According to one elected official, hearings held by the Illinois State Senate regarding the possibility of merging multiple Chicago region transit agencies include this task:

“Our No. 1 priority is we need to make the case for public transit to the general public,” said state Sen. Ram Villivalam, the committee’s chair. “We need to make sure that we’re building a transit system for the year 2050 and not just plugging a hole.”

This could be a difficult sell throughout a metropolitan region for multiple reasons. Here are a few issues suburban residents might raise:

1. Those with the ability to do so would often choose to drive.
2. Will mass transit be on time and what happens if it is not?
3. Does this mean the money that goes to mass transit will be taken away from roadways?
4. Who will be using mass transit?
5. Will we see the money we contribute in taxes in services we will use?

These are broad issues on top of the particular issues the Chicago area and Illinois face, including budget issues, residential segregation, a history of separate agencies, and wrangling between different levels of government.

That said, a sustained case made for Chicago area mass transit would be interesting to see and hear. Would suburbanites pay more attention if mass transit could limit traffic and congestion? How about if it provided cost savings compared to driving (time, gas, maintenance, insurance)? How about transit opening up other local amenities (such as transit-oriented development to help address housing concerns)? Efficiencies in government operation? The ways mass transit can enrich the entire region? I do not know if such campaigns have been tried in the past but starting now could help provide for a healthier region decades down the road.