The pandemic has caused uncertainty at all levels of government and exacerbated many of the region’s challenges. Bold, ambitious planning remains vital to the region’s future. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) was created in 2005 (70 ILCS 1707) to address both emerging and persistent challenges and guide planning throughout northeastern Illinois.

ON TO 2050, the region’s comprehensive, long-range plan, continues to drive the agency’s work. Adopted in 2018, the plan has three principles: inclusive growth, resilience, and prioritized investment. The plan builds on past planning efforts and recommends policy changes and legislative actions that capitalize on the region’s vital assets. As communities grapple with the pandemic’s effects, these recommendations can steer northeastern Illinois toward a strong recovery and regional resilience.

The Legislative Agenda for the 102nd Illinois General Assembly presents CMAP’s positions on state legislation related to planning, transportation funding and programming, fiscal and tax policy, and local government support. A more detailed legislative framework to inform potential state legislation is available at cmap.illinois.gov/updates/legislative.

The State of Illinois charged CMAP to plan comprehensively for the metropolitan Chicago by incorporating land use and transportation planning with work on housing, regional economic growth, water resource management, community development, and environmental issues. CMAP’s enabling legislation pledged that “additional funding shall be provided to CMAP to support those functions and programs authorized by [the Regional Planning Act]” (70 ILCS 1707/62). State funding is primarily limited to transportation activities and must support all of CMAP’s planning activities as mandated in the state enabling legislation, with a special emphasis on natural resource planning for CMAP and partner agencies.

CMAP supports:

Dedicated funding for all of CMAP’s comprehensive planning activities mandated by the State of Illinois.

New, sustainable revenues to support state and regional water planning by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois Water Inventory Program, and regional partners.

Robust data is a vital tool for planning, policy development, and responding to shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments need data to conduct research, prioritize public investments, and make better decisions. Data sharing through open governance also improves transparency and accountability by enabling residents to understand how government operates. As technology advances and brings new transportation options to northeastern Illinois, CMAP and planners need better access to information — such as data from transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft — to help guide congestion management, planning, and investment decisions.

CMAP supports:

Legislation and administrative actions to increase data sharing and transparency by state and local agencies, especially in instances that could aid in COVID-19 recovery.

Legislation to increase data and information sharing at a regional scale by TNCs and other private personal mobility companies that aids local and regional planning and decision making.

The pandemic has highlighted how fiscal and tax policy decisions made at the state level affect the region’s ability to make infrastructure and community investments recommended in ON TO 2050. Tax policy influences the region’s overall economy, including the commercial, industrial, and residential development of communities. It can also limit the ability of local governments to meet their quality-of-life goals, create an overreliance on property tax, drive inefficient economic development incentives, and hold some communities in a cycle of disinvestment.

Under the current tax structure, communities without sales tax-generating businesses or dense commercial development often lack the revenue to pay for public services and infrastructure. Reforms are needed to improve revenue-generating options for communities with a very low tax base compared with their costs for providing basic services, helping break the cycle of slow growth or disinvestment. Current policies can inadvertently lead local governments to compete with one another for economic development, with little or no overall gain for the region or state. Changes to the tax system must also reflect the state’s economies and demographics, rather than arbitrary formulas, and promote inclusive growth.

As local governments grapple with limited resources, immediate benefits can be provided by sharing services, consolidating services, or consolidating governments. These could include improved capacity and resources, greater efficiency, enhanced service quality, and cost savings. The State of Illinois can help facilitate partnerships and consolidation by providing support to local governments interested in pursuing these strategies.

CMAP supports:

Reforms to the criteria the state uses to direct revenues to local governments in order to reduce wide divergences across municipalities, allow each municipality to support its own desired mix of land uses, and adapt to changing development patterns.

Broadening the sales tax base to include more services, in such a way that could allow for lower rates.

A state program that provides funding to local governments for study and implementation of consolidation and other partnerships.

