Like to call the order of transportation back into uh order.

Madam Secretary, do we need a remote road call?

Commissioner Thank you, sir.

Let me revisit your attendance at that time.

Commissioner Aguilar is still absent.

There's an excuse absence for Commissioner Kevin Morrison and Commissioner Stamps has been added to the row.

You do have a quorum, sir.

And yes, remote roll call is needed for Commissioner Marita.

All right.

Commissioner Scott will move for remote roll call.

Second by Commissioner Daly.

Do we have to take a road call for a we do?

Yes.

Commissioner Aguilar is absent.

Commissioner Naya, your vote, ma'am.

Commissioner Naya is absent.

Commissioner Britton.

Aye.

Commissioner Daly.

Commissioner Dagnan.

Commissioner Gaynor.

Is absent.

Commissioner Laurie.

Commissioner McCaskill.

Commissioner Miller.

Is absent.

Commissioner Marita.

Marita I.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison is excused.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

Commissioner Scott.

Commissioner Stamps.

Aye.

Commissioner Trevor.

Aye.

Commissioner Vasquez.

Is absent.

Previous votes were all aye.

Chairman, your vote.

All right.

Chairman's vote is aye.

And Chairman, we have 11 ayes and six absence.

Let me revisit those that were absent and did not respond.

Commissioner Aguilar.

Commissioner Naya.

Commissioner Gaynor.

Commissioner Miller.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison is excused.

Commissioner Vasquez.

If any of them return to the room, sorry, we will add them at that time.

All right.

You do have a quorum.

And this is remote.

Yes.

Any public speakers?

You do have a number of public speakers.

Does that call your name?

Please come to public speaking mic.

Patricia Poretes, are you still here?

Patricia?

No.

George Blakemore.

Dennis White.

Jessica Jackson.

Zoe Lee, Taiwan Sims, in that order, please.

Good afternoon.

Transportation.

Communication.

The highway department.

You remember Mr.

Moore?

I was talking to you about a stealing uh payroll.

And I told you in transportation.

You say I never worked in transportation.

That was the highway department that allegedly that you uh fixed the book for your time.

But you didn't do a crime.

That was a crime.

You came over here.

Now uh I'm talking and you you let your aid at this moment.

Can y'all see me out here in Facebook land?

If so, uh you you deserve the government you get and you get the government either.

I'm watching this the break mode.

Uh-huh.

I get thousands of people.

Stop w watching me.

You're not coming down here to help me, uh to help yourself.

So all that uh Facebook media, millions and hundreds of thousands of people, see us and heroes.

They're not here.

They're not here.

So tweet, text, email, Facebook, ex your black a off of this white man plantation.

If you can.

If you can, can all you can then sell on the can.

So it's something inherently wrong here.

If you're watching me, Latasha, all y'all watch me every day.

And you can see the empty seats here.

It's because of you, all of y'all.

We need an uprising, a revolution.

We need to kick them out.

You watching me, all the Facebook.

I tell I'm telling all y'all we ex you two, whatever.

Yo, black A.

Off this plantation.

If you can do it, do it then.

Yes, do it.

Yes, do it.

Mr.

White, please begin.

You too.

Well, uh it's amazing.

It's a it's amazing that we have to follow rules to the rules makers or lawmakers, and there's no rules that they follow and stuff.

But that's a whole different story.

But as far as transportation goes, we got a problem here with the CTA, public trans, because I write public trans and stuff.

And every time I get there, there's no money.

I mean, what y'all gonna do?

Y'all gonna fund these money?

Are y'all gonna allocate these money to have better transportation for for the commuters and stuff?

I don't know.

But nevertheless, we over here have a problem with you guys.

And you know what?

What's so ironic about it?

You all gave birth to Chicago flip red.

You create the monster, now you're gonna have to worry about how to kill the monster that you all created.

You can have two women who fight for their properties, and you all ignore them.

You all over here let crime get out of out of control.

You all don't do nothing about it.

But the only thing you never you you don't do is trying to figure out how to lift this sanctuary ordinance out of this city, out of this county, out of this state to get these illegal aliens out of here so revenue can generate, business could uh commute.

I'm ready to leave just like the bears left.

I'm ready to go.

I mean, I can't take it no more here.

I was born, raised here in Chicago, love the food, love the cubs, bears, bulls, black hawks, all that stuff, but now I gotta leave because you all don't do nothing.

I mean, we gotta we got the chairperson right here at the polium who talking.

So you see, this is where the disrespect coming in at.

You all don't care what we say.

You know it.

You enjoy us complaining, moaning.

I was gonna say the other word, but I can't.

But you all enjoy 30 seconds, and the thing about it is the election is coming, and it's gonna come rapidly, and we're gonna make sure we need to have some Republicans in these committee chairs.

That's what we need.

Now, God forbid if Tony Preck winkle uh get reelected, God forbid it.

Because during that during that embarrassment debate, she ain't she don't she can't say nothing else but to blame Trump.

And that's what you all commissioned to know how to do is blame Trump, but y'all don't know how to bring no uh legislation here in this county right here.

So since you are done with us, maybe we ought to be done with you all.

And time has expired.

Our next speaker, Jessica Jackson.

Okay, Commissioner Stanley Moore, because you're my commissioner, right?

And I came to you first about my case, and you said it wasn't nothing else that you could do because Timothy Evans told you to stand down, right?

