Program Objectives

The Subregional Planning program provides funding and planning assistance to counties, townships, Councils of Government/Municipal Associations and groups of two or more municipalities located in the RTA six-county service area, the City of Chicago and the RTA Service Boards (Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace) to complete transit and land use focused planning studies.  Eligible projects include service development studies for an existing, underserved or emerging market, the transit component of a county or subregional transportation plan, corridor or subregional level integrated transit and land use improvement studies, and transit-oriented development and coordinated paratransit studies at the county, subregional or corridor level.

 

This program was expanded in 2008 to address recommendations from the RTA’s Strategic Plan, which calls for the regional transit system to be “enhanced and expanded to respond to the changes in local work-trip patterns that have resulted from, and in anticipation of, the growth in jobs and residences in the suburban area.”  Studies completed through this program may also develop strategies for serving the traditional suburb-to-city and intra-urban markets as well as the non-traditional city-to-suburb market identified in the Strategic Plan.  Through this program, the RTA also seeks projects that support the Strategic Plan and are consistent with the vision and four primary goals of that plan: provide transportation options and mobility, ensure financial viability, enhance livability and economic vitality, and demonstrate value.  Prospective projects will also support the RTA’s Regional Transit Coordination Program Goal of providing customers with a seamless regional transit system that most effectively takes people where they need to go by transit.  This Goal will be supported specifically by planning projects that improve information, physical and service coordination.

 

The program looks to fund projects that plan for the following:

•    Increased transit usage
•    Improve transit service to new or underserved markets
•    Improved mobility options
•    Reduced highway congestion through expanded transit ridership
•    Multi-modal improvements
•    Develop transit-oriented development plans or principles at the county or subregional level
•    Improved job access
•    Improved mobility for seniors and people with disabilities
•    Enhanced or expanded transit service
•    Improved mobility by synchronizing connections between existing transit services
•    Improved physical connections between trains and buses at interagency locations
•    Seamless and coordinated transit system