29th Ward Participatory Budgeting, CTA Service Improvements and other West Side news
The Westside Weekly Review for March 2 - March 8, 2025
Happy Beginning of the Daylight Savings Time, dear readers.
Remember the Block Club Chicago article about Outwest Cafe and Westside Review I mentioned a few posts back? Austin Weekly News republished it in this week’s issue. This is part of a content-sharing agreement Block Club and Austin Weekly entered into during the pandemic. The joint newsletter part ended at the start of 2023, but Austin Weekly still occasionally republishes Block Club’s content.
If you’d like to get the hand on the issue, and read this and other articles, stop by a distribution location near you (I put this map together back in 2022, so it should be mostly current).
Other than that, we got some information about participatory budgeting in the 29th Ward, CTA bus service improvement coming up and the usual round-up of West Side news and calendar of upcoming events. As always, please feel free to share your feedback and suggestions in the comments.
Sincerely
Igor Studenkov, Editor, Westside Review
29th Ward Participatory Budgeting
In my interview for the Block Club piece, I mentioned that there are a lot of stories on the West Side get lost, and I feel like this year’s 29th Ward Participatory Budgeting process.
For those of you who don’t know, under the aldermanic menu program, each alderman gets $1.5 million a year to spend on infrastructure-related needs. In practice, aldermen can use it however they want, so long as it’s even remotely infrastructure-related and doesn’t involve other jurisdictions (for example, things tend to get complicated when the money is used on state highways such as North Avenue). Some aldermen give their voters a say in the process through participatory budgeting. Residents get to suggest projects and then vote for which projects the money should go toward.
Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) is the only West Side alderman do participatory budgeting, and he’s been doing it more or less consistently since the year after he first got elected.
This year, like last year, the voting is divided into three zones based on precincts - Galewood/Montclare/Dunning portion, North Austin and whatever you call the part of Austin north of the ‘L’/Metra tracks, and the South Austin/Island portion. This was done because, as Taliaferro himself acknowledged, Galewood (and, to the lesser extent, Montclare) has better turnout than the rest of the ward, so Galewood projects tend to get approved. By diving into three zones, he wanted to give all parts of the ward a chance.
Now, I can’t really tell you about the projects, because you do need to be a 29th Ward resident age 14 and up to vote in this, but if you do fit those requirements, you can find out more and cast your vote here.
CTA Service Improvements
Last Sunday, March 2, CTA announced that it will be beefing up service on 20 routes serving major corridors, with headways of no more than 10 minutes between 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. The first eight routes will get service increases on Sunday, March 23 - the remaining 12 will get service increases later this year.
I’m bringing it up here because the first phase will include Route 54/Cicero, which serves the busy Cicero Avenue corridor in the entire West Side and beyond, traveling as far north of Montrose Avenue and as far south as 24th Place.
Now, as anyone who’s ever ridden CTA buses on the West Side knows, once every 10 minutes would be quite an improvement, especially on weekends. But the key question is, can the transit agency actually pull it off? Cicero Avenue is a pretty busy corridor, not just for cars, but for trucks. Unlike rail lines, buses can’t just leapfrog over that traffic (unless there are bus lanes). We will just have to see how it turns out in practice.
Last week in West Side news
Austin Weekly News reported on a suburban developer that’s taking advantage of the Missing Middle initiative - a city effort to build middle-class housing on the South and West sides. Schaumburg-based Alteza Group LLC plans to build two two-flats, five three-flats and one four-flat on eight lots scattered throughout North Lawndale.
Austin Voice profiled Austin Chamber of Commerce’s new executive director. The turmoil over the chamber’s executive directors is another story that I feel got lost completely (and I’m only familiar with bits and pieces, because I never had a chance to dig into it properly). As things stand, it will be interesting to see what’s next for the chamber.
Austin Weekly News also covered a Zoom meeting on how the turmoil in the federal government is affecting nonprofits. The meeting was organized by North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council co-founder Valerie Leonard, who runs Nonprofit Utopia, a nonprofit that assists nonprofits.
Block Club Chicago covered Preservation Chicago’s most recent list of 7 most endangered buildings - which, this time around, includes Austin’s J.J. Walser House, a Frank Lloyd Wright house that… has been through a lot.
Block Club Chicago also covered the launch of the Garfield Community Garden Network’s spring season, and generally profiles the group that has quietly been doing some pretty significant work throughout the community.
Coming up this week
On Tuesday, March 11, at 6 p.m., 11th Police District Council (which includes West Garfield Park, parts of East Garfield Park and the portion of North Lawndale north of Roosevelt Road), is having its monthly meeting Breakthrough Violence Prevention Center. 214 N Homan Ave. For meeting agenda, click here.
Also on March 11, Movement Revolution Dance Crew will hold a “performance/workshop combination” for teens at Legler Regional Library, 115 S. Pulaski Rd., at 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“This performance/workshop combination honors trailblazing women in the dance world, such as Judith Jameson, B-Girl Bonita and more. It also includes a Waacking showcase and Waacking workshop, highlighting this iconic queer femme dance form.”
On Friday, March 14, at 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., Legler will host a poetry-writing workshop for kids.
On Saturday, March 15, Sankofa Cultural Arts Center, 5820 W. Chicago Ave., is hosting a networking events for organizations and entities that provide services for Austin youth. This is an opportunity for providers to get the word out about what they do and find out about city resources they can take advantage of. The summit kicks off at 11 a.m. and wraps up by 1 p.m.