So in other words, he told you to let Cook County continue to steal my property, and you said, yes, sir, boss.

That's the way that went, right?

Yeah, that's the way that went, or you would have stopped it.

Or you would have stopped it anyway.

This is my three minutes.

Now, Donna Miller over there talking to old girl in the white jacket, and she letting you keep on talking.

And you keep on talking.

Mr.

Jackson, right?

No, I've got three minutes.

You and we're on transportation.

I thought I had to do that.

You gonna stop me on my three minutes?

I'm gonna see you on the case.

I'm gonna see you on social media.

Now, since you sent him here, the white shirt here, all right, white shirt sheriff, how about you take this to the Cook County to Sheriff Dart?

Take your work to them.

That put this false fraudulent case number on the tennis door that was squatting.

Since they're gonna send you here, let you do some real work.

Because here it is, take it to him.

Take it to Sheriff Dark so that he can deal with it.

All right, because Article 755 ILCS article XX administration of real estate clearly says that as an heir of property.

That's improbate.

You had a right to live there.

So you tell me how it is that Louis G.

Apostle and them are trying to evict me out of my own property.

Cause you're not following the law.

Britain, Britain, why you want to sit there, mad dogging me for telling the truth?

And you sitting here lolling gagging when you know doggone well, Donna Miller.

If I was a white woman at this mic, she would demand that you give that white woman your undivided attention.

But you'll sit there and you'll sit up there and play with her while we're talking.

One minute.

You don't have no respect for yourself, let alone for the rest of the people here.

Don't you ever try to stop me from talking when I'm telling the truth.

Don't you ever try to do that?

Miss Jackson, you will not be allowed to speak during my committee meetings if you don't stick to the agenda.

Next.

We're on transportation.

That is transportation.

I took transportation to get down here.

Zoe Lee is next.

Followed by Tyler Simps.

I could talk about transportation.

But first of all, let me let me explain something to you.

Those rules do not override my first amendment.

I'm already suing Tony Prepper.

We just went to Discovery Stage, so I'm gonna win this in the federal court.

I've I'm suing quite a few of y'all, but Tony Preckwinkle for sure.

So we just went to discovery.

Okay.

Because y'all keep violating my first amendment.

So we can talk about anything, but we're gonna talk about transportation.

Transportation, I don't understand how y'all steal all the transportation money.

I don't understand how you decide that uh Alexis Jenulius can sell three 300 CDL license uh uh CDL licenses to illegals, and he's not in jail, but y'all put George Ryan in jail for it.

I'm just trying to understand, but y'all gave him ready to run for mayor.

No, and it's Diane Harris for Secretary of State, uh never Alexi, transportation money.

Y'all done stole all the transportation money when it came to the Capitol bill.

I haven't even started talking about the Capitol bill yet.

The biggest bill, the biggest bill, the biggest budget that y'all all stole.

But you know, it's COVID.

So you know, I'm trying to tell you.

I used to be the biggest thief.

That's how I am so invested in watching y'all steal.

It's like, damn.

TIFF surplus, gonna give it to a hotel shelter.

To all TIFF money needs to go into the blighted areas.

They need to go pick to the blight.

The TIFF money never gets to the blighted areas.

So y'all can continue to steal the TIFF money.

That was daily.

That was that was your brother's uh piggy bank.

That's what they nicknamed it.

Donna Miller.

If Jesse Jackson Jr.

gets you, and he done stole Michael Jackson glove or whatever he did, and he gets in there before you.

I understand because you don't care about nobody.

You don't care about nobody.

Y'all don't care about anybody, y'all are not public servants.

Y'all don't know what public servants is.

All you guys do is spending money.

Live y'all lifestyles, because y'all all indoctrinated from college, HBCUs, frats.

Y'all came out and did nothing for the culture.

Y'all, y'all, y'all, different world.

Y'all have a shamed a different world.

Different world, you would thought that y'all had come back and y'all really be on y'all's stuff.

Look at our communities.

Like y'all indoctrinated, y'all corrupt.

20 seconds, y'all gay, y'all weird, y'all, y'all, y'all, y'all liars, y'all corrupt, y'all just sick, y'all one big demonic spirit.

The Democratic Party.

Any other public speakers?

Taiwan Sims.

Did he leave?

He left.

So, Chairman, that concludes our list of speakers.

All right.

Thank you.

Commissioner Daly now move to receive and file item number 260329, second by Commissioner Lowry.

Chairman, can we start with your minutes, please?

Oh, thank you.

0940.

Commissioner Daly will move to to approve the minutes of the meeting is 260940, the approval of the minutes from the meeting of February 4th, 2026.

Second by Commissioner Bill Lowry.

All those in favor of approval of the minutes say all right.

All those opposed, eyes have it.

Motion carries.

We have a report from the Department of Transportation item 260329.

Before we take a vote, let's allow them to give the report.

Thank you.

Your motion and second, or sir.

Uh, there would be Commissioner Daly to move to receive and file.

And Commissioner Lowry to second.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon, Commissioners.

Says Killen, Superintendent for Transportation and Highways.

I'm joined today by Jesse Elam, our director of strategic planning and policy, and we would like to present to you a summary of the recently completed Cook County Safety Action Plan.

Jesse.

Thank you much, sis, and thank you, Commissioners.

Again, I'm Jesse Ehlam with the Department of Transportation and Highways.

I'm the planning director.

