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Chicago region needs sustainable transportation funding to maintain competitive advantage

The transportation system in northeastern Illinois — a vast multimodal system of roads, bridges, transit, railroads, airports, waterways, and ports — has historically been and continues to be a strategic advantage for the region. This system is essential to our economic competitiveness and quality of life, yet is costly to maintain and operate: Billions of federal, state, and local dollars are spent on transportation in the CMAP region annually. Systemic shifts are leading to stagnant and even declining revenues, and structural problems make current revenue sources inadequate for maintaining and operating the system. For example, revenues generated from flat rates, such as the federal and state motor fuel taxes, have lost significant purchasing power due to inflation.

The revenue forecast for the metropolitan Chicago region is worrisome. Using existing revenues, ON TO 2050 shows a $24 billion gap through the planning period just to operate and maintain the transportation system as it is today, with its current deficiencies. Bringing the system to a state of good repair, modernizing it, and making limited, targeted expansions will cost even more. The following analysis explains the system’s current funding sources and recent revenue trends, making the case for new revenues needed to support a multimodal, well-functioning transportation system that meets today’s and tomorrow’s needs.

This analysis is one of a series examining transportation funding in northeastern Illinois and explaining the revenue recommendations included in the region’s long-range comprehensive plan, ON TO 2050. This analysis explains existing revenue sources for the regional transportation system. The first analysis in this series examined the ON TO 2050 recommendation related to the need for the state to increase its motor fuel tax and eventually replace it with a road usage charge. Other analyses in this series explore the ON TO 2050 recommendations to expand the sales tax base, expand parking pricing, use tolling and value capture to fund transportation improvements, and implement a federal cost of freight service fee.