How can we address the most urgent challenges facing our region? Transit is the Answer.
The RTA Board of Directors has approved Transit is the Answer, the 2023 regional transit strategic plan that has been in development for more than a year. The plan vision is safe, reliable, accessible public transportation that connects people to opportunity, advances equity and combats climate change.
Read the plan below and join our coalition.
On February 16, 2023, the RTA Board of Directors voted to adopt the new regional transit strategic plan, Transit is the answer. This work is the result of more than a year of development, input from and engagement with thousands of people, including residents across the region, transit riders past and present, and hundreds of other stakeholders. It comes at a pivotal moment in the future of the region, and it presents RTA’s immediate commitments to improving the transit system, priority policies that need more support and are vital to a well-functioning system, and importantly, a critical choice that RTA, its stakeholders, and leaders must make together about how to fund our system going forward. Learn more in a video below and download the plan.
Watch RTA Board Chairman Kirk Dillard speak about Transit is the Answer at the City Club of Chicago.
The plan includes a 14 item Agenda for Advocacy and Action, much of which will require partners and progress over time. Advancing the agenda starts now. RTA is committing to a set of Shared Regional Activities to begin implementing in 2023
The RTA held a virtual public hearing on Transit is the Answer on Wednesday, December 7, 2022. If you missed the meeting, watch the following video to learn more about how the plan was developed and the major topics it addresses.
The RTA has also developed a summary version of the plan in English and Spanish, and can translate this document into other languages upon request.
The scale, complexity, and existential nature of the challenges that our transit system is currently facing demanded a new, inclusive process to develop this strategic plan. The challenges are too great for any one agency or organization to tackle on its own, and the RTA believes that it is only through coalition building — mutual learning and agenda setting — that we can rise to meet the moment. The RTA is committed to change, and the process we have followed over the past 18 months reflects that commitment. Every aspect of the plan, including its Vision, Principles, and action items have been created through collaboration and engagement with thousands of diverse voices over the past year.
Read more in the Engagement Report and learn more about the Working Groups convened to develop content for the plan on the Working Group Hub.