We're going to be talking today about the Cook County Safety Action Plan, which we wrapped up recently.

It was a collaborative effort between us and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, or CMAP.

And the whole goal of this is to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries across the county.

I also want to recognize another person who is instrumental in getting this done, the project manager that was Joe Joe Seymour, also at Transportation and Highways.

He's a lead planning specialist and really the creative force behind this behind this plan.

Next slide.

Okay, so I'll start with the context.

A lot of people in Cook County lose their lives in traffic crashes every year.

Even more than that, managed to survive, but they have injuries that are life changing, sometimes permanent, permanently life changing.

And even worse than that, it's not a static thing, it's actually been a growing trend.

Traffic deaths between 2018 and 2022 went up by half.

And the reason I'm telling you this background is because this is a real threat to public health and welfare, and that's the reason that we're doing this plan.

As we're going to talk about these casualties from car crashes, aren't inevitable.

In fact, lots of them result from very specific factors that with enough resources are controllable.

Next slide.

So how we got started with this is that the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, or CMAP, approached us, DOTH, with an opportunity to partner on a countywide safety action plan.

CMAP went and applied for federal money through the Safe Streets and Roads for All program.

They they were awarded.

And also Cook County, as well as the remainder of the counties in our region, the college so called collar counties, each got individual plans out of this.

CMAP hired the consultants, they did the work on behalf of the counties, and then for us anyway, Cook's plan covers both the suburbs and the city of Chicago.

And I think it's an important point.

It's for all public roads, public roadways in the county, not just DOTH jurisdiction roadways.

Why is that important?

Because DOTH actually only has jurisdiction over 5% of the roadway mileage in the county, so a pretty small amount.

So if we want to drive down serious injuries and fatalities, we gotta all work together, everybody who's got a stake in this.

Plan is about serious crashes, so we're not talking about fender vendors.

Um, and to really understand and tackle these crashes, we had to do had to do a deep dive into the crash data to understand what kinds of treatments would address our crashes.

Uh the plan also looks at traffic safety from the standpoint of who is most negatively impacted.

Part of that is racial.

For example, if you were a black resident of Cook County, you are more than twice as likely to be killed in a car crash than a white resident.

So addressing the causes of crash traffic fatalities disproportionately benefits minority communities.

It is a positive equity impact.

Now, another way of looking at this mode choice, how you choose to get around or how you're able to get around.

People walking and biking are at a far greater risk than people who are in cars.

Why is that?

Because people in cars have a steel cage around them, so vehicle vehicle occupants are somewhat more protected.

We call bicycle and pedestrian uh user users of our roadways vulnerable users, and to kind of illustrate that, the statistics show that only two percent of the crashes involve bicyclists or pedestrians, but they're a quarter of the fatalities.

So that shows you the disproportionate risk.

Okay, um, next slide, please.

It does sometimes seem like people think of getting hurt in car crashes as just kind of a fact of life.

Um that is not the perspective that we adopt in this plan.

Um, the safe system approach is kind of the opposite of that.

Um, and the first principle of the safe system approach is that fatalities and serious injuries are unacceptable and not inevitable, and they are preventable.

And the thinking is that systems can be put in place to address the various risks that people face on the road.

Um, so I want to be clear here.

A lot of this, a lot of what happens on the roadway is driven by human behavior.

People are the ones driving these cars, right?

People are speeding, people are not paying attention, some people are just not good drivers.

The point is that we have to acknowledge that people make mistakes, people are human, but we need to make sure that those mistakes don't kill people.

Um, and so the safe system approach recognizes that there really isn't a single universal solution to fix all this.

It's just instead vehicle technology, roadway design, emergency response, managing speeds, all that together has a role to play, and even though any of them are followable, build some redundancy into the system, and the system can be effective as a whole.

Next slide, please.

Okay, so the plan is data-driven, but it's also community informed.

The plan incorporated intentional community feedback from across Cook County throughout the planning process.

So we had a 28-member steering committee with representatives uh from community-based organizations, our partners that we work with all the time, like IDOT and Metra.

We had uh mayors or mayor's representatives on uh on this on the committee.

And then the scope that CMET developed for this project uh included selecting key partner municipalities to work with from around the county.

And so we worked specifically with Chicago, Des Plains, Harvey, Broadview, and Evergreen Park.

Um, and the outreach that we did was online surveys, several in-person events, and then focus groups that we did on very special topics like emergency response or traffic crashes that uh are unique danger to those who are experiencing homelessness.

Next slide.

Um, and then the summary stats on this are that over six months we had five in-person sessions across the county.

We held an, for example, we held an event in Elgin jointly with the team working on the Kane County Safety Action Plan.

Elgin is in both Kane and Cook.

Um, and another example, we set up a booth uh at the Evergreen Park Oktoberfest in the daytime and got feedback on residents' biggest safety concerns.

It was a very kid-friendly event, so we had prizes and giveaways.

And then in the city of Chicago, the main way that we did engagement was through an existing group that Chicago Department of Transportation manages called the Community Mobility Collaborative.

And that's a public forum that's been around for a while.

It meets in different places, different venues around the city.

Um, and it's for anybody who's interested in mobility justice, bikes, and transit, managing the public space.

They meet every quarter, and we were able to leverage those meetings to sit down with people who care about these issues and do some table sessions, and that helped us get recommendations for the safety action plan.

