What do you believe are the greatest transportation challenges facing the City of Chicago right now?

The biggest transportation problem facing Chicago right now is that it’s getting both harder and less safe to get around, particularly for anyone not in a car. That’s a problem for people walking & biking who are at risk, people who rely on public transportation who face crowding, delays, and unreliable service. It’s even a problem for drivers who are also facing busier and less safe streets.

To tackle these problems we need to address public transit delays, staffing shortages, and issues like ghost buses. We need safer streets for bikers with protected bike lanes and other bike infrastructure.

As with many other problems facing Chicago, this requires us to change our priorities and reallocate resources to the services that are vital to getting people good jobs, healthcare, and education. Including getting them *to* good jobs, healthcare, and education safely and reliably.

Do you or members of your family regularly use sidewalks, bike, take transit, drive, or a combination of any/all to get around? Does this correspond with your preferred/ideal modes of getting around? If not, what barriers do you and your family face in using your preferred mode of transportation?

Growing up, the Red Line was my way of accessing the city around me and I’ve commuted to work in the past by bus and train. So much of what I love about living in the 46th ward is how many things are within walking distance. I grew up walking to school and walking to restaurants, the grocery store, and leisure activities. During different periods of time in my life I’ve biked to get around, a little less so these days with my almost-3-year-old. I don’t have a working car right now and with campaign life and a small child, I’m acutely aware that long-term problems with our public transit system are impacting my ability to get around. The “ghost” buses and trains so prevalent right now have made it extremely difficult to rely on the CTA. Many of my core team members are devoted bike commuters, so one of our first campaign events was a bike tour of Uptown that featured sites of historical political struggles with resident experts and activists who met participants at each stop to share the history of our community.

Can you share a personal experience that changed your opinion about a transportation related policy matter?

I grew up in Uptown. My schools were always within walking distance. We didn’t need a car to shop for groceries as there were plenty of shops in the community and then the Jewel also opened in the neighborhood. My family would use the buses and Red Line to get to entertainment, especially downtown to go to museums. It wasn’t until college that I actually had to depend on public transportation to get to places where I needed - as opposed to wanted - to go. But when I was in high school I became an activist in my community and through that work met a number of elders and folks with disabilities who depended on public transportation to get to medical appointments. It was through those relationships that I came to realize that public transportation has to be treated as a right and not as a privilege. Moreover, I became acutely aware of how the changes to the neighborhood and the growing lack of affordability meant that the services were no longer in the neighborhood. For example, there used to be many more mental health resources within walking distance of the 46th ward. These days, depending on a person’s needs they’re likely to need to use public transportation to access those resources.

Chicago is a snowy city, and even one stretch of uncleared sidewalk can make it impassable – particularly for folks with disabilities, the elderly, and parents with young children. What is your position on implementing a universal city-wide sidewalk snow/ice removal service?

I am in full support of city-side snow removal and would support such an ordinance. It creates safety for everyone, and would permit folks with mobility limitations to still live, work, and play in the city year-round. Our ward has always been home to a high number of elderly and people with disabilities.

It is now widely recognized and understood that interstate highways were used to physically divide urban communities from one another – often along racial and class lines. How do you propose we overcome these divisions to restore the urban fabric of Chicago and reconnect our segregated neighborhoods?

To reconnect our communities across these artificial divisions, we need to make sure that there is safe & reliable transportation between all of our communities, especially for those who do not or can not drive and have a harder time crossing highways. We also need to make sure that the legacy of existing highways is not to continue to perpetuate environmental racism, where communities of color, many broken and displaced to make way for the highway, now suffer the most from pollution from the highways themselves and the heavy industries that are located nearby. Everyone in Chicago deserves a community where they can grow up healthy and move freely about the city.

What role do you believe transportation plays in Chicago’s collective greenhouse gas emissions, climate responsibility, and overall environmental health?

Cars, and especially trucks, and other elements of the logistics industry, contribute to emissions and air quality. The kind of transportation we make accessible, especially those less reliant on emissions the more we are investing in a low-carbon future. This includes making cycling more accessible, investing in public transit, and executing on plans like electrifying our bus fleet. As much attention and money as is devoted to the improvement and expansion of roads for private vehicles, there’s a greater need to be devoted to investments in the improvement of public transportation, especially in communities of color and sites of environmental injustice.

What is your position on the Illinois Department of Transportation’s current proposals for rebuilding North DuSable Lake Shore Drive? Do you believe the proposed designs will reduce congestion, improve transit access and make pedestrians and cyclists safer? How do you think the current proposals will impact access to the lakefront?

Because my ward is literally right off of DuSable Lake Shore Drive, this is a project that has caused a great amount of concern among neighbors of all walks of life. I share the same reservations residents have expressed about how this could increase traffic on neighborhood streets as well as cuts to existing park and recreation spaces. I also have been concerned about the need to maintain the best possible access to healthcare facilities. The current plans for Dusable LSD definitely will not improve bicycle and pedestrian safety in the 46th Ward. Moreover, the current proposal would actually cut park and recreation space in our neighborhood. The proposals around Addison in particular would impact the Montrose Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary as well. Additionally, we presently are in a situation where we need to improve bicycle routes, especially east-west in our ward, and some of the exit/entrance ramp parts of the proposal (for example, at Addison) would make the fight for i’m proved bicycle routes even more difficult moving forward. All of this to say that, the next alderperson (unlike our current one) will need to be vocal in their opposition to the current plan to ensure that all of these concerns are addressed.

What barriers do you believe the Illinois Department of Transportation presents to Chicago pursuing better safe streets design standards and transit investments? How do you plan to work with City Council, the Governor, and State legislators to overcome these barriers?

