To help manage and prepare for an influx of new transportation methods, from ride-sharing and bike-sharing, to electric scooters and autonomous vehicles, the city of Chicago has brought in former U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to head a new task force that will take the lead on that mission.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the task force Monday, saying that it will be responsible for evaluating the city’s transportation landscape and making recommendations on how to support it as new mobility technologies are incorporated. As Chicagoans have increasingly more options to get around town, street congestion and other concerns are rising about how they affect the current methods of public transit.
Ride-sharing companies, like Lyft, Uber and Via, have been operating in Chicago for years now, but other methods of transportation, like dockless bike-sharing and electric scooters, are newer and still in experimental phases.
The city launched a bike-sharing pilot in May, which companies like Lime and Pace are participating in. The Chicago Department of Transportation has heavily regulated the bikes in it, only allowing them to operate throughout 10 wards on the city’s South Side. The rules also require bikes to be equipped with bike locks, which has caused problems for certain bike-sharing companies.
And now electric scooters could be officially launching in Chicago soon. Both e-scooter companies, Lime and Bird, have hosted demo days, where Chicagoans could test and ride the scooters for a limited time.
Driverless cars seem to be farther out on the horizon, but the new task force is Chicago’s first substantial move that shows it is considering how the new autonomous tech will fit into the city’s transportation landscape. Many in the innovation and tech communities have criticized the city for moving so slow to adapt to the growing technology.
“In just the last few years we have seen an explosion of new transportation options and technologies that are challenging us to think differently about how we manage our transportation systems,” said Mayor Emanuel, who announced Tuesday that he is not running for a third term. “With Ray LaHood’s leadership and expertise, we are going to bring the best and the brightest together to help inform Chicago on how to move forward and maintain our status as a leader in transportation.”
To help devise plans for the city’s transportation options, the task force, which will be made up of about 10 to 20 members, will meet regularly over the next six months and is slated to present final recommendations in spring 2019.
Other task force members will be named in the coming weeks, according to the Mayor’s office, but it announced Monday that Brenna Berman, the executive director of City Tech Collaborative, is among them.
Berman, who has long been an active and vocal member in Chicago’s innovation community, has worked at IBM and is the former chief information officer for the City of Chicago.
CDOT Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfield will also be part of the task force, according to the Chicago Tribune.