So over 5,000 people went to our plan engagement page, 1,300 pins at various places in the map showing us what problem spots were, and then we we got 655 surveys filled out.

So all that together helped the plan focus on the issues and locations that people cared about.

Next slide.

Okay.

Um spend just a little bit more time on this, and I apologize if it's difficult for some of you to see.

Um just talking about the analysis findings, very high-level results, is far more than uh than this in the plan.

Um we are looking at the uh what we call emphasis areas for both suburban Cook and the City of Chicago.

Why are we doing that separately?

It's because they have a different traffic environment generally.

Um we're also looking at data for all public roads again, again, it's not just DOTH jurisdiction roads.

And so the emphasis areas that I was talking about, these are groups of factors uh that are involved in crashes.

So these are not mutually exclusive.

You can't have a distracted driver alone, but you can also have a distracted driver who ran into a pedestrian at an intersection.

So these things do overlap with each other, so you can't add these percentages going down.

But what we're looking at is the number of different problem areas, distracted driving or intersection related crashes or whatever, and how they contribute to the total uh number of uh fatalities and serious injuries in the county, just shown in percentage terms.

Um this chart does go on for a while.

There are a bunch more categories and just showing kind of the most prevalent ones.

Okay, distracted driving is at the very top of the list.

Uh I think that no one's very surprised that distracted driving is an issue.

It undoubtedly is.

I do want to say though that this is seems to be affected by differences in how distracted driving is reported between different jurisdictions in Cook County.

So, yes, we do have policy recommendation about how to address that.

Um, intersection crashes next on the list.

Um, next highest area concern, not a big surprise.

Intersections are places where there are conflict points where cars are turning across the paths of other cars or uh pedestrians.

Um, and so how do you address that?

It's chiefly intersection design.

There are lots of different things that can be done to make them safer, but they are all site-specific.

There's no one size fits all solution here.

Um, a list of examples that there's much more detail about this in the plan, but it could include things like adding protected left turn lanes where it makes sense, and that means a green arrow instead of a green ball on the traffic signal, or adding an offset to left turn lane.

So if you're turning left, you can see the oncoming traffic a little bit better.

Um, you could add bump outs to intersections so that people can uh so that the crossing distances uh are shorter.

You could also do much bigger changes like uh eliminating a skew in an intersection or just getting rid of an intersection altogether and replacing it with a roundabout that has dramatically fewer conflict points.

Um and then I'll I'll go on to the to the third line there.

There are emphasis areas that that diverge quite a bit between city and suburbs.

Speeding.

Speeding is a problem everywhere, but it's way more prevalent in the suburbs, probably because there's less traffic constraining uh speeds for one thing, but maybe much more importantly than that, roads tend to be designed for speed.

They're wider, they have less on-street parking, for example.

It's also possible that the speed cameras in the city are doing what they're designed to do, reducing speeding relative to the suburbs.

So the bottom line is that speed management here is important because crashes, well, they they tend to be less serious when the car is involved or going slower.

Okay, so there are other causes that differ a bit or different emphasis areas that differ a bit between the city and the suburbs, pedestrian deaths, serious injuries are way more common in the city, although not hugely more common, I should say.

That is probably because there are more pedestrians in the city, but part of the issue here is that also accommodations for pedestrians are a little bit less prevalent in the suburbs than they are than they are in the city.

Um and so going down the chart a bit more.

Um I think you can see that roadway departure is an enormous one.

What do I mean by that?

That's crossing the lane line.

So if you cross the center line and have an on head-on collision, you cross the lane line to the other side and go off the shoulder, maybe roll over.

Those are incredibly dangerous crashes.

Um there are designs for roads that make them more forgiving.

You can have medians, you can have wide shoulders, all those things that say if you're a drowsy driver and you in a split instant, you know, you drive off the road, it doesn't kill you, right?

So you have a more forgiving roadway design.

Um and then lastly, I'll just say bicyclists and pedestrians here.

If you add up the crashes there or their contribution to crashes, you get about a quarter, only two percent of all crashes, and they're a quarter of all fatalities.

So that's why we say that these are vulnerable users that need a lot of attention as we're doing uh as we're doing safety planning, highway planning.

Next slide.

Okay, so uh we have two different kinds of recommendations, projects and policies.

Um, projects first.

So the plan looks at locations for safety improvements based on two approaches.

Both are useful, they're different but useful.

The first approach is what we call the high injury network.

That's looking at crash history and finding the locations with the worst crash outcomes.

When you do that, you find that crash risk is far from evenly spread throughout the network.

Um, as it turns out, just 4% of all roadways in Cook County account for a third of all the fatalities and serious injuries.

Um, and again, this is not DOTH roadways, this is all roadways in the county.

Um, and then the second approach is kind of takes it in reverse.

Um, the systemic analysis focuses on the risk factors that are associated with deadly and serious injury crashes and looks for the risk factors so you can find the crashes that haven't happened yet but will.

Okay.

And so this approach is really more of a predictive one and trying to go back and make sure that roadway designs uh are not uh contribute unnecessarily contributing to to uh deaths and serious injuries.

Next slide.

On to the policy recommendations.

Uh there is uh a lot more in the plan that I would encourage you to to look at about this, super high level.

Um, one of the recommendations, or I should say a family of recommendations is about applying complete streets concepts more broadly and encouraging complete streets uh uh efforts to be taken up by municipalities.

