Roselle mayor gets ‘a seat at the table’ on powerful new transit board
Two years ago, Roselle Mayor David Pileski was testifying to state lawmakers about the lack of Pace bus routes in his village.
This fall, he’ll be able to tackle problems like transportation deserts directly as a board director for the powerful, new Northern Illinois Transit Authority.
DuPage County Board members approved Chair Deb Conroy’s selection of Pileski to the 20-member NITA board last week.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for public transit,” said Pileski, who has an urban and regional planning degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“To have that recognized and actually get a seat at the table to hopefully be able to solve some of these problems is exciting.”
Following transit reform legislation, NITA replaces the Regional Transportation Authority in September. Armed with greater authority over Metra, Pace and the CTA, and an influx of funding, its priorities include reducing crime on trains and buses, and creating a universal fare card.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do with my peers on that board to make sure that we come full circle and really find solutions that are going to address the safety, the reliability but also the connectivity that our system’s struggling with today,” said Pileski.
A supply chain senior manager, Pileski takes Metra’s Milwaukee District West Line to work regularly.
Some collar county leaders have raised concerns about whether NITA will be marginalized by Chicago and Cook County.
“A lot of times it’s been framed as a Chicago versus the suburbs conversation, but … I think there’s a lot of similarities in the suburban experience to the South and West sides of Chicago experience, where everything is just so focused and biased toward downtown Chicago and the Loop,” Pileski said.
“We need to figure out how we get riders realistic access to get to their jobs, to medical appointments, to school on time. I think that can yield not only good results for the suburbs but for other underserved parts of the network.”