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Tools for Transportation Choice

To help you decide how your transportation dollars are spent...

We have encouraged the Chicago Area Transportation Study (CATS) to use:

  • Objective tools for decision making and
  • Open and transparent processes that the public can reasonably comment on.

    • We have opposed:

  • Decision-making behind closed doors and
  • Decision-making by technicians rather than by a broad spectrum of policy-makers.

    • CATS wants you to comment on some projects before they decide which ones to fund. This is an important new opportunity. Please visit the CATS website (opens in new window) to view schedules of upcoming meetings. How can the region make reasonable choices with limited funds? We developed a very simple tool, a "project scoring model," to display different impacts of projects. The Project Scoring Criteria (pdf opens in new window) assign a numeric value based on the priorities of the Connecting Communities summits. The categories assess environmental stewardship, equity, economic development, and other factors the public values.

    We applied the scoring criteria to projects CATS has released for review, as an example of how the region could make decisions based on an open and objective tool. The results are available here (pdf opens in new window). Not surprisingly, the highest scoring projects are the ones that promote the greatest choice.

    Please keep in mind that our version of project scoring is very simple. Some important information is not yet available. In spite of its limitations, we are sharing this example with you so that you can see that CATS, with much greater resources and technical capactiy, could also develop a clear and open process. Reasonable people can (and will) disagree about the score a given project received, but they can't disagree that the process should be accessible to all of us who foot the bill.