Recent Streetsblog CHICAGO posts about CMAP

Rauner Takes a Second, Hopefully Final, Step to Kill the Illiana

By Steven Vance | Jun 3, 2015 | 14 Comments

Yesterday, Governor Bruce Rauner drove a second stake into the heart of the Illiana Tollway, a sprawl-inducing highway proposed for rural Illinois and Indiana, just south of metropolitan Chicago. Rauner’s office issued a press release slamming a new state budget passed by Democratic leaders as fiscally irresponsible. In response to the budget, the Republican governor announced he will […]

Three Transit Campaigns: Do They Compete or Complement Each Other?

By Steven Vance | Apr 23, 2015 | 8 Comments

As the Chicago region grows in population, we’re going to need to provide efficient and affordable transportation options in order to compete in the global economy, and that’s going to require more and better transit. People who live near transit pay less in transportation costs as a portion of their household income, and have better access […]

Could Rauner Stop the Illiana Boondoggle? Sure. But Will He?

By Steven Vance | Dec 12, 2014 | 7 Comments

The Illiana Tollway, a joint proposal by the Illinois and Indiana departments of transportation to build a 47-mile highway through thinly populated farmland about 40 miles south of Chicago, rolled over another hurdle yesterday when the Federal Highway Administration approved the project’s environmental impact study. FHWA’s approval allows IDOT and InDOT to proceed with soliciting bids for […]

CMAP Seeks Its Own Dedicated Tax For Transit, Green Infrastructure

By Steven Vance | Nov 19, 2014 | 18 Comments

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning last week floated its own proposal to fix the region’s shortfall in transportation funding. It launched FUND 2040, a campaign calling upon the Illinois legislature to fund sustainable infrastructure through a quarter-cent sales tax across the Chicagoland region. CMAP says this increase would generate $300 million annually, which it […]

Seven Ways to Stop The Illiana Boondoggle

By Steven Vance | Oct 10, 2014

Two votes yesterday by a committee of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Chicagoland’s federally-designated regional planning organization, have cemented CMAP’s approval of the sprawl-inducing, budget-busting Illiana Tollway. Since federal transportation dollars can only be spent on projects included in an adopted regional plan, this gives Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois Department of Transportation the consent […]

Illiana Forced Into CMAP Regional Plan By Springfield, Suburban Reps

By Steven Vance | Oct 9, 2014 | 15 Comments

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s MPO Policy committee today approved the Illiana Tollway, among other projects, as part of GO TO 2040, which the agency calls “the comprehensive regional plan… for sustainable prosperity through mid-century and beyond.” Committee members representing Chicago, Cook County, and McHenry County, which together are home to almost two-thirds of Chicago […]

Revolt Against Illiana Undeterred By IDOT’s Latest Scare Tactic

By Steven Vance | Sep 29, 2014 | 12 Comments

Local advocates are scoffing at the suggestion, made by an Illinois Department of Transportation representative last week, that striking the Illiana Tollway from the Chicago region’s long-term regional plan would jeopardize transportation spending across the entire region. Instead, advocates insist that deleting the costly, sprawl-inducing road would cause at most a brief procedural delay in other […]

CMAP Board Members Will Try to Boot Illiana Boondoggle From Regional Plan

By Steven Vance | Sep 18, 2014 | 11 Comments

After appointees loyal to Governor Pat Quinn muscled the Illiana tollway onto the project list for Chicagoland’s regional plan, it looked like nothing could stop this risky highway boondoggle from getting funded and built. The Illiana may still happen, but not without a fight. Last week, the board of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning […]

Preckwinkle, Environmental Groups Want CMAP to Drop Illiana

By Steven Vance | Sep 9, 2014 | 25 Comments

The Sierra Club and other organizations intend to petition the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to remove the Illiana Tollway from its regional plan, effectively disallowing the state from building the new highway. The deletion is possible because CMAP, the federally-designated Metropolitan Planning Organization for this region, is finalizing a mandatory update of its GO […]

CMAP Tells IDOT: “To Each Municipality, According to Their Needs”

By Steven Vance | Jul 8, 2014 | 9 Comments

The Illinois Department of Transportation, whose secretary resigned last week after accusations about patronage hiring, distributed $545 million in gas tax revenue to fix streets in almost 3,000 jurisdictions last year. While this sounds like a lot of money, poor road and bridge conditions across the state can attest to the fact that these funds […]

Wicker Park Counts Up Better Ways to Use Its 11,650 Parking Spaces

By Payton Chung | Jul 2, 2014 | 4 Comments

Every Saturday night at dusk, the main streets in Wicker Park and Bucktown seize up. The stalled lines of cars don’t just infuriate drivers — they also stall buses, block crosswalks, and push cyclists into the dangerous door zone. These crowds don’t descend out of nowhere to watch the sunset, or to pile into shows […]

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