Metropolitan Chicago is home to an extensive multimodal transportation network. The region serves as North America’s freight hub and features one of the nation’s most extensive public transit networks. Travel trends during the pandemic underscore the transportation system’s importance. Transit, in particular, continues to provide a vital service to essential workers and many riders who have no other means of transportation. Despite the indispensable role transportation assets play in the region, chronic underfunding continues to hamper system growth. The current funding structure still falls far short on resources required to support the current system, let alone make improvements that are crucial to the region’s recovery and economic competitiveness.

With increasing fuel efficiency and stagnating population growth, motor fuel taxes and revenue from vehicle registrations fees will not adequately fund infrastructure maintenance and improvements in the long term. Further, the tax burden will grow more inequitable across the system as some vehicles become more efficient and a greater number are powered by alternative fuels. The state urgently needs to begin a pilot study of a per-mile road usage charge to aid in transitioning away from the motor fuel tax.

Increased state and federal investment, while critical, will likely be insufficient to meet the region’s significant needs. Northeastern Illinois should generate robust local revenues and allocate those funds based on performance rather than arbitrary formulas. Regionally raised and invested funds would help complete a significant number of prioritized projects and modernize the system while leveraging private and public funding sources.

Congestion pricing remains a major opportunity to manage congestion and ensure expressway facilities have resources for long-term maintenance. Enhancement of the region's expressways likely cannot be funded without exploring innovative partnerships or alternative revenue sources, such as tolling. While Rebuild Illinois provides significant resources, additional improvements are needed to address congestion and freight mobility throughout the region.

CMAP supports:

A statewide pilot for a per-mile road usage charge that will become necessary due to the long-term insufficiency and inequity of the motor fuel tax.

New, sustainable, regionally raised revenues for transportation to make multimodal investments that meet the region’s unique transportation needs.

Congestion pricing and other operational improvements to ensure people and goods can move efficiently.

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) was created in 2005 by state statute (70 ILCS 1707). CMAP’s Policy Committee is the federally designated metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the seven counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will, plus portions of DeKalb and Grundy. State and federal mandates require CMAP to conduct comprehensive regional planning, prioritize transportation investments, provide technical assistance for communities, and compile data resources that enhance decision making. CMAP staff are guided by the agency’s core values:

Serve with passion.
Pursue equity.
Foster collaboration.
Lead with excellence.
Drive innovation.

Implementation of ON TO 2050 is CMAP’s main priority. CMAP is working to achieve regional goals in three primary ways: hands-on technical assistance to local governments, alignment of capital investments through performance-based decision making, and collaborative research and analysis.

Local Technical Assistance (LTA)
CMAP has initiated over 220 LTA projects in partnership with counties, municipalities, and nongovernmental organizations that are planning for increased livability, sustainability, and economic vitality.

Performance-based programming.
ON TO 2050 recommendations guide the allocation of federal transportation dollars in northeastern Illinois through the following programs that CMAP administers:

• $475 million is programmed to be invested over four years (federal FY 2021-2024) as a part of the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program to enhance mobility and improve air quality throughout the region.
• $196 million approved via the Surface Transportation Program-Shared Fund for federal FY 2020-2024, developed through coordination with subregional Councils of Mayors and the City of Chicago to address regional infrastructure priorities.
• $25 million allocated as part of the Transportation Alternatives Program for federal FY 2021-23 to support alternative modes of transportation and help complete CMAP’s Regional Greenways and Trails Plan.
• $17 billion in total, accounted for in the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which includes all federally funded and otherwise regionally significant projects for federal FY2021-2025.

Policy research and analysis.
CMAP conducts extensive, data-driven research and analysis related to policy objectives in ON TO 2050, including diverse economic factors such as workforce, innovation, and state and local tax policies. CMAP helps to coordinate collaborative efforts to build partnerships involving educational institutions, government entities, and industries to strengthen our region’s economy.

This document and other CMAP legislative and policy statements for state and federal government can be found at cmap.illinois.gov/updates/legislative.

Contact Gordon Smith
Director of Government Affairs
312-386-8739
gsmith@cmap.illinois.gov