Tony Michelassi for DuPage County Board

We’re seeing more and more residents of DuPage commuting into the City of Chicago every day. Our Interstate highways and state roads are jammed with traffic during peak hours, so much so that commutes are becoming two hours or more from some parts of the County.

Chicago is having problems. The CTA and Metra have been facing budget crises for a long time. Largely, these problems are the responsibility of our State officials. That doesn’t exclude County government from an active role in fixing them, though.

As your representative, I will look forward to partnering with the Regional Transit Authority to broaden the options for our residents. Not everyone should have to drive their car to work - this not only generates obscene levels of traffic, but it also creates huge levels of pollution and noise. I would support expansion of the Blue Line into DuPage, and creation of the suburb-to-suburb STAR Line on the Metra system. Partnership between all levels of government, as well as involved corporations, is absolutely necessary to supply the right funds to make these ideas work.

Here’s something else I’d like to bring up: the parking situation at the College of DuPage. COD is building more and more lots, in addition to new classrooms and resource centers. But during my time there, I had to patrol the huge lots, sometimes for an hour or more, looking for a free spot, and then I had to trek from my car to the building. COD is undeniably a commuter campus, but not everyone should have to commute on their own, especially since many of its students are from lower-income situations, which makes gas a heavier burden on them, in addition to tuition.

While I was attending the University of Illinois in Urbana, I was very impressed with the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District. Routes were set up very effectively, and University students were allowed to ride for free, so long as they had a valid student ID. I will admit, Champaign-Urbana is a much smaller metro area than DuPage, but I’m sure we could learn a thing or two from a system that works so well. I will be very happy to go back to Champaign-Urbana and meet with officials there to gather ideas and input. I hope to build a partnership between Pace, our Regional Transit Authority, and the College to create an effective and cost-effective mass transit solution to the College’s growth problem.