Strengthening Transit Through Community Partnerships“We are about $3 trillion down on infrastructure in the country,” Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley told a packed room to promote Transit Future, a campaign by CNT and the Active Transportation Alliance to create a dedicated revenue stream at the Cook County level for public transportation.“We used to dream big and it drove the economy. Now we’re still using infrastructure we built during the Great Depression.”
Transit Future was inspired by a successful campaign in Los Angeles, where voters approved a half-cent sales tax to raise money for several new subway lines. If we don’t do something similar in Chicago, we may get left in the dust by historically car-centric L.A.
In order for the region to win the federal dollars needed to bring Chicago's transportation network into the Twenty-First Century, we’re going to have to pull together as a team.
“Now more than ever, you need to be micro-focused on coordinating plans and requests, working at all levels of government, across all boundaries," he said. "You gotta be smart, and you gotta be bipartisan.”