What types of transportation do you use during an average week, and how has this shaped your view of transportation policy?

I use a mix of public transportation, auto, and bicycle. I was a bicycle commuter for decades in a variety of places where I have lived, including Chicago, Iowa City, Cambridge MA, the San Francisco Bay area, and here in the northwest suburbs. I often bike to my district office or take a folding bike to Metra when I need to work downtown. Often, because of the weather or because I need to travel within the district, I use either my electric Fiat 500e or my gasoline-powered car for longer trips.

This variety of transportation modes over the years has opened my eyes to the need for more comprehensive public transportation options throughout the county, more suburb-to-suburb public transportation options, infrastructure, particularly in the suburbs, that better accommodates pedestrians and bicycles.

What are some transportation challenges in your district?

Approximately 100,000 people in my district, in Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Arlington Heights and Mount Prospect have no access to fixed route bus service. This is particularly problematic because the main roads in this area have little or no pedestrian or bike access – high speed limits, no shoulders to ride on, no sidewalks or sidewalks that force repeated crossings of multi-lane roads. This is aggravated by limited access highways, often with clover-leaf intersections that block pedestrian access, and side streets that are not on grids and offer very limited alternate routes at best for cyclists and pedestrians.

In the part of my district nearer to Chicago, aging infrastructure and heavily trafficked roads pose hazards to cyclists and pedestrians.

Cook County residents often find their local roadways fall under multiple different jurisdictions and standards. How do you view the County’s role in ensuring consistent, safe, and accessible transportation for constituents?

Cook County can help facilitate projects that cross municipal boundaries through incentives for grant making that prioritize these types of projects. A number of projects in my district do exactly this. This year, Cook County funded a project that enhances bicycle and pedestrian access along Church Rd. in Maine Township, that increases bicycle and pedestrian access between Des Plaines, Park Ridge, unincorporated Maine Township and the Forest Preserves. Similarly, the county and the Forest Preserves have been working with municipalities that border the Des Plaines River Trail to develop and execute a master plan to revamp that trail and improve access to a hey north-south bicycle and pedestrian route from southern Cook up to the Lake County border.

What can Cook County do to stabilize and expand access to bikeshare programs that span municipalities?

A number of municipalities in my district, particularly in the northwest suburbs, don’t have any access to these programs. A major obstacle is the perception that they are neither practical nor cost effective in these areas. Funding infrastructure in these areas that improve accessibility would be a key first step, as perhaps funding through grants that would make it financially more attractive. However, I firmly believe that until infrastructure, both bicycle and pedestrian accessibility, as well as better fixed route public transportation, would need to be in place before bikeshare would be viable in a large part of my district.

What role can the County play in bringing funding sources and revenue streams to county transportation projects?

As a commissioner, I work closely with the municipalities and townships in my district to make leadership in these areas aware of County funding sources, and the priority that the county puts on increasing access to alternative forms of transportation. As a result, a number of grant applications from these governmental bodies in my district have been for projects that serve that purpose.

Cook County has a history of innovating access to public services, including public transit – such as the Fair Transit South Cook pilot. As commissioner, what are ways you envision the County innovating on transportation?

Cook County has continued to innovate on this in the time I have been on the board. I have supported a number of grants that have helped fund PACE Pulse bus service to improve ride times and expand service on heavily traveled routes, both in my district through Des Plaines, as well as elsewhere in suburban Cook. We recently approved an Invest in Cook grant to expand on-demand service in the area in the northwest suburbs that has no fixed route service. I envision continuing this, as well as prioritizing those areas that are currently transit “deserts”, and innovations that help suburb to suburb options.