We all need to play a role to make sure that pedestrian and bicycle facilities are included in transportation infrastructure projects in our communities. Action needs to happen now at the local level. Call your Mayor to ensure that your streets become Complete Streets -- ones where anyone can travel by foot, bike or car. Tell them why this project is important to your community (Complete Streets can reduce transportation costs and travel times while increasing property values and job growth) and remind them that each roadway project provides an opportunity to include the needs of all users (pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users, and the disabled).

Congratulations to the Champaign-Urbana Safe Routes to School Project on unveiling their new billboard:

The sign, an incredibly effective visual argument against speeding, is only one small part of a comprehensive program that is getting kids across these two municipalities more active on their way to school.  Champaign-Urbana Safe Routes has also received state funding to improve the street signage around Urbana’s schools, decorated the local buses with transportation safety messages, and is working with the Active Transportation Alliance to introduce a Walking School Bus program at King Elementary.  Cynthia Hoyle and Rose Hudson are outstanding examples of advocates changing the transportation culture in their community.  To learn more about their work with the Champaign-Urbana Safe Routes to School Project, click here.  To learn more about Safe Routes to School where you live, click here.

On March 3, a special primary election will be held to fill the 5th Congressional District seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel (now White House Chief of Staff). Active Transportation Alliance has more than 1,600 members in the 5th District. As a service to our members, we are offering each of the candidates an opportunity to post their transportation platform on our blog.

The first posting is from Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley. His posting appears below unedited. We will add other candidate postings as they are received. Please feel free to share your opinions by commenting on the blog postings.

Statement from Commissioner Quigley:
"Mass transit provides a safe, affordable, environmentally efficient way for people to travel to and from work. Chicago is in desperate need of an infusion of federal funds to continue to upgrade our transit system. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided a great opportunity to invest in transportation infrastructure. Commissioner Quigley urged Congress to include more funding for mass transit in the final version of the stimulus package on a new website, with a petition to support transit funding. Unfortunately, a third of the funding for CTA, METRA and other local transit operators was cut from the final bill. If elected to Congress, Commissioner Quigley would continue to fight for more funding for bike lanes and to make walking and public transit safer, more convenient and more efficient.

On the County Board, Commissioner Quigley has sponsored every piece of major environmental legislation adopted by Cook County in the last decade and continues to press the County to make environmental sustainability a top priority. His efforts lead the Chicago Reader to name him the "greenest elected official in Chicago." In their recent endorsement, the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that Commissioner Quigley "has championed the Cook County Forest Preserve District, gotten more money for environmental programs and persuaded county government to buy green." Commissioner Quigley also forcefully advocates for and works to protect the Forest Preserve District. Since 2006, as chair of the Forest Preserve Board Finance Committee, he has urged District officials to increase the pace of land acquisition, opposed encroachments and inappropriate uses of District lands, and supported careful restoration of District lands to their natural state."

Sun Times' transportation reporter Mary Wisniewski gets it:

"Here's a confession: I used to talk on the cell phone a lot while driving, both hands-free and hands-full. It kept me from feeling bored in traffic, it saved time, and I knew my chances of getting stopped for it were about equal to my chances of getting ticketed for jaywalking on State Street.

Last month, I decided enough was enough, and stopped. I looked at it this way -- I've done 956 really stupid things in my life. But I've never driven drunk because I was afraid I'd hit a kid. Since talking on a cell phone can be as bad as driving drunk, that meant I had to hang up the phone. So I did."

The ban for talking on a cell phone while driving in Chicago is about to go up. Sure, passing a law doesn't automatically stop everyone.

But, as she says, "Laws alone aren't going to stop cell phone use while driving. There has to be something else -- a sense of social shame. There has to be a tipping point -- to go from thinking it's OK to drive while on the phone to thinking it's akin to breaking wind in public.

Think of how many people smoked in the 1970s -- one of my jobs as a kid was to empty and clean out the household ashtrays. My kids have never even seen an ashtray. It's not because cigarettes are illegal -- they're banned from many indoor places, but they're still legal outside and in people's homes. Most people don't smoke anymore because enough of them got the message that it's insanely bad for your health, and social mores evolved to make it seem silly instead of cool. That's what's going to have to happen with cell phones and cars."