The biggest problem IDOT presents is that they control many major streets in the city, not even just interstates but any surface streets that are state routes. Their standards do not always match what we need to provide the best in safe streets design inclusive of all users - pedestrians, cyclists, those using wheelchairs or other assistive devices, transit riders, delivery people, and personal car drivers. I’m used to advocating to and working with state senators and representatives to change state laws that impact our quality of life in Chicago. I look forward to using those skills and relationships to press for change to our laws and internal IDOT standards to ensure that Chicago neighborhoods can have Safer Streets whether they are under the control of CDOT or IDOT.

The 99-year parking meter deal enacted by former Mayor Richard M. Daley has been a barrier to enacting safe street designs by privatizing large portions of Chicago’s streets. What is your plan to address this?

I plan to work with my colleagues and the mayor to figure out a way to change the deal or work around it so that we can provide protected bike lanes, curb bump-outs at crosswalks, and other protections without ultimately costing the city money that should be going to improvements and to a corporation the former Mayor Daley made at the end of his time as mayor.

Studies show us that speed and distracted driving kill. What do you think are the most effective ways to reduce driver speed and increase safe driving behavior?

Too much of our built environment relies on signage or potential fines, when we really need to integrate physical changes that make it more difficult for drivers to speed, to blow through intersections, to not stop at the crosswalk or not see pedestrians. There’s whole handbooks of traffic calming measures including round-abouts, raised crosswalks (which also help with snow and ice), bollards and other unyielding physical protections from drivers where they shouldn’t, and pedestrian bump-outs at crosswalks. Even measures such as narrowing lanes and streets and providing trees along the edge of the sidewalk has been shown to help by making the space feel restricted, as opposed to the way many of Chicago’s thoroughfares are wide-open spaces that can feel more like highways to breeze through than places to be. Our communities should feel like places to be, to enjoy, and to be safe either in a car or by any other means of transportation.

What is your position on the City passing ordinances that attempt to regulate the size, weight, and/or safety features of personal and private vehicles?

It’s hard for one city to set regulations on inter-state commerce, but we should use all the tools we do have to protect Chicago residents. For example, even if we can’t ban heavy trucks entirely, there’s no reason for heavy commercial vehicles to be going down narrow residential streets that are also greenways, as recently led to the death of a child in my ward. We can do better than that. We can also work with state representatives and senators to push for state-wide regulation, or even lawsuits on features that can be shown to contribute to higher crashes. City and state alike end up bearing costs for increased accidents, giving them standing to advocate for better standards with manufacturers.

What is your position on establishing a dedicated funding stream for safe and universal pedestrian and bike infrastructure in Chicago?

Not only do we need dedicated funding, but to make sure that there’s people in the city government dedicated to getting it done. We’ve already seen with lead service pipe removal that even when Chicago “commits” funding to improvements necessary for the health and safety of our neighbors, it does not always get done. That’s why I advocate to reinstate the City Department of the Environment. The same principle applies here that we need to make sure there is both dedicated funding and a dedicated workforce to make the physical improvements happen.

What is your position on creating select pedestrian-only streets?

In the 46th Ward, several blocks of Sunnyside have been pedestrianized since 1995. There are trees, benches, and public art. It’s a lovely space to hang out with neighbors, to let children play, to walk a dog. It hosts many community events. I’d love to see more of that in the City and my ward.

What policy solutions would you implement to ensure CTA buses operate on schedule, frequently, and quickly?

The CTA, while not entirely forthcoming about the root causes of the current crisis of reliability, has made clear that they do not have enough people to run their normal schedule. We need to make sure that the CTA can hire, train, and recruit more than enough people to run their previous schedule, so we can restore its frequency and then expand service. That might mean better pay, different onboarding requirements, changes to how they schedule workers, or other changes whose need is not yet obvious. One important point of struggle will be the upcoming contract negotiations between the CTA and the Amalgamated Transit Union, which expires at the end of 2023. The previous contract was not ratified until well into the term it covered. It will be important to the long-term health of the CTA that ATU and other unions have the support of city residents and leaders as they negotiate for the changes they see as most important to the jobs they do every day. That we need even more people to do every day. I will be there as an ally for our transit union siblings as I have been for CTU battles and the Howard Brown nurses organizing in my ward.

Considering the role the CTA, Metra, and Pace play in providing public transportation within the city, what are your plans to address the impending fiscal cliff – a deficit of over $700 million – that the agencies will be facing in 2025?

We need to do everything we can to increase revenues without raising fares or cutting services, both pathways to overall losing ridership and revenue over time. There is no one silver bullet that will fix an issue this serious, one that transit agencies around the country will face as pandemic funding runs out.

We also need to be as aggressive as possible in pursuing federal and state grants and any other potential relief. This is not a unique situation to Chicago or our agencies, so while we must make clear-eyed plans for a sustainable future regardless of federal funds, we also need to push our federal legislators for medium or long-term changes to transit funding on the federal level.

What is your position on establishing a network of Bus Rapid Transit lines in Chicago?

I support it. Chicago’s major streets are plenty wide enough to support dedicated bus lanes. BRT with dedicated lanes and designated stops would help connect communities. It would make bus travel faster and more reliable. We just need to be sure that it’s done equitably around the city. Too often poor communities and communities of color are left off the transit map. Everyone deserves good transit and the opportunities for better jobs, education, healthcare, and enjoyment that it brings.

Will you commit to securing the funding necessary to implement CTA's plan to become 100% accessible according to ADA standards? (yes/no)

Yes