Complete streets is a term for the idea of designing a street not just for cars, but also to make it safe for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Uh the plan also recommends expanding automated speed enforcement beyond the city of Chicago, um, given what we talked about earlier, the importance of speeding or the role of speeding in fatal and serious injury crashes.

We did have several municipal representatives on our steering committee who said, yeah, they would like the option to start a speed camera program.

That's not to say that they would, but they would like the option to do so.

That would require a change to state law, which currently forbids it anywhere outside of state, uh any anywhere outside of the city of Chicago.

Um, speaking of state, the role of the state, uh, the Illinois Department of Transportation governs quite a bit of what uh local governments in Cook County, of course, are able to do.

So statewide IDOT design standards may not always be the best fit in an urban context.

State review process also adds time and cost to projects.

The plan urges IDOT to work with local governments to provide greater design flexibility so that we can get safety improvements done in a more timely way.

And uh I had noted the issues with the prevalence of distract apparent prevalence of distracted driving.

Um, that seems to be resulting from a lack of uniformity between different reporting jurisdictions.

Um we think that this is an important place for municipalities, the state, county, to get together to understand what the right standards are for uh for reporting.

Finally, um this last bullet, the plan did delve into the importance of post-crash care.

Why is this important?

Because good post-crash care could mean the difference between a death and just a serious injury.

Um so there's probably a lot more to explore here in terms of specific strategies, but I think this is an example of how much interdisciplinary work actually needs to happen in order to improve traffic safety.

Um, DOTH, a lot of expertise in roadway design.

It's an entirely different set of stakeholders, different set of issues with post-crash care.

It's probably one where the county's role in health and hospitals could make it an important player.

Again, this is just a sampling of the stuff that's in the plan.

Next slide.

So we are now focused on implementing the plan's uh recommendations with a variety of different partners.

Um this includes working with those municipalities who are interested in getting some more of this safe streets and roads for all money.

There's a remainder remaining billion dollars federally.

The village of Evergreen Park was successful last year.

We had supported them on that.

And so we're looking to support others who want to do that again this year.

Also looking ourselves to pursue applications for highway safety improvement program funding from IDOT.

And then when we do any project at DOTH, that we look at that as an opportunity to improve safety because new roadway designs are going to make them safer than older designs that you find out there now.

And then last thing, Invest in Cook, a unique and successful program that we've been running for 10 years.

That is also a unique opportunity to encourage more traffic safety projects to be funded locally.

Again, through investing cook.

Next slide.

So next steps and sort of uh keeping track of where we're headed.

Uh the plan does have performance measures that will let us track progress.

Um we do expect to work with CMAP to collaborate on that performance tracking.

There's a lag in data availability.

Um that's why this plan went from 2018 to 2022.

We started in 24.

There's a bit of a data lag and and and getting access to that data.

But the good news is since we got done with this plan, we have been seeing improvements over the last two years of data.

So we do seem to be trending in the right direction now.

We also have convened a safety plan advisory committee that's going to meet semi-annually.

It's going to help us with uh review plan progress.

It's gonna be a sounding board for us.

Um it's it really is kind of a continuation of our steering committee.

A lot of the same members are on it, but also some new ones to help with implementation.

And then CMAP will continue to serve as a regional convener for Cook and the other counties who had safety action plans.

Um and we can we expect to continue to work together with with CMAP and with uh municipalities in the county to implement this plan over the next couple of years.

And uh with that, I would be very happy to uh take any questions or feedback uh the commissioners might have.

Thank you.

Commissioner Trevor, then Commissioner Lowry.

Thank you, Chair.

Um and thank you for this report.

It's got lots of good information.

I have a couple of questions.

First, uh uh is um how what were your sources of data in particular for pedestrians and cyclists?

The source of data we used are well is the IDOT crash data file, which includes all crashes that were reported.

Um, and there may be issues sometimes with pedestrian and bicycles crashes not getting uh reported.

Um but all reported crashes in the state are found in that file with all the supporting data about causes and antecedents for the crashes, what was happening, that sort of thing.

Uh and for the IDOT um digging a little bit farther, the the IDOT uh reporting, is that done through police reports or does that include uh trips to the emergency room?

It's police reports.

Yeah.

Um the the thing that I that occurs to me because of that is is you know, looking at the huge numbers, uh the fact that it's so much more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists is I suspect that the majority of injury causing uh accidents, and particularly involving cyclists are never never result in a police report.

Um I'm thinking from my own experience, I was a bicycle commuter for many, many years.

Um I probably had uh a half a dozen incidents over the course of those years that required medical attention, only one of which, when I actually did get hit by a car generated a police report.

Um the most serious injury I had almost certainly didn't.

It involved a road hazard.

Um so I I worry that we're um far more, you know, it's it's a far more dangerous world out there on the roads for pedestrians than cyclists, and this data even captures.

Uh given that I'd also you know wonder whether or not uh you would oh in one other data related comment that I have on the page where you compare um the diff let me see if I can find the page here.

It's one the safety and analysis uh emphasis areas.

Um I'm wondering whether or not you uh adjusted for the proportion of the population of Cook County that is uh city versus suburb when you did your analysis here.

Um I think to your first comment, I I think unfortunately your experience is not uh it's not unique.

I I think there is an under-reporting of of crashes with bicyclists and pedestrians, and there probably is some uh there is some progress that needs to be made in the crash reports on that and the data that we have available to us to to do these kinds of plans.

