Naperville is a mobile community. But many of our roads haven’t kept up with our needs. Take Route 59 at rush hour and on weekends.  Naperville residents need and deserve a transportation system we can count on to get us from one side of town to another rapidly, efficiently and safely. Creating better north/south arteries, like widening Route 59, will help. Yet the Route 59 project, tollway interchange projects and other arterials are under other governmental domains. Getting attention, planning and funding for improvements can take years. I applaud the advocacy and financial commitment of the City and the Chamber of Commerce in support of these improvements.

Critical intergovernmental planning and negotiation is what it takes to get these projects underway in a timely fashion. I believe I can offer specific skills that will enhance continuing intergovernmental relations to bring results in future transportation planning and execution.

Good transportation also means having good parking, which is why I support parking decks that blend in with the neighborhoods and have good in/out patterns. We must do long term planning and hardball price negotiating to ensure that we can afford these projects. In commercial districts, there must be cooperative funding between the City and the businesses that benefit from parking enhancements.

I’m also a commuter, and have been for 25 years. I’ll do whatever I can to improve parking, bus routes and traffic patterns at our two overtaxed train stations, so that the hassles of commuting are minimized.