Did you know that the Chicago City Council has a standing "Committee on Transportation and the Public Way"?  It is chaired by 38^th Ward Alderman Thomas R. Allen (phone number: 312.744-6811).  Altogether, the Transportation Committee has thirteen members.  In addition to Alderman Allen, the members are:

To find out how to contact the Committee members, go to Chicago's City Council.

Did you know that. . .

• The City Council Transportation Committee has the third largest City Budget appropriation of any Committee in City Council.
• For 2003, the Committee has a budget of $402,000 for staff and expenses.
• Only two other City Council Committee Chairs have larger Committee budgets to work with, the powerful Finance Committee chaired by Alderman Ed Burke, and the Committee on Budget & Government Operations Committee, chaired by Alderman William Beavers. 

Why should you contact the City Council Committee on Transportation and the Public Way?

This City Council Committee has staff and resources nearing half a million dollars in public tax money for next year alone.  What are City Council Committees supposed to do with their appropriations?  Hold public hearings, call witnesses, and study the issues.  For example, the Transportation Committee should review the City's transportation system, hear from constituents about neighborhoods' transportation needs, and respond to the Mayor's costly plans for expanding Downtown public transportation.  The Committee can call witnesses, and in the past, has called CTA and Metra officials before them, to explain various actions or the agencies' failure to respond to the concerns of Chicago's citizens. 

Most importantly, these aldermen are YOUR elected representatives. We are one city, but not everyone travels to Downtown.  Our neighborhoods need quality transit services, too.  Citizens and taxpayers throughout the city rely on public transportation. CTA buses operate on city streets.  CTA and Metra have facilities throughout the City. The alignment of public transportation affects the public way. 

Ultimately, City Council is responsible for approving the City budget, and votes to appropriate revenues, including the level at which the City contributes to the CTA budget. When the CTA, Metra or even a freight railroad do business within the Chicago City Limits, it's OUR business.

Some of the sales tax dollars and your fares go to the transit agencies.  Over fifty years ago, when the CTA was created, the Chicago City Council gave the agency an exclusive franchise to provide public transportation service within the city limits in 1947, and actually set expectations and standards for the new CTA's performance.  Even though the law passed in the mid-1970s to create the RTA established additional "rules of the game," the City has a right to set expectations about the quality of transit service Chicagoans need.

Can other Aldermen help improve public transportation?

Yes!  Even if your local alderman is not on the Transportation Committee, he or she can request that the Committee hold public hearings, or consider an ordinance or resolution about a transportation issue.  Your alderman is elected to advocate for your needs and preferences.  The City Council Committee on Transportation and the Public Way represents an organizing opportunity for transit advocates and grassroots community-based organizations to insist upon greater accountability over our public transportation system.

For more on taking action to improve public transit, go to the Campaign for Better Transit website:  www.bettertransit.com.