Less mass transit will mean more time on road

The connection is not hard to see:

Fewer residents opting to carpool or take buses and trains equals more time on the road for suburbanites inching to work in their cars.

The formula is clearly evident in Census data released today, and planning experts say it's time we face facts -- and be prepared to pay for transit improvements that will get us out of our cars.

"We ought to view (Census) numbers like this as a wakeup call," said MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, which advocates against sprawl and for transit expansion. "Business as usual is not getting us what we want."

Chicago-area Census data culled in 2006 shows travel times in nearly every county edging slightly upward over 2005 and 2000, the latest available comparisons.

For example, the average travel time it took suburbanites in booming Kane County to get to work was up 1 minute from 27.3 minutes in 2000 to 28.3 minutes in 2006.

That lone 60-second increase may sound minor, but consider that it took a significant buildup in longer commutes to push the mean travel time higher.

"You are talking about so darn many riders and motorists that a change of that nature could involve a lot of people," says George Ranney, CEO of Chicago Metropolis 2020, a civic planning group. "I think that is significant."

About 23 percent of Kane County drivers had commutes to work longer than 45 minutes. Most counties also had a similar percentage of drivers spending as much time in the car.

On the transit and carpooling side, Kane County saw marginal decreases, which are only exacerbated by the fact that nearly 48,000 more people lived there in 2006 than in 2000.

This downward spiral of congested roads, lost time with family and more headaches plays out in almost every Chicago area county.

The Chicago area is commonly ranked as having the second-worst travel times and congestion in the nation, just behind clogged Los Angeles.

In 2006, DuPage and Cook county residents were the only ones to see a slight decrease in average work travel times. DuPage officials have been aggressively modifying roads and bus routes, while Cook residents are turning to buses and trains more often.

While efforts in those counties are at least staving off out-of-control travel times, little hope remains that commutes won't continue to rise in the coming years.

For one, people are increasingly buying homes far from work, likely because of rising housing costs near employment centers. Just about half of all residents in each county works in another county, according to the 2006 data. That hasn't changed since 2000.

Moreover, transit expansion and road building has slowed in the first six years of this century. The state is now running on minimal funds for road improvements and putting off many local expansion projects.

Plus, transit officials say they are now forced to embark on a escalating scale of fare hikes and service cuts because of a lack of tax funding. Such moves will only further worsen a transit system that has so far done little to alleviate the traffic for most suburban workers.

Fixing these problems will cost big.

Transit agencies say they need $10 billion over the next five years for upgrades that include the suburb-to-suburb Metra STAR Line, rapid bus routes and an expanded CTA el.

Road builders argue another $10 billion is needed for widening choked Cook County expressways, tollway expansion and upgrading the region's freight rail system.

Politicians have had a weak stomach in the past six years for such massive spending plans, which would require noticeable tax hikes on the general public. But advocates for such funding continue to sound the alarm bells.

"We have not been investing in transit and transportation like we should -- we just haven't," Ranney said.