Um it's a bigger thing than just us, you know.

I mean, I think it affects all municipalities in the state as well.

And so there are uh groups of technical experts working on the data uh side of things that are getting together and working on these and making progress, but it is not as fast as I think we would we will all like it to be.

Now on your on your question about um I'm not sure that I'm gonna be able to answer your question because I'm actually not looking at the the plan.

Um but we did uh if you're if you're thinking about those maps that compare the suburbs and the city based on crashes per vehicle mile traveled or per population, I think we did do the population ones separately for each community.

Okay.

So for instance, you know, 21% of the uh pedestrian incidents being in Chicago versus 14 in the suburbs.

I mean, roughly we're talking about um three million living in the city and 2.1 million uh living in the suburbs.

It seems to me that this may actually might be proportionally the same uh if you haven't adjusted it.

And I'm just wondering whether or not that's something that uh could be double checked.

Um just to make sure that we're not uh making we're not making an uh a false assumption about pedestrians being um less safe in the city.

Uh uh same thing with cyclists that looks proportional to population.

Um and one other thing I wanted to mention, this is more an observation or a suggestion.

Um of the things I don't see in here in terms of the policy and process recommendations.

There's been a lot of emphasis uh in the suburbs on passing legislation regulating e-bikes, uh and they're becoming increasingly popular, and I believe right now they're probably the most they're more uh popular in terms of purchases than um non-powered bicycles.

Um and the regulation of them uh varies tremendously from suburb to suburb.

And the reason why I think this is really important in part in this uh sort of policy uh is that it's an important uh uh to me an important uh possible solution to sort of first mile, last mile, or in the case of some of the areas where where they're less served, the the first three mile or four mile in uh you know last three three mile or four mile.

But because of the varying regulations and because of the construction of the streets and in the suburbs, um you could be riding down the street or the sidewalk and be legal in one and illegal in another, and in order to sort of have a comprehensive uh plan, both in terms of safety and accessibility, it seems to me that it might be important to include that uh in these policy uh uh questions and recommendations as some examination of uh these e-bike policies and bike policies in general.

Thank you for that feedback.

I mean, and the plan did focus on uh infrastructure for bicyclists specifically rather than regulation of e-bikes, uh partly because that has become a bigger issue just in the past couple of months, but also because the safety issue really here is is mostly bicyclists being hit by cars, you know.

And so we're mostly focused on the infrastructure required for that.

It is um I I think you probably know uh that there is a statewide conversation about this right now, um, and there there have been bills that have been introduced to to make this a uh something that's handled partly at the state level.

So um I I think uh to be continued on that.

Yeah, and again, just uh make the pump point a little bit more.

I think uh in terms of uh accessibility and safety, uh a lot of the major roads in the suburbs, I'm thinking like in my district called Gonquin Road, uh Gulf Road, uh there are high speed uh uh roads with with no shoulders.

Uh uh and most of the people who need to get on those uh in terms of uh bicycles take the sidewalks.

But in some municipalities it's legal to write on the sidewalks, in others it's not.

And that creates huge problems in terms of you know, for instance, getting across limited uh crossing limited access highways where the only way to get across them is through an underpass on one of these roads.

Um so again, uh, you know, just making sure that this is part of the conversation, part of what you're looking for, I think is really important.

And those are all my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you for that thoughtful feedback.

Commissioner Lowry.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the report.

You know, as we look at safety analysis, I'm wondering if we've seen uh the compilation of uh data in the context of these driverless vehicles we're starting to see, such as Waymo.

Just wondering about that.

Not something we delved into uh in this particular plan.

We're mostly concerned about human drivers and the mistakes that they make.

Um you know, and and we're not seeing that in Illinois yet to the degree that maybe you see in places in California or or Atlanta, you know.

Um there is a a whole different regime for uh you know who's even at fault uh in some of that and the kind of safety testing that needs to be done.

Um I think that the regulatory framework that we put in place in in Illinois is gonna need to to account for uh all those differences.

Yep.

All right, Commissioner Dagman.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here and for compiling this report.

I have two uh questions.

The first one is what you said about uh low-income communities and a higher crash rate and higher mortality rate.

So some of the lowest income communities in Cook County don't have enough funding to cover their own police forces and kind of just baseline um public safety issues, and so they probably don't have enough money to do traffic safety studies and additional work that would have to be done by experts that work outside of their local government system.

So does the county have a plan, or will this include a plan to look at some of those intersections that historically have higher crash rates and lower income communities so that there can be a plan to identify how to remediate some of those issues?

I think that's a great question, and thank you for it.

Um I think that uh one way that communities can get funding to tackle some of these problematic intersections that maybe are on our high injury network that we identified in this plan would be through invest in cook.

Um that is uh something that could provide them funding to get the engineering to do any right-of-way that needs to be done, build build projects that would that would produce serious injuries and fatalities that they're seeing there.

So that's that's a big part of it, I think.

I also think that there's more to it.

Um we talked a little bit about some of those federal safety programs that are out there.

We are uh available to help municipalities sort of think through what some of those ideas might be.

Um and we have done that with some some other successful applications before.

So those are two things that we're doing right now, and we would love to do to think through how else to do uh some of this.

Yeah, Commissioner Degnan, thank you so much for that question.

That was one of the um catalysts for doing this plan because again, as Jesse had mentioned, Cook County only has jurisdiction over five percent of the total Cook County.

