Update 12/22/25, 3:00 PM
Recently, Active Transportation Alliance and our allies met with the Mayor’s Office and Chicago Department of Transportation regarding changes in local bond funding for safe streets projects in Chicago. During this meeting, the administration acknowledged that bond funding levels beyond 2027 are reduced in the 2025-2029 Capital Improvement Plan, but that this reflects a change in how the plan is developed and that they anticipate funding levels for 2028 and 2029 to increase in future iterations of the plan.
While heartened to hear of the administration’s continued commitment to investing flexible local bond dollars in safe streets, we remain concerned about the fate of these resources over the long term. We will continue to aggressively engage the administration and City Council to ensure that Chicago residents benefit from the unprecedented local funding for safe streets that has transformed our street network since 2022. We will keep our members and supporters updated as we watchdog the Capital Improvement Plan in the coming months.
In addition to local funding, another development during this year’s contentious City Council budget process has raised concerns. A change to the city’s management ordinance will require the City Council’s Economic Development, Capital, and Technology committee to approve an annual capital work plan by December 31 of each year. Advocates are concerned this will significantly expand aldermanic prerogative and diminish the ability to spend local bond dollars on data-driven, systemic improvements. As the city works to implement this new addition to the capital improvement process, we will be working with allies on City Council, members, and supporters to ensure this does not negatively impact investment for better walking, biking, and transit on Chicago’s streets.
According to the Chicago Department of Transportation, fatal crashes have fallen 30 percent since their peak in 2021 — more than triple the 9 percent drop nationwide. Chicago is proving that bold, sustained investment in safer street design can save lives and make our city a national leader in traffic safety.
This is progress every Chicagoan should be proud of. It reflects years of organizing, major public investment, and a laser focus on redesigning dangerous streets to slow speeding drivers and protect people walking, biking, and riding transit.
But that life-saving progress is now on the line. Right now, Chicago City Council is weighing drastic cuts to the very safety programs that have driven this unprecedented drop in severe injuries and fatalities on our streets — cuts that would mean more dangerous speeding, more violent crashes, and more families grieving loved ones taken too soon.
Like most cities, Chicago pays for infrastructure improvements using bond funding. The most recent bond proposal under consideration in city council includes a devastating 70-percent cut in funds to complete streets projects, the very projects responsible for Chicago’s remarkable success in reducing the number of serious injuries and fatalities on our roads.
These cuts would turn back the clock on years of hard-won progress for people walking, biking, or driving on our city streets.
Read our letter to the editor that was recently published on this topic in the Chicago Tribune.
Please join us in asking city council and the mayor not to make these drastic cuts to safer streets funding.
The burden of dangerous streets falls more often on South and West Side residents, where families are more likely to lose loved ones to traffic violence and less likely to have access to safe, affordable transportation options.
Our elected leaders have not only a moral responsibility to address preventable fatalities, but also an economic one in a moment of constrained city finances.
The human and economic cost of just a handful of crashes each year dwarfs the entire safe streets budget line. The Illinois Department of Transportation estimated in 2019, traffic crashes cost the state a combined $3.8 billion — much of this born by the state’s largest city. The federal government estimates each fatal crash costs society $1.6 million. Cutting this funding saves a little now but costs us millions later.
Rarely is the case for public investment so clearly cut: building safe streets is good for public health, but it is also smart fiscal policy.
In addition to the safety impact, well-maintained roads are also essential for the operation of our transit system and the efficient movement of freight — economic activities that support our overall tax base.
Join us in calling on Chicago City Council and Mayor Brandon Johnson to change course before it’s too late and to fully fund safe streets in the upcoming capital improvement bond.