repair by the state.

• Parking meters that take coins are on the way out in Chicago

  January 12, 2009

  The quadrupling of fees this year to park at most meters in Chicago marks only the beginning of changes coming to a curbside near your car.

• Top 5 transportation stories of 2008

  December 29, 2008

  Chicago-area commuters began 2008 facing the threat of a mass-transit meltdown, and at year's end transportation services in Illinois remain so dicey that icy winter roads aren't being salted and plowed as much as in past years.

• CTA sheds light on new subway emergency efforts

  December 22, 2008

  There should be no feeling of deja vu the next time the Chicago Transit Authority is forced to evacuate train riders from subways, transit officials predict.

• No messing around when it comes to Obama motorcade

  December 1, 2008

  Chicago drivers have been adjusting to a new reality since the Nov. 4 election: Wherever President-elect Barack Obama goes, traffic disruptions follow.

• Parking, driving restrictions in effect

  November 2, 2008

  Street closings around Grant Park and parking bans are in effect in the run-up to the Election Night rally. Traffic authorities said drivers should stay away and stay alert for more changes throughout the downtown area until Wednesday morning.

• Writing with a plane, not a pen

  June 23, 2008

  About 10,000 feet above the Crosstown Classic this weekend at Wrigley Field, a cross-state rival in Wisconsin delivered a pitch to Chicago-area air travelers who are tired of going to bat against the delays and congestion at O'Hare International Airport.

• Hidden costs of cuts

  October 29, 2007

  The threat of service cuts and fare increases starting Sunday may make even the most sober mass-transit riders reach for a stiff drink, but at least the workers who operate CTA buses and trains are behaving like they're the designated drivers.

• Tips for stranded riders

  September 10, 2007

  Mass-transit doomsday would border on catastrophe for more than 1.5 million passengers forced to pay more to ride buses and trains next week, or to find another way to get around if their bus service disappears.

• Olympic dreams for CTA

  March 12, 2007

  It's appealing to dream that Chicago hosting the world for two weeks of Summer Games might some way, somehow help reverse decades of neglect of the region's mass-transit system.

• In the sky! A bird? A plane? A ... UFO?

  January 1, 2007

  It sounds like a tired joke--but a group of airline employees insist they are in earnest, and they are upset that neither their bosses nor the government will take them seriously.