Is it networking?

Okay.

You want to use this?

Yep, we'll just slide slide it here.

We'll slide over.

That was one of the um the reasons why we undertook this plan because Cook County only has jurisdiction over five percent of the roadways, as Jesse had mentioned.

This is looking holistically at that and taking a countywide approach, looking at those corridors that have higher rates of injury on them, that would allow us to drill down so we could either partner with the community, work with the city of Chicago, because they've taken a similar approach with their vision zero, but this was so we could get a better handle on what is happening outside of Cook County routes, where as we're looking at safety within Cook County, recognizing the large role that we could have to play in that.

So this was moving us a step closer to what you had suggested.

Right.

I mean, even if Cook County did the best traffic safety study and we had all the money in the world, I did some quick research on it, and it does look like some low-income communities that the people that live there have cars that are way older than the average car, have safety components that may not be as up-to-date, and then obviously, like we have food deserts, we also have hospital deserts.

And so while some people live in communities where there's a hospital closer, if they're in a traffic accident, they're gonna have better access to hospitals will be closer, and that's life-saving care, whereas some low-income communities have, you know, if you have to go a longer way to a hospital, you know, that could affect that issue as well.

So I do think it's something that's worth coordinating with the state on, who obviously has more motor fuel tax money that could save lives, and I think that's a direct correlation and could be really helpful.

The second question I have is um my district is wholly within the city of Chicago, and there are red light cameras everywhere and speed cameras everywhere that then contribute to significant revenue for the city of Chicago.

Recognizing that the Cook County responsible roads, the arterial roads don't cover as much as like you said 5%.

Does Cook County have speed cameras on our own roads on our own property that then would generate revenue for the county or not?

We currently do not.

The use of speed enforcement cameras currently per legislation is for City of Chicago, though, as Jesse mentioned, there are a few bills floating around that may potentially change that.

Okay, and so that potentially could be a revenue source for the county if the the bills in Springfield are passed.

Potentially, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Those are all my questions.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Anaya.

Thank you, Chair.

Um so I just want to um I don't know if somebody can just verify for me.

So the uh bar graphs that show the different types of injuries.

Um where did we get the total amount?

Are these all of the numbers on on page two?

Is that I'm just trying to make sure that I have enough of understanding of that part.

So this is on page seven, the the safety analysis.

Um you see the percentages of distracted drivers, etc.

I got it.

So these are percentages of the total amount, correct?

That is correct, for data captured 2018 to 2022.

Which is the the the page two.

All of this is the information that was compiled and then in turn.

Okay, okay.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you for verifying.

Um, I the other question I had like how much do did we look into how much funding um is going to be needed by the department to um you know put some of the action the safety action plan in into action.

I don't believe there is a comprehensive number on this, but just trying to identify some of the locations where we can focus on this was that first step to to understand where we should be pointing our lens more directly.

Okay, and I don't think it was that we we had you that we haven't calculated the step.

Okay.

This was just the study that would help us drill down to looking at a particular location or intersection, and from there we would develop an application for we typically bring to the board highway safety improvement program funding from IDOT, then that gets quantified through more detailed design at this this high level, this elevation, that quantification is very difficult.

Um and I saw on the report that you all have many partners on here.

Um I think it's right off the bat you you you have a whole bunch, but the city of Chicago is not considered like an actual uh partner in this acknowledgement.

Um just wondering um if we know if they're working through something similar, um, and if they already have a plan in place that we're kind of also um kind of be working um in conjunction with.

So I would say the city of Chicago has been a leader in this area uh ever since 2017 Vision Zero plan, I think, and they've had a series of successive plans that have focused on specific things in specific neighborhoods.

They were partners on this, and they specifically wanted to be uh the the grantor actually wanted to make sure that City of Chicago was getting exactly what it needed so that they would be eligible to get other construction money through through say streets and roads for all.

So they were very much a partner on that.

Okay, sounds good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Daly.

Any other commissioners?

Any other questions?

Commissioner McCaskill.

Not a question, uh thank you, Chair.

Not a question, but just a statement.

As you as you move forward and evolving the project, could you please take into consideration infrastructure?

Um, I know that in my area specifically, there's a lot of flooding.

Um so while we do need the construction of more roads and expansion, um, it would be um a disservice to put it on, you know, to do it and then have it flood.

Thank you.

Any response at that?

Thank you for that feedback.

That we'll uh we'll we'll make sure that we take that into account.

Any other questions from any other commissioners?

Seeing no other questions from any other commissioners.

Commissioner Daly moves to receive and file item number 260329, seconded by Commissioner Lowry.

All those in favor, do we have to take a roll?

Roll call vote.

Roll call.

Thank you.

Commissioner Aguilar is absent.

Commissioner Anaya, you vote?

Aye, Commissioner Britton.

Aye, Commissioner Daly.

Commissioner Degnan is absent.

Commissioner Gainer is absent.

Commissioner Laurie.

Aye.

Commissioner McCasco.

Aye.

Previous votes were all aye.

Commissioner Miller.

Aye.

Commissioner Marita.

Marita I.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison is excused.

Previous votes were all aye.

Commissioner Sean Morrison is absent.

Commissioner Scott.

Commissioner Scott, are you connected?

Commissioner Scott is absent.

Commissioner Stamps.

Aye.

Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner Trevor?

Aye.

Previous bills for aye.

Commissioner Vasquez.

