Working for a regional organization means I log miles
daily. Sometimes that’s on foot, traversing the Loop, taking advantage of its
centrality and excellent transit access as a convenient location for MPC
to convene our
diverse stakeholders.
I also enjoy my time on the road — or riding the rails,
if they’re headed my direction — meeting with partners in communities such as
Aurora, Chicago Heights, and Palos Hills. I often team up with Kristi
DeLaurentiis, whose natural outreach skills led to her promotion earlier this
year as MPC’s director of local government and community relations.
It’s on these “field trips,” as my four-year-old
daughter calls them, that I appreciate the urgency of MPC’s work to strengthen
and coordinate our regional transportation system. I don’t do a daily reverse or
suburb-to-suburb commute, but for all who do, I feel your pain. Like you, I’ve
been frustrated when trying to map a transit-friendly trip, only to discover
it’s impossible, or been steamed when another traffic jam means another missed
Little League game. We’re among the thousands of frustrated travelers who think, “There must be a better way!”
MPC is motivated by the fact that we know there is a
better way. As the cover story illustrates, we face an historic opportunity to
inspire innovative changes to the relentless outward march of Chicagoland’s
car-dependent development by redirecting infrastructure investments to unlock
economic growth, especially in areas that have been bypassed. The Chicago
Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) must lead the way in mapping out the
kind of attractive and convenient communities we all want and deserve, while
navigating the tough decisions of how and where to invest. Whether in Kane or
western Cook County, MPC believes people deserve to live in neighborhoods where
walking or biking to the store, school and train is a convenient option.
At its Annual Meeting Luncheon (see pg. 8) in August and
subsequent forum in September, MPC asked Illinois’ Republican and Democratic
candidates for governor, Judy Barr Topinka and Rod Blagojevich, what they would
do, if elected, to invest wisely in housing and transportation, plan sensibly
for growth, and reform property taxes and education funding. Both made
commitments we support — which we’ll hold them to — but they also reminded us we
have more work to do. For excerpts of their remarks, visit MPC’s Web site
at www.metroplanning.org.
With strong leadership from the Governor’s Office, and
the individual and cooperative efforts of CMAP, RTA, state legislators, and
organizations such as MPC, we not only can meet our growing transportation
needs, but also share in the benefits of new jobs and healthier, walkable
communities. Our first test will be the next state capital plan, which the
General Assembly will take up this fall or during its spring session. But if we
get that right, I’ll have more reason to look forward to “field trips” with the
same sense of excitement and adventure as my daughter
does hers.