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

In an average week, I rely on a mix of transportation: I take the CTA—usually the Brown Line—about three days a week, use Divvy bikes another two days, and drive a private vehicle two to three days. Growing up in New York City shaped my instincts to look to mass transit first, and it reinforced my belief that frequent, reliable transit gives people real choices in how they get around.

What are some transportation challenges in your district?

My district faces chronic transit challenges: infrequent and unreliable service, delayed buses, and entire transit deserts with little or no access to mass transit. Several major corridors—like Ashland, Western, and Fullerton—are ideal candidates for bus rapid transit. Expanding service on these routes, building BRT, and increasing train and bus frequency would dramatically improve reliability, access, and ridership across the district.

How do you view Congress’s role in setting priorities for public transit, passenger rail, and strengthening accessibility in transportation?

Congress must be at the forefront of setting national priorities for public transit, passenger rail, and accessibility. Every bus, train, and station should be fully usable by everyone. Too many systems still exclude people with disabilities. Accessibility isn’t optional or secondary—it must be a core requirement of all transportation funding and planning.

What’s your position on the Federal government and Illinois’ current transportation infrastructure spending, and if you could change anything, what would it be?

I support continued federal investment in Illinois’ transportation infrastructure—but how we spend those dollars matters as much as how much we spend. Too often, funding is steered toward flashy, overpriced capital projects while riders are left with infrequent, overcrowded, and unreliable service. Spending hundreds of millions—such as the proposed $440 million to overhaul a single station—signals misplaced priorities.

Stations like State/Lake do need upgrades, and full ADA accessibility is non-negotiable. But accessibility cannot come at the expense of service. With smarter budgeting, the CTA could make stations accessible while also investing in what riders need most: more frequent trains and buses, more operators, more railcars, and reliability.

The biggest driver of ridership is frequency. When transit runs often, people use it. I would shift transportation spending away from one-time megaprojects and toward sustained investment in operations and service quality that actually improves daily life.

What is your position on investing to expand passenger rail service in Illinois, including the development of high-speed rail?

Illinois and the nation must make sustained investments in passenger rail, including building a true high-speed rail network. I support expanding conventional rail and rebalancing federal transportation priorities that have been skewed toward highways for decades. I would push to shift the Highway Trust Fund from an 80% focus on roads to 80% mass transit and rail—maintaining roads while modernizing our system. This would reduce congestion and emissions, connect workers to jobs, and create tens of thousands of high-paying union jobs. High-speed rail isn’t a luxury—it’s proven infrastructure, and Illinois should lead the way.

Federal funding for Illinois transportation projects – such as the Red Line Extension and Red-Purple Modernization projects – has come under threat from the Trump administration. How do you plan to shore up funding for critical infrastructure projects under a hostile federal climate?

Federal transportation funding should never be used as a political weapon—but under the Trump administration, it has been. Republicans have repeatedly targeted major cities like Chicago, even when it harms the national economy.

I will fight aggressively to protect and expand funding for critical projects like the Red Line Extension and Red-Purple Modernization, using every legislative tool available—building coalitions with other metro areas, applying public pressure, conducting oversight, and blocking unrelated priorities until funding is restored.

I’m also clear about tradeoffs. If an administration strips infrastructure dollars from cities that power the U.S. economy, Congress should stop writing blank checks elsewhere. I support tying cuts to urban transit funding directly to reductions in excessive Pentagon spending—if cities lose a dollar, the Department of Defense should lose five.

Investing in public transit isn’t charity—it’s economic, climate, and public safety policy. I will treat it that way in Congress.

Our streets have become increasingly militarized in the past several months as the Trump administration has ramped up DHS and ICE activity in our cities. This past summer, Congress voted to increase the ICE budget larger than most of the world's militaries.

What is your position on ICE and related immigration enforcement?

Abolish ICE.

ICE is not a reformable institution. It is a secretive federal police force that has repeatedly demonstrated contempt for the rule of law—engaging in unlawful detentions, terrorizing communities, assaulting U.S. citizens, and killing innocent people without accountability. When an agency operates with this level of impunity, reform is not a serious answer. Congress has continued to pour billions into ICE—funding that now rivals the military budgets of many nations—while the agency expands its reach into our cities and streets. That is not immigration enforcement; it is domestic militarization.

Republicans openly justify this abuse of power. But many Democrats, including my opponent Mike Quigley, pretend the problem can be fixed with better oversight or marginal reforms. That position ignores reality. You cannot reform an agency whose core mission and culture are built on fear, secrecy, and unaccountable force.

Immigration policy should be handled through a humane, transparent, civilian system that respects due process and human rights. ICE has proven incapable of that mission. For the safety of our communities and the integrity of our democracy, it must be abolished.