Traffic report adds urgency to debate

Sometimes a few depressing facts and figures help advance a debate toward resolution.

Maybe, with any luck, that will be the case as Illinois officials continue to wrangle over funding for Chicago-area transit and a statewide capital program that would build and repair highways, bridges and schools.

As Gov. Rod Blagojevich and lawmakers remain at loggerheads, the newest installment of a dreary annual report punctuates the need for Illinois to get off the dime in funding transit and highway improvements.

This year's edition of the Texas Transportation Institute's report, issued this week, offers no surprises. The report shows, as it does each year, that Chicago-area drivers endure the nation's third-worst traffic congestion; only New York and Los Angeles are more badly jammed.

How slow is Chicago traffic? The report states the average Chicago-area driver spent 46 hours idling in stalled traffic in 2005. That's about 20 hours worse than 20 years ago and an increase of 11 hours in only four years.

Worse, the Transportation Institute confirms what many suburban drivers already suspected: that among U.S. cities, Chicago's traffic is the most unpredictable. Who among us hasn't noticed that it has become increasingly difficult to avoid congestion by choosing to drive at certain times of day? Instead, we seem increasingly likely to hit expressway snarls at any time of the day or night, often for no obvious reason.

The Chicago-area's traffic status is not merely frustrating for commuters who see their time with home and family shrinking. Failure to improve highways and provide sound financing of mass transit damages commerce and individual businesses. Deliveries of goods and products are delayed, frustrating customers. Fuel consumption and costs rise, cutting into companies' bottom line. Payroll costs increase for firms compelled to pay drivers overtime.

And still, officials in Springfield seem little closer to acting effectively. On Monday, the state Senate approved a governor-backed gambling-expansion package that backers say would provide a $200 million loan to the RTA, $1.9 billion for school construction, about $260 million for general state aid to schools and about $4.8 billion over six years for roads and bridges.

The inclusion of road-and-bridge money is a plus because of need and because its inclusion might draw support from downstate legislators disinclined to vote for transit aid alone.

But assistance to the RTA in the form of a loan is problematic, particularly when Blagojevich and legislators remain far apart on a permanent funding source needed to repay any loan. The better -- if not ideal -- option remains help for transit in the form of a Chicago-area sales-tax increase, an approach Blagojevich continues to oppose.

As they resume discussion, state officials would do well to keep this week's report -- and its implications for constituents -- foremost in mind.