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

We are at an inflexion point in transportation in Chicago. We can choose to follow the rest of the world and other US cities, in developing mass transit and getting more people out of cars and into buses, trains, and bikes, or we can miss that train and spiral into even greater congestion, more pedestrian deaths, and higher rates of pollution. That battle will be won or lost in the next few years on CTA service. Every rider who gets ghosted by a bus or stranded on a platform by an already-packed train is someone who risks giving up on mass transit as a mode of transportation. We need to get the CTA back on track and avoid a spiral of lost revenue and service cuts. The 12th ward is largely communities of color and lower-income. We are already facing pollution coming from industries like MAT Asphalt that have been imposed on them under the previous alderman–we deserve to breathe clean air. 

I will push for improvements to mass transit, including working with the CTA to fill their hiring gaps. Our neighbors will also benefit from hosting job fairs in our neighborhoods to access well-paying union jobs. I also believe that the City needs to put our own money into prioritizing transit on all our major streets (starting with Western Ave and Ashland Ave in the 12th Ward) and lobbying the State and Federal governments for increased funding. The Red Line Extension and is a wonderful project and should be replicated to other isolated portions of Chicago.

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?

Unfortunately, Brighton Park, where I was born and raised, has not received equitable investments when it comes to public transit. Growing up, my family used a combination of all modes of transportation to get around the city and to get to and from work. Since I can remember, my dad has used the CTA to get to work and my grandparents benefited greatly from the senior fares. My dad would also bike to commute, but many times had his bike and tires stolen. Our streets’ potholes also made it difficult for him to maintain his bike to keep riding it regularly.  

I have seen how public transit can greatly benefit our communities but also how many barriers there are to using it consistently and reliably, especially on our southwest side neighborhoods. Our communities want reliable and effective transportation to get around the neighborhood and the city as a whole. 

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

I felt the impacts of inequitable and unreliable public transit in our city most as a college student. My commute from Brighton Park to Northeastern Illinois University would often take two hours on the CTA. There was no rapid bus system, and just getting to and from classes would take at least four hours out of my day.  

On the south side, there is no effective transit system connecting our south side neighborhoods. As a student at the University of Chicago, commuter students were not supported with reduced or free fare. Commuting from the southwest side to the southeast in Hyde Park meant counting on unreliable buses and many transfers.  

Our southside communities need a way to get around the city that doesn't rely on connections in the loop downtown. These experiences and the ones I hear from voters and community members in the 12th ward have pushed me to imagine an equitable, consistent, and efficient public transit system where our working class neighbors can rely on the CTA to get us where we need to go when we need to. 

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 absolutely support the City plowing sidewalks – if other cities in North America can do it, so can we. We show our priorities by plowing streets and not sidewalks. We would never force drivers to rely on every private owner on their route to clear their patch of snow. The current situation limits the ability to get around for children, seniors, disabled folks – or anyone walking to transit. It also puts an undue burden on senior or disabled property owners. The city can and must take on this duty to increase accessibility, and they must do so in a way that is equitable and deploys services around all parts of the city. 

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?

We need to fix the mistakes of the past by reducing lanes on wide streets and improving the ease of crossing so those roads don't separate our communities. In a community like ours, in which air pollution is such a present topic, we can’t continue to allow our arterials to poison our air. Brighton Park and McKinley Park are separated by the many Western Ave lanes–out two communities do not have easy, safe pedestrian access to each other. We need to reclaim some of those lanes to allow neighbors to access nearby communities on foot, by bike, or by bus. Improving bike and pedestrian safety goes hand in hand with improving and expanding transit (similar the ongoing red line extension) to reach isolated communities. The Red Line Extension TIF, which equitably transfers funds from wealthy communities to better connect isolated neighborhoods of color, is a template to follow. I will also advocate for Chicago to assess cutting down on existing highways and implementing more green and pedestrian accessible space, taking advantage of the federal Reconnecting Communities program – including reclaiming access to our lakefront.

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

The EPA tells us that the transportation sector is the #1 emitter of greenhouse gas in the US. We owe it to our children to reduce our reliance on private cars, even as we transition our city fleet toward all electric. Global warming is an existential issue for all of us and it is a matter of equity and public health; communities of color have higher rates of asthma and our kids suffer due to highways running through their neighborhoods or polluting industry moving to their neighborhoods. Our neighborhoods suffer every day from the impacts of MAT Asphalt and the trucks that access the facility, immediately adjacent to McKinley Park full of families.

