[Mr Downtown]

Yeah, I'm smirking at the idea that Northern Illinois could ever have a "long-term plan" for transportation.

For nearly 30 years, the feds have required that we have an MPO to rationalize regional transportation planning. A decade ago, Metropolis 2020 got NIPC and CATS combined into CMAP in hopes it would relate land-use and transportation planning. But mostly for political reasons, CMAP continues to be a "stapler" agency that largely takes in the wish lists from all the different players (IDOT, counties, municipalities, operating agencies) and just staples them together to have "a plan" to give the feds. Go To 2040 was an effort to put some priorities to the various projects folks wished for—and then the biggest project funded and built during the decade, the Circle Interchange, was something not even listed in the document.

Neither CTA nor RTA have much of a long-range planning group, as that's been sacrificed in decade after decade of budget cutting. And both CTA and Metra are primarily devoted to getting the system we have back into a state of good repair. Especially under Daley and Emanuel, projects like Red Line Extension or O'Hare Express have seemed to be more about getting planning grants and disbursing same to consultants than about getting any shovels into the ground.