A CTA Red Line train passes through the 79th Street station on Aug. 9, 2022. (Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago)

CTA leaders are working to hire more staff and change outdated bus and train schedules to respond to complaints about unreliable service. “I do not want the solution to be, ‘Well, then let's just cut our service’,” Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) said.

CHICAGO — Aldermen grilled CTA leaders during a City Council hearing Wednesday as complaints mount about unreliable service on the city’s public transportation system.

The hearing before the council’s transportation committee comes as riders increasingly report ghost trains and buses, less service on their routes, security concerns and other problems on public transit.

More than 3 million Illinoisans live in an area without easy access to groceries, according to a recent report. [nicottito via Unsplash]

A decade-long fight against statewide hunger has not helped reduce the number of food deserts across Illinois, according to a recent report. In fact, the state saw an uptick in food deserts between 2015 and 2019. 

Cook County Health psychiatry department chair Joyce Miller [left] and Comm. Dennis Deer (D-2) during a meeting of the Cook County Board of Commissioners Health & Hospitals Committee on Tuesday.

Cook County commissioners faced grim statistics on the county’s mental health crisis on Tuesday, as several department heads stressed surging demands for services and fears of potential burnout among city staff. 

The Chicago Human Relations Commission investigates claims of discrimination, including housing discrimination. [Facebook]

Chicago’s Commission on Human Relations is an immensely important and often undervalued resource that needs sustained funding — possibly more than is allocated under Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2022 spending plan — to continue its grassroots mediation and fight against ignorance and racism, aldermen told the commission’s chair during a budget hearing Wednesday.

The Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities has been working with the Chicago Department of Transportation to make the city's pending e-scooter system more accommodating to disabled Chicagoans, the head of the office told aldermen Wednesday. [Hannah Alani/Block Club Chicago]

The ​​Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities should work tightly with other city agencies to ensure accessibility is baked into new infrastructure, housing and other processes across Chicago, aldermen told the head of the office during a budget hearing Wednesday.