Illinois Policy Institute

Update Friday 10/31/25, 9:00 AM: It was scary when the Illinois General Assembly floor debate over transit legislation entered the Halloween witching hours. But thankfully it looks like we've avoided a "Nightmare on Second Street" (the roadway where the state capitol is located). Here are some features of the new legislation that passed with $1.5 billion for public transportation, raised without statewide taxes, which I gleaned from a report by Capitol News Illinois and a summary by Capitol Fax.

If you weren't already convinced that the Illinois Policy Institute think tank is an alarmist right-wing organization, just check out the homepage of their blog. The headlines are screaming at you in all caps. And they seem to carefully select the most unflattering screenshots possible of progressive leaders such as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a strategy right out of the Fox News playbook.

Whether the subject is traffic safety or transit funding you can almost always count on the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute think tank to get the story wrong when it comes to livable streets issues.

You can almost always count on the conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute to be the wrong side of sustainable transportation issues.

This laughable video typical of the kind of mental gymnastics people who philosophically oppose automated enforcement make in order to argue it doesn't improve safety. 

The new report compared the changes in crash numbers near speed cameras and citywide between 2012-13 and 2018-2019 and confirmed that collision numbers have stayed relatively low near the cams.

The right-wing think tank plays up the program's revenue generation, downplays its safety benefits, and contains plenty of misleading statements and outright misinformation.

Data indicates that distracted driving is the real problem, but the CPD isn't issuing citations for it.