News Updates

Break the jam: Continuing the conversation about how to manage congestion

Congestion is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular traffic – and it’s a significant problem in northeastern Illinois. Decreasing the costs and negative impacts requires effective strategies for both managing and reducing congestion. Congestion’s negative impacts are a recurring topic in ON TO 2050, the comprehensive plan for the region. 

Federal regulations require that urbanized areas with populations greater than 200,000 maintain a congestion management process (CMP) that provides for safe and effective integrated management and operation of the multimodal transportation system, based on a cooperatively developed and implemented metropolitan-wide strategy. The CMP development and implementation is intended to be integrated into the overall regional transportation planning process, like the 2026 Regional Transportation Plan currently in development. As the region’s federally designated metropolitan planning organization, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is responsible for overseeing the CMP.  

The congestion management strategy (CMS) is an initiative to comprehensively update the region’s CMP, which was last updated in 2013. As such, this strategy will refresh each required component of the CMP, with a focus on an updated process to analyze congestion problems and needs. This update will set the foundation for a new approach to evaluate, identify, and rank priority corridors for planning and investment.   

What’s next? 

The CMS will include two primary deliverables to support implementation: a guidebook and a comprehensive corridor study template. The guidebook will identify congestion management strategies. The corridor study template will establish a framework for multijurisdictional and multiagency coordination, to plan and implement the strategies, particularly for priority corridors.  The updated CMP, guidebook, and corridor study template are expected in summer of 2025. 

If you have specific questions or would like to discuss congestion management more in-depth, please contact Noah Harris, nharris@cmap.illinois.gov.