Explore 2025 RTA planning projects and successes in interactive annual report

The 2026 RTA Community Planning and Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) Technical Assistance Program application opens March 30, 2026.

Every year, the RTA assists local governments throughout northeastern Illinois on projects that strengthen the region’s transit system through two programs: Community Planning and Access to Transit. These programs provide funding and technical assistance for local governments to plan for and create pedestrian-friendly, multi-modal, equitable, and accessible communities.

The RTA recently published its 2025 Annual Report, highlighting 26 projects around the region supported by the Community Planning and Access to Transit programs that are starting soon, in progress, or recently completed.

The report includes details on four Access to Transit projects that were completed in 2025. One such project was completed in July, when the Village of Prospect Heights constructed a new sidewalk on the east side of Wolf Road between the Prospect Heights Metra Station and Willow Road and installed new pedestrian signals at the intersection of Camp McDonald Road and Wolf Road. Other projects described in the report include bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvements in the City of Harvey and a wayfinding and pedestrian infrastructure project in the City of Waukegan.

Six Community Planning projects that were completed in 2025 are also described in the report. The RTA assisted the City of Joliet to develop an Equitable Transit-Oriented Development (ETOD) plan for areas of downtown adjacent to the Joliet Gateway Center, a hub for Amtrak, Metra, and Pace services. The plan identifies strategies for the City to create equitable housing opportunities adjacent to public transportation through zoning amendments that require provision of affordable housing; increase ridership on existing public transportation routes through infrastructure improvements at intersections and near transit stops; and redevelop publicly owned land and vacant land into uses that generate property tax revenues. Other projects listed in the report include a corridor study of Halsted Street between Harvey and Chicago Heights, zoning code updates in the Villages of Maywood and Robbins, and special financing district studies in the City of Geneva and the Village of University Park.

The report lists eight other examples of communities throughout the region that successfully implemented recommendations from previously completed plans that received funding and technical assistance from the RTA’s Community Planning program. As detailed in the report, these communities’ efforts have not only created new housing opportunities near transit but have also established new public spaces adjacent to transit that can support pop-up programming, host performances, and promote community gathering.

Overall, the projects included in the implementation report show progress toward the goals of Transit is the Answer, the RTA’s regional transit strategic plan adopted in 2023, and the principle of “Commitment to Change.”