In such a large and diverse region, collaboration is crucial to achieve a more seamless transportation experience for riders. As a regional body, the RTA works to bring together the CTA, Metra, and Pace on everything from pandemic response and climate action to installing signage to make it easier to transfer from one service to another.
The Travel Information Action Plan is a three-year roadmap for making transit customer information easier to access and understand. To develop the Action Plan, the RTA worked with CTA, Metra, Pace, and community members to better understand how riders get the information they need to plan and navigate trips on transit in the Chicago region. The resulting document outlines steps the RTA, CTA, Metra, and Pace are taking and plan to take to eliminate key pain points and improve how information is delivered and communicated.
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Given that transportation is one of the largest cause of greenhouse gas emissions in Illinois, our region’s transit system is our strongest tool in the fight against climate change. Public transportation reduces carbon emissions, reduces reliance on fossil fuels, and reduces congestion in ways and at a scale nothing else can.
As evidenced in Transit is the Answer, RTA strongly supports the commitments of the CTA, Metra, and Pace to reducing reliance on fossil fuels, including that all public transit buses in the region will be zero emission/electric by 2040—and that these bus electrification strategies will be implemented equitably. Read more in Pace's Project Zero report and CTA's Charging Forward report.
Read how Chicago's transit system is helping meet Illinois' climate goals in a blog post:
The RTA leads the Regional Transit Signal Priority Implementation program to improve bus speed and reliability at 500 intersections along 100 miles of roadway in 13 priority corridors in the Chicago region.
TSP uses wireless technology to improve transit speed and reliability. By modifying traffic signal timing when transit vehicles are present to advance or extend the green light, TSP allows a CTA or Pace bus to continue through an intersection when the bus is running behind schedule—helping to reduce travel times and ensure on-time arrivals. The program is funded by a $40 million federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement grant.
The RTA has developed a series of signs, maps, route diagrams, and schedules to help riders more easily navigate the regional transit system. To date, more than 1,000 signs have been installed at key locations where CTA, Metra, or/and Pace intersect. The signage system has three types of products: wayfinding signs, identification signs, and service information panels, which include route maps, timetables, and connection information. All of these products are designed to make transferring between services seamless and intuitive.
The RTA’s Interagency Signage program began in 2012. At that time, federal grant funds were used to implement new wayfinding signage and transit service information at key interagency transit locations throughout the Chicago region. Based on extensive user research and testing, the RTA developed an Interagency Design Standards Manual, which is continuously updated as more signs are installed around the region. Pictures of all the installed signage and proposed locations can be seen via a story map.
More details about the program’s 2017-2021 accomplishments can be found in a report and explored via an interactive story map, both published in June 2021.
Click below to watch a June 2022 Webinar about the program.
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