Aye.

Thank you.

Mr.

Chairman, your vote?

Aye.

Chairman's vote is aye.

Chairman, we have 11 ayes, six absent.

Let me revisit those.

Commissioner Aguilar.

Dagnan.

Gainer.

Degnan is aye.

Thank you, ma'am.

Absent.

Commissioner Aguilar.

Commissioner Gainer.

Commissioner Kay Morrison is excused.

Commissioner Sean Morrison.

And Commissioner Sca.

Chairman, you have 12 eyes, five absent.

Thank you.

Yeah, item carries.

No, Commissioner Anayo, or Vice Chairman Anaya.

Vice Chairman Anaya will move to approve items number 26036.

26037, 26038, 260454, 260407, 260493, 260501, 260502, 260503, 260505, 260521, 260522, seconded by Commissioner Daly.

All items to be moved to approve.

Roll call.

Commissioner Aguilar is absent.

Chairman is asking.

Commissioners are asking for a description.

Oh, you want a description?

Can I have the department please describe it?

Yes.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Good afternoon, says Killin Transportation and Highway Superintendent.

Item 26036 found on page two of the agenda is a request to accept a new grant totaling $500,000 to complete design engineering for the Burnham Multimodal Connector Bridge.

Item 260337.

This is a request to accept a new grant award in the amount of $5 million from the IDOT local project funding to support construction improvements along the recently awarded Tui Avenue Corridor.

26038 is a request to accept a new grant totaling $800,000 to conduct preliminary and environmental engineering to extend the improvements to the Central Displains River Trail between the CTA Forest Park Blue Line Station and the Salt Creek Trail.

260454.

This is a request to accept a new grant award in the amount of $6,441,650 in supplemental congestion mitigation and air quality, otherwise known as CMAC.

These are funds that we are using to construct the Tui Avenue Corridor Improvement.

260407.

This item is an intergovernmental agreement with the village of Bedford Park, where the village will serve as the lead agency for the construction and construction engineering of sidewalk gaps along Archer Road between 71st and Roberts Road.

260493 is an improvement resolution to appropriate $300,000 in funding for the extension of the Displains River Trail in the villages of Brookfield, LaGrange, Park, Lyons, Riverside, Riverside Township, and the Forest Preserves of Cook County.

The next three items are contracts for preliminary engineering services, and they provide the department with supplemental assistance to advanced plans and studies, included but not limiting to intersection safety studies, as we spoke about the safety action plan, crash studies, structural analyses, et cetera.

So that is 260501 is a new contract with H.R.

Green Incorporated of Aurora Illinois.

260502 is a new contract with Kimley Horn and Associates Incorporated of Chicago, Illinois, and 260503 is a new contract with Peralt Clark, LLC of Arlington Heights to perform those services.

Item 260505 is a request for the chief procurement officer to enter into and execute a new contract with GFT infrastructure for Chicago, Illinois.

This is for preliminary engineering and environmental services for the replacement of the Barrie Point Road Bridge over the Displains River, which is now ending uh now reaching the end of its useful life.

260521 is the accompanying resolution for the Berry Point Road Bridge and the amount of 1.9 million dollars.

And the last item is 260522.

This is an improvement resolution seeking appropriation of 1.5 million dollars in funding for the Lake Hook Road Bridge Deck Replacement Project.

This is in the villages of Deerfield, Northbrook, Palatine, and Cook County for preliminary engineering.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

We didn't call this one 0502.

Chairman, just for clarity, I did not get 0502.

Please zero five zero two.

Yes.

Please add that to the motion.

Roll call.

Thank you.

And let me confirm the items again.

Last four digits.

All right, and the motion is to approve.

And you can tell me to move her and second her again, please, sir.

So Commissioner Daly and second by Commissioner Laura.

Thank you.

Commissioner Aguilar is absent.

Commissioner Anaya, your vote?

Commissioner Anaya is absent.

Commissioner Britton.

Aye.

Thank you.

Commissioner Daly.

Commissioner Degnan.

Aye.

Commissioner Gaynor.

Is absent.

Commissioner Laurie.

Aye.

Commissioner McCasco.

Commissioner Miller.

Aye.

Commissioner Marita.

Aye.

Commissioner Marita is aye.

Previous votes were all aye.

Commissioner Kevin Morrison is excused.

Commissioner Sean Morrison is absent.

Commissioner Scott.

Commissioner Scott is absent.

Commissioner Stamps.

Aye.

Previous votes were aye.

Commissioner Trevor.

Aye.

Commissioner Vasquez.

Aye.

And Chairman.

Aye.

You have Commissioner Naya.

May I please the end?

That's an aye.

And Commissioner Anaya is added as an aye.

Chairman, we have 12 ayes and five absent.

Let me revisit those.

For Commissioner Gaynor.

Excuse for Commissioner K.

Morrison.

Commissioner Sean Morrison and Commissioner Scott will be added in the affirmative.

And can it be added in affirmative to prior votes as well?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

So your vote is changing again.

Commissioner Sean Morrison, you're in the affirmative.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sean Morrison is also in the affirmative.

That gives us 14 ayes.

Three absent.

Let me revisit the absences.

Commissioner Aguilar.

Commissioner Gaynor.

And Commissioner K.

Morrison.

14 3.

So meeting that item passes.

Second by Commissioner Scott.

All those in favor of adjournment.

Please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Ayes have it or adjourned.