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?

IDOT's leadership needs to come out of the 1960s and join cities around the world in reclaiming our lakefront. Our public lakefront is one of Chicago's greatest amenities, both for locals and tourists. It is absolutely the wrong idea to double down on having a loud, dangerous, polluting highway cutting off the city from the lakefront trail and beaches. We should aim to seek solutions that allow all to equally access and enjoy the lake. However, as I run to represent the southwest side, I don’t want us to only consider reducing highways that are located in scenic areas – we should focus on reducing massive car traffic on highways in all parts of the city.

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?

IDOT treats the roads under its jurisdiction like highways and does not give the City the flexibility to make changes to benefit pedestrians, buses, or bikes. The data shows that nearly all high-crash intersections in the city are on IDOT routes. Thankfully, that may be starting to change with the recent agreement between CDOT and IDOT, which were kickstarted by Ald. Martin and his local state elected officials bringing both entities to the table. This highlights the value of local elected officials cultivating relationships with their state counterparts and ensuring that our state representatives understand the real and terrible impact of IDOT engineering on our constituents every day. I plan to continue advocating for the state to increase the city's flexibility – as well as for them to provide funding to support the city's fight for pedestrian and cyclist safety and against climate change.

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?

Privatizing our streets’ meters has meant that we've given up on a lot of revenue, as well as on the flexibility to use our curbside spaces as we see fit, including reducing the number of parking spaces by reallocating street space to bike, bus, or pedestrian uses. I am hopeful that further legal action can be successful. However, if that is not the case, we cannot let that bind our hands and stop us from moving in the right direction on bike and bus lanes. We may end up having to pay double for the sins of our predecessors, and we must be willing to do so.

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?

Our infrastructure informs how our drivers drive. We need to reduce and narrow lanes, and ensure that pedestrians and cyclists are physically protected and their visibility increased. This requires the massive use of curb extensions, raised crosswalks, concrete bike lanes, and bollards. While education has a role to play, we know that over half of speeding tickets issued in Chicago go to suburban drivers, who will be harder to reach.

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?

Today’s vehicles have grown at an astounding rate, and the risks they carry for cyclists and pedestrians have as well. Not only do I support such legislation, but I think the city should lead the way by buying vehicles for its own departments that don’t put more residents at risk.

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

I am all for ensuring that we properly fund bike and pedestrian safety in Chicago. The existing centralized fund that CDOT now has access to needs to be expanded to fully move away from aldermanic funding, so that bike and pedestrian safety no longer happens at the whim of individual aldermen. However, we should stop thinking of these improvements in a vacuum and instead start including bike and pedestrian safety upgrades in regular roadwork led by all city agencies. This will allow us to stretch our taxpayers’ dollars farther and improve safety for more residents.

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

We've all been to festivals and other public events where we can walk in the street - and we many of us intuitively feel freer and happier when that's the case. I would start by including our community members in this conversation where we can imagine what this might look like in our neighborhood and how we would benefit from such projects. I would like to propose that we pilot pedestrian only streets around busy walkable commercial areas in our neighborhoods to show our communities it is possible. These improvements will require strong leadership by CDOT to appropriately select the correct streets.

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

The CTA is currently under a lot of stress with a large number of operators missing; they need to hire massively for that and I believe my community would benefit from ward-based job fairs. However, even with all the drivers we need, buses will only be as fast as traffic until we prioritize them accordingly. We need to roll out bus lanes, bus bulbs, and bus boarding islands. A great place to start is our own Western Ave in the 12th 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 must begin to seek out progressive income by way of initiatives such as the Real Estate Transfer tax and the corporate head tax. We also must close corporate loopholes and bring those funds back into our working class neighborhoods. For too long, our working families have faced the brunt of the city’s budget failures. The State also needs to invest heavily in mass transit if it is serious about saving the environment.

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

We absolutely must do so, to ensure that bus riders benefit from our streets more than those in private vehicles. We were so close a decade ago – I would revive and complete the Western Ave BRT that were shelved under the Rahm Emanuel administration. With Democratic administration in DC, we have an opportunity to seek federal funding for these projects.

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

Yes.