Illinois and other states have been at a crossroads over how to fully fund the transportation system in recent years. With cars becoming more fuel efficient — and more people switching to electric and hybrid vehicles — revenue from motor fuel taxes isn't keeping pace with infrastructure costs.

Northeastern Illinois likely will need more than $30 billion beyond existing revenue sources to maintain and improve the transit system alone through 2050. As part of our mobility recovery work, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is examining ways to reimagine regional transportation and find sustainable funding to better serve all residents.

One option is a road usage charge. Oregon has been one of the few states in the country to implement this policy, providing a glimpse of how the idea could work on a statewide level.

CMAP transportation planner Victoria Barrett describes her passion for safety and shares how speeding is becoming an epidemic in a new video about the rise in pedestrian fatalities nationally.

CMAP worked with the Roadway Safety Foundation in Washington, D.C., to develop the video. It highlights different options communities can take to make travel safer for pedestrians, from enhanced walk signals to road striping.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has discounted all unlimited ride passes in an effort to encourage ridership, respond to changing rider habits, and make trips more affordable.

The discounts, some of which were first piloted this summer, were made permanent in the CTA's 2022 budget. The $0.25 transfer fee between trains and buses has also been eliminated.

All riders are eligible for the discounts. Improving equity in transportation fees, fines, and fares, a CMAP report published earlier this year, recommends making transportation fares more affordable for households with low income specifically. CMAP's report highlights how affordable, reliable, and accessible transportation is especially critical for residents with low income, who tend to own fewer cars because of the high cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle.

One strategy to make transit more affordable for residents with low income is to expand access to reduced fare permits, which provide eligible riders a discount on all trips — not only unlimited passes. For example, the permits could be made available to residents with income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That would make a family of four with income under $53,000 eligible for reduced fares.

CMAP estimates that expanding reduced fares to all residents with low income would result in them taking 15 percent more transit trips.

CMAP is updating the U.S. Census Bureau's public use microdata areas in Illinois. The Census Bureau defines these areas to tabulate and disseminate decennial census and other data.

If you use public use microdata sample data, please review CMAP’s draft 2020 microdata areas. Email any feedback to senior data analyst Noel Peterson by Friday, December 31.

The National Safety Council is accepting applications from nonprofits and government agencies for a new round of safety grants.

The Road to Zero Community Traffic Safety Grants fund projects, programs, and research that can help achieve the mission of zero traffic deaths. Since 2017, the program has awarded more than 25 grants to partners across the country to address safety. Applications are due by Friday, January 7.

'Invasion of the Nature Snatchers!' A Stewardship Festival

December 11, 2021, noon to 3:00 p.m.

Host: Chicago Region Trees Initiative

Unified Work Program

December 15, 2021, 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

Host: CMAP

Transportation Committee

December 17, 2021, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.

Host: CMAP