Category City in Motion

The Deep Tunnel from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's own records: 1.55 trillion gallons pumped back out of TARP to the Stickney and Calumet plants in the 28 years the district's daily logs carry in full, 2018 the record year; $3.856 billion in contract dollars; 110.4 miles and 15.15 billion gallons of reservoirs - and a last reservoir stage the district's own documents moved from 2029 to 2032, with an 18-month hole in the posted logs stated, not filled.

The Skyway lease from the city's posted documents and the owners' own filings: $1.83 billion up front in January 2005 for 99 years, $446.3 million of it refunding Skyway bonds; three reserve funds whose schedules show two drawn to $134,000 and $4,000 by 2016; $11,977,992 in deal fees; and $1,441,818,000 still unrecognized at the end of 2025, counted $18.5 million a year through 2103. Control of the concessionaire has changed twice; the city's record stops at 2016.

The ten largest department labels in Chicago's 2026 Budget Ordinance file: Finance General - not an operating department - leads at $8.19 billion, 44 percent of the $18.67 billion total, ahead of police at $2.11 billion. Appropriations, not spending, summed by the file's own labels.

Chicago's administrative-hearings violation file at honest grain: 841,271 charge-line rows describing 144,837 dockets, every one issued by the Buildings department despite the general name. Hearings collapsed in 2020 and 2025 was the busiest year since 2010; 44 percent of dockets carry a fine; the file records no disposition.

Chicago's 811 hit ledger, read at report grain: 62,897 notice rows describing 14,508 hit reports since 2015. Gas service leads the struck-facility mentions, Peoples Gas-owned facilities appear in 43 percent of reports - and 846 reports record what was hit as UNKNOWN. Reports, never verified strikes.

Chicago's passenger-vehicle register, read whole: 16,329 records across nine types, fewer than half ACTIVE - and more taxi records at VIOLATION (3,518) than ACTIVE (2,679). Active liveries now outnumber active taxis; three types have no active record at all; 14 electrics citywide. Statuses reported exactly as recorded.

The Near West Side leads Chicago with 8,088 completed pothole patch jobs since 2018 - but by the file's own potholes-filled counts, Ashburn leads the whole city with 89,393. Both measures shown, with the completed-jobs boundary from the full patch-ledger analysis.