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

We walk, bike, train (when we can), and I drive. We’re privileged to live in a walkable neighborhood, within just a few minutes of our kids’ daycare, our grocery store, coffee shop, a few restaurants, and our church. My wife doesn’t drive (she’s a Brit!) and for the most part is able to get around on foot or bike. We’ll take the Metra if we can time it right, heading into the city or for a quick trip into Evanston or Wilmette. I am grateful (and lucky) to live in a village with mixed-use density that encourages active transportation. But I also fully recognize the economic justice implications and deep disparities when I travel throughout the district. We have PACE buses connecting suburbs, but usage is spotty and low. Metra trains connect the North Shore and Evanston or Glenview to the city, but outside of the ingress/regress of the working day, trains are unreliable and sporadic. In so many ways, our suburban communities are still reliant on cars. We can do so much more to incentivize municipalities to embrace walkability and density, invest in safe bike lines or steward biking paths, within and across our villages. We can improve connectivity between our district communities and Chicago and the surrounding areas, to support workers and working families commuting or traveling. Fundamentally, my view is that active transit planning, public transit planning, transportation and climate policies, and local urban design should work together to encourage carbon-efficient, bike-able, walkable, and desirable places to live, work, and play for all Illinoisans..

What are some transportation challenges in your district?

In the 9th District, we face two interconnected problems: fragmented transit services that leave vulnerable populations behind, and missing infrastructure that perpetuates car dependency. Seniors juggle a patchwork of specialized programs with limited hours and geographic gaps. The Purple Line is one of the lowest performing in terms of scheduled service. We have gaps in our bike network and missing pedestrian safety improvements in several of our municipalities. Evanston in particular has faced significantly reduced bus service. Bus shelters are missing shelters. But these aren't really separate issues: they're symptoms of a car-centric system that fails people without cars.

The Illinois Department of Transportation (“IDOT”) plays a significant role in transportation throughout the state, in Chicago, and Cook County. What is your opinion on their role with the Chicago Department of Transportation, Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways, local communities, and the impact that has?

IDOT has historically prioritized highway expansion over transit, operating in silos without genuine coordination with transit agencies or local communities. The 2023 IDOT-CDOT Memorandum of Understanding and NITA's new requirement that IDOT collaborate on bus rapid transit are progress, but implementation matters. Going forward, IDOT should be a genuine partner in regional transportation strategy, not a separate fiefdom. That means partnering with municipalities on street design, actively supporting transit signal priority projects, embedding transit considerations into highway planning from the start, and aligning funding with equity principles. In my district, IDOT is a critical but sometimes unreliable partner, often suffering from challenges of being understaffed and overcommitted. The Senate should provide rigorous oversight to ensure IDOT delivers on these commitments.

How do you view the Illinois General Assembly’s role in setting IDOT’s priorities for public transit, passenger rail, and strengthening accessibility in transportation?

The Senate has a responsibility to establish clear legislative direction on what equitable regional transportation looks like. NITA creates a new governance structure and $1.5 billion in funding, but legislation is just the foundation. The Senate must provide sustained oversight to ensure NITA and IDOT actually implement the service standards and equity protections the law requires. Are fares affordable for riders on fixed incomes? Are we building the bus rapid transit corridors we promised? Is transit signal priority getting implemented on key routes? The Senate should also remove barriers if IDOT or NITA need additional agency to enforce bus lane protections or partner with municipalities on first-mile connections. Finally, the Senate should create explicit expectations about equity outcomes, ensuring the fare programs and service standards actually work for the communities they're meant to serve.

States like Colorado, Minnesota, Virginia have passed legislation that has shifted their transportation infrastructure spending towards projects that prioritize safety, transit and cycling, and greenhouse gas mitigation. What’s your position on Illinois’ current transportation infrastructure spending, and if you could change anything, what would it be?

Colorado, Minnesota, and Virginia have shifted transportation spending toward transit, cycling, and climate resilience. Illinois needs to do the same. We've historically treated first/last-mile connectivity as an afterthought. Someone in Glenview or Evanston can't reliably get to a Metra station or frequent bus line because we lack integrated pedestrian infrastructure, protected bike lanes, and local bus networks that connect to regional transit. NITA gives us the governance and $1.5 billion in funding to fix regional coordination, which is essential. But if I could change one thing, I'd dedicate a percentage of state capital funding to first/last-mile solutions: protected bike infrastructure, pedestrian improvements, enhanced local bus service, and paratransit that actually connects people to public transit. This is an equity issue. It's also how peer regions build ridership and reduce car dependency. A 100-year sustainability mindset means treating the connective tissue, not just the major corridors, as critical infrastructure, and reimagining connectivity to service the working families and the residents.

This fall, the Illinois General Assembly passed a historic investment in transit operations – as well as significant governance reforms in the establishment of the Northern Illinois Transit Authority. How do you view the Assembly’s role in ensuring both the short- and long-term success of this legislation?

NITA breaks the governance silos that hamstrung the region by bringing CTA, Metra, and Pace under unified oversight. The Senate’s job now is threefold: sustained oversight to ensure NITA implements the service standards and equity protections the law requires; protect the funding funding commitment so it doesn't become a bargaining chip in future budget crises; and remove barriers if NITA needs additional authority for transit signal priority enforcement or partnerships with municipalities on first-mile connections. The fare programs outlined in the bill, fare capping, income-based reduced fares, free fares for domestic violence survivors, represent moves in the right direction.

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

I'm enthusiastic. High-speed and intercity rail connecting Chicago to other Illinois cities (the Quad Cities, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Peoria) reduces emissions, strengthens regional economies, and gives lower-income riders alternatives to cars and airfare. NITA includes almost $500 million to build new passenger rail routes to downstate regions. Illinois should pursue both short-term wins (improved Metra commuter rail frequency, the Rock Island Line regional rail scheduling program) and long-term infrastructure like true HSR. The bill moves us toward the Quad Cities connection. We should accelerate that work and start planning the next regional corridors.

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 can legislators shore up funding for critical infrastructure projects under a hostile federal climate?

The Red Line Extension and Red-Purple Modernization are transformative projects. The Trump administration's freeze of billions in federal funding demonstrates that we cannot depend on Washington anymore. We must build state and regional resilience ourselves.

NITA provides a foundation. But for capital projects like the Red Line Extension, we need additional strategies. Illinois should establish dedicated state capital bonding for transit, ensuring we can front-load funding when federal dollars are frozen or delayed. We can engage municipalities in pursuit of matching funds, but these may be challenging to achieve, given the property tax environment. Finally, we can explore progressive new revenue sources to try and identify additional funding to complete this important projects.

In addition to funding, we can make work to bring down the actual cost of construction. Through careful, project-specific focus from the legislature and Governor's office, we can dedicate technical assistance and regulatory trouble-shooting resources to ensure environmental reviews are accelerated and swiftly satisfied, keeping the project on schedule and preempting expensive overruns and delays. I'm reminded of the now-famous "all-hands-on-deck" approach by Pennsylvania to rebuild I-95.

Illinois cannot wait for Washington to act. We have the tools and the responsibility to fund these projects ourselves and build a transit system that serves all our communities.