Bye, 2015. Bye.

Friends of the Parks is fighting a legal battle over leasing 17 acres of lakefront property near Soldier Field to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. This fall, the museum, which will house "Star Wars" creator George Lucas' art and film collection, won approval of the City Council, Chicago Park District and Plan Commission. The museum would be built on what is currently a parking lot Bears fans use to tailgate.

Earlier this year, Chicago's South Side won the bid for the Barack Obama Presidential Center. It will either go in Jackson Park or Washington Park. A decision is not expected until next year, with construction starting after Obama's term in office, according to the Tribune. Friends of the Parks were critics of the park district land transfer for the museum, and state lawmakers pushed through legislation to help eliminate legal obstacles to building the museum on parkland.

Ride-hailing services Lyft and Uber got the green light just before Thanksgiving to begin pickups at Midway and O'Hare airports. Uber said its UberX service began operating at airports on Tuesday. Lyft, which was approved Sunday, became the first ride-hailing service in Chicago to be approved to coordinate pickups at the city's airports. Both companies allow customers to arrange pickups at designated locations at both Chicago airports.  The mayor's office announced this month that such companies were soon to be cleared to pick up customers at O'Hare International and Midway airports, despite backlashfrom taxi drivers and aldermen, who worried about traffic and security. - Chicago Tribune

This fall, officials approved the 2016 budget, declaring no new fare increases in the $1.47 billion spending plan.   Here's what else the CTA's predicting: Ridership will go up slightly next year. Also: annual declines in bus ridership should taper off while rail ridership climbs, according to the CTA. - Chicago Tribune

A study released in late November ranked the Kennedy Expressway as the nation's top traffic bottleneck. The 12-mile stretch of road triggers more delays than any other stretch in the nation, according to the American Highway Users Alliance study. Backups on Kennedy cost drivers 16.9 million hours of time in 2014. While cars idle or crawl in traffic, more than 6.3 million gallons of fuel is wasted, the study found. Two Chicago expressways made the study's top 50 list of worst congested highways including the Dan Ryan (No. 23) and Edens (No. 46). - Chicago Tribune

One of the more shocking stories of 2015 happened in mid-September, when a Blue Line train pulled out of the Damen station with a door open on a car full of passengers. Passengers in the train car yelled for someone to pull the emergency brake after trying to stop the train by pulling on the red knob near the open door with no luck, according to Walid Mendez, a passenger who was in the train car when it happnened.  As the train picked up speed, a man pulled an emergency brake knob and the train came to a stop. A CTA worker came through the train and was able to reset the doors, allowing them to close. - Chicago Tribune

The highly anticipated rails-to-trails project called The 606 opened on June 6. The 2.7-mile elevated trail slices through Bucktown, Wicker Park, Humboldt Park and Logan Square. The centerpiece of the $95 million project is its path for runners, cyclists and pedestrians. The trail connects to neighborhood parks as well.

Last year it was the skating ribbon, but this year's big debut at the newly minted Maggie Daley Park in downtown Chicago was the climbing wall, which officially opened in May.  The 20-acre, $60 million park honoring the former first lady of Chicago was created by landscape designer Michael Van Valkenburgh and designed to appeal to visitors of all ages.

A 40-acre nature preserve opened in September on Northerly Island where Mayor Daley once closed Meigs Field in a midnight raid. The park has already played host to educational activities, and in fall 2017, after the grasses and flowers grow in more, the fences bordering the park's path will come down, making way for park-hosted camping.

One of the sadder tales of the year involved a man who was struck and killed in early December by a No. 72 CTA bus as he chased after it. A witness told the Chicago Tribune that the man's girlfriend got on the bus but the doors closed before he could get on. Kent said the man was chasing the bus, hitting the side of it and telling it to stop.  "...he slipped and fell and the bus ran him over," the witness said.

Chicago's Christmas tree went up in Millennium Park for the first time this year, next to the ice rink. For decades, the tree had been placed in Daley Plaza.

If you had a huge room that you could design however you wanted—Oh, that's a great question. The floor could be a trampoline in one area, you could have a McDonald's—basically it's like, remember the movies "Blank Check" and "Richie Rich"?My favorite movie ever. My dream to have a check of a million dollars started from that movie. So it's your version of that. How would you design your ideal room?Oh. My. Gosh. This is such a good idea. First of all, one wall would probably be slushies. Like full-on different flavors but natural fruit—I don't like the artificial ones. But like margaritas on tap, pina coladas on tap. Maybe a blue raspberry for those who enjoy that; I'm not a big fan, but you gotta do it for your friends, for the other people that are there. It tastes more like blue than raspberry.It's a joke. I don't know where someone came up with blue raspberry. So I'd definitely have a wall of that. I love the trampoline idea, but I may go more with a trapeze. And the floor could be sort of trampoline-like, so perhaps if you fell you could bounce on the trampoline, but then it could have a dual purpose of jumping.  -- Matt Pais Click here for the full interview

Chicago's Divvy bike-sharing program began an expansion in April. Officials with the bikesharing program said that by the time it was over Chicago would have another 176 stations and an added 1,750 bikes to double their footprint across the city. Divvy's service area to covers more than 38 percent of Chicago's geographic area. - RedEye

The long-awaited Ventra app finally launched on November 19. CTA, Metra and Pace riders are able to download the app onto their mobile device and enjoy features like a built in real-time transit tracker, the ability to buy passes and load money onto their Ventra cards, and in Metra's case, use their mobile device as an actual ticket. - Chicago Tribune

In the spring, Grant Park hosted a three-day fan festival called Draft Town for the NFL Draft for the first time.There were autograph sessions, a Super Bowl museum display, a 40-yard dash competition and a skydiving simulator called the Sweetness Simulator.   The NFL announced that it would return to the Chicago for the draft next year.

The Humboldt Park Beach (pictured) didn't open for the summer, much to the dismay of residents who staged a beach blanket sit-in. The park district said it wanted to find a more cost-efficient and sustainable alternative instead of constantly filling the beach with water. When the beach—Chicago's only inland beach—was built in 1973, city architect Jerome Butler was quoted in a Chicago Tribune story as saying it would be "everything Lake Michigan has—plus cleaner water."

Service to the CTA Yellow Line was shut down in mid-May after an embankment under the tracks gave way. The CTA said the collapse was caused from a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District construction project that was in progress near the tracks. The line was thought to only be out of service for a few days, but didn't end up resuming service until October 30, nearly 5 months later.  - Chicago Tribune

After watching a thief grab a woman's cellphone and slash her face on a CTA platform in the Loop, a Good samaritan went to work. Steven Lucas, 25, who was just getting off work from a bartending gig, grabbed a "Wet Floor" sign for protection and followed the thief from the Clark and Lake Blue Line stop where the crime unfolded, he said after the mid-October attack.   "I called the cops as I followed him," he told WGN-TV. "And came at him with the sign. I didn't even hit him at all.  As soon as the cops pulled up, they were able to detain him." - Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV