The West Central Municipal Conference and the DuPage County Mayors and Managers sponsored Phase I of the Cook-DuPage Smart Corridors Plan and Design. Cambridge Systematics was the consultant awarded to complete the project. Agencies including the Illinois Department of Transportation, Regional Transit Authority, Chicago Transit Authority, Pace, Metra, and CMAP participated in the Cook-DuPage Corridor Planning Group. The purpose of the project is to improve travel for all modes through low cost operations/Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) solutions with a goal of selecting four corridors for implementation and pilot projects.

Implementing a smart corridor will include ITS and operational improvements in the following areas: traffic management, improved traveler information, incident management, and transit management. The project was divided into four steps to determine which four corridors would be selected as smart corridor candidates. The steps included identifying corridor limits, prioritizing corridors, corridor characteristic diagrams, and selection of corridors. The study area for the project was bound by IL 50 to the east, the Metra Milwaukee District West line to the north, the Metra Burlington Northern Santa Fe line to the south, and roughly IL 59 to the west. The corridors were ranked through a set of evaluation criteria such as traffic volume, congestion, population and employment density, safety, and others. Decision support materials and corridor characteristic diagrams helped rank the candidate corridors.

The four initial corridors for advancement to the design phase of the project include: Cermak/22nd/Butterfield, Harlem Avenue, North Avenue, and Roosevelt Road. Phase II, the conceptual design of the smart corridors, is currently on hold. This phase will assess the existing conditions and design a concept of operations and functional requirements for each corridor. It will also conduct a technology scan, create concept design plan documents, and develop a maintenance/operational plan for the corridor. Cambridge Systematics has partnered with Jacobs engineering for phase II of the project.