5 ways to fix Illinois' transportation mess

Ending a culture of competition among transit agencies. Putting counties in charge of township roads. Doubling the gas tax to pay for transit. Building more highways financed by tolls. Creating an Illinois Freight Authority to move goods faster and grow the economy.

A new report by Chicago Metropolis 2020 steps on several third rails by recommending some revolutionary ideas to fix Illinois' dysfunctional transportation system.

"Sometimes to make things work better, we need to get outside of our comfort zone," said James LaBelle, vice president of the business-supported, civic organization that focuses on urban planning.

Good roads, transit and railways equal prosperity, so "we want to make sure the state is doing all it can to grow the economy for the long term," LaBelle said.

The report comes at a time when Illinois has no money to spend on bold, transformative projects and is hard-pressed to simply maintain its highways and bridges. Transit agencies also are short on cash.

Here's how the study, "Building Our Economy - Transportation for a New Illinois," aims to fix this.

1 Rethink the power structure of the Chicago Transit Authority, Pace, Metra and their oversight board - the Regional Transportation Authority.

Right now there's four separate boards governed by 47 voting members, three transit agencies looking out for their own interests, yet no universal fare system, the study points out.

The RTA has made "sincere efforts but has had little success in improving service coordination," the report states. "The RTA is looked at with suspicion," LaBelle said.

Metropolis 2020 talks about the possibility of merging organizations or combining functions among the transit agencies but stops short of calling for outright consolidation.

"We need to figure out how to work together better. We're calling for unified, coordinated transit," said LaBelle, a Metra board director.

The RTA supports Metropolis 2020s call for more investment in transit, Executive Director Steve Schlickman said.

On the structural issue, legislation in 2007 already revamped the RTA to include more suburban directors and increase its clout over Metra, Pace and the CTA, he noted.

"What the legislation did was help the RTA to be a more effective regional agency," Schlickman said.

Metropolis 2020s "model is a typical business model but we're not a business, we're a public agency. Let's not start arguing what the structure should be, we went through that in 2007. Let's work through the recent changes and make it work as well as we can."

2 Transfer authority over township roads to county governments.

Giving tax dollars collected by townships for roads to counties saves money and gets more bang for the buck, the report states.

"If you have only 5 miles of roads, and a highway commissioner and trucks and all the rest - at some level, it doesn't make sense," LaBelle said.

As a first step, the state should delegate authority for township highways to counties in urban areas, Metropolis 2020 recommends. "Township management of roads may have made sense a century ago when it took a day to travel to the county seat," the study noted, adding that's no longer pragmatic today.

But Schaumburg Township Highway Commissioner Robert Fecarotta calls the concept ill-conceived.

Shifting responsibility for the 10 miles of township roads to Cook County would hurt taxpayers, he contends. The county highway department is hard-pressed to maintain its own roads now because of insufficient funding and manpower.

"The reality is the Cook County government would find a way to divert the money for other uses," Fecarotta said. "They would not give residents what they're paying for."

3 Double the state motor fuel tax from its current rate of 19 cents per gallon and keep adjusting it for inflation.

Raising the gas tax, unchanged since 1990, would generate about $1.5 billion a year. The money could be used for highways and neglected needs such as transit, freight rail, and services for pedestrians and bikers, the report recommends. Tax credits could be offered to low-income households.

State Sen. Martin Sandoval, a Chicago Democrat who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said he would support a gas tax increase provided it was tied to funding mass transit.

In 2009, the legislature passed a $31 billion construction program to be funded by video gambling and increases to alcohol taxes and vehicle registrations. Sandoval said he'd backed increasing the gas tax to pay for the plan. "If we'd gone with that, we would have fully funded our capital program," he said. "Now we're waiting for the revenue to come in."

4 Build and reconstruct highways through the use of tolls.

The report advocates tools such as car-pool lanes or congestion pricing, which charges drivers more to use express lanes in rush hour, to reduce the region's chronic gridlock.

It recommends instituting tolls when highways are constructed or rebuilt and that federal law be changed to allow tolls on interstate highways.

"We need revenue sources that are related to use and respond to needs," LaBelle said.

Illinois State Toll Highway Authority spokeswoman Joelle McGinnis said the agency "supports innovative solutions to solve regional congestion, and will continue to work within the guidelines provided in the Toll Highway Act and current federal law to provide a safe and efficient system of toll-supported highways in Illinois."

5 Establish an Illinois Freight Authority.

Illinois is among the busiest freight hubs in the nation but it's stuck with an outdated railway infrastructure that means trains crawl through the region. The CREATE plan to relieve rail traffic with new tracks and bridges has stalled for lack of funds. Without a modern rail system, Illinois will lose jobs and business to states that can move goods faster, the report said.

A freight authority could push for needed improvements that would be funded by a proposed fee on freight shipments, Metropolis 2020 recommends.

"We do not have a leader in Illinois on freight," LaBelle said. "CREATE has broad support but it's moving slowly. Basically, we're on a 70-year plan. We need someone to say this is an important thing to pay attention to."

State Rep. Elaine Nekritz, chairman of the House Railroad Industry Committee, said it's a concept worth discussing.

"There is a need to find some source of funding to build on our rail assets," she said. The state doesn't have the capacity to handle increased freight trains when the economy improves and "if we don't find a way to address it, all the jobs Illinois could have with warehousing and logistics could go elsewhere," said Nekritz, a Northbrook Democrat.

Right now, Illinois households spend $50 billion on transportation a year through gas, fares, tolls and other expenses and businesses spend another $50 billion to move goods around.

Compared to that, the state contributes about $12 billion on transportation, Metropolis 2020 states.

The report suggests other sweeping changes such as increasing transit in rural areas and metropolitan areas downstate. LaBelle acknowledged it won't be easy to change the status quo but said the stakes are too high to do nothing. The game plan is to meet with lawmakers, local leaders and transit agencies to start moving on reform, he said.

"We know it takes more than good transportation to have a healthy economy - but if we can't move around well and businesses can't move goods easily - business slows down or leaves," LaBelle said. "Illinois is not keeping pace with other states in economic growth.

"If we leave things alone, our concern is that Illinois will not compete as well as other states and they'll be a price to pay for that."