With Chicago facing nation's worst traffic, feds launch new initative to reduce road congestion

Chicago deals with the worst traffic congestion in the U.S., according to the 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard from INRIX, a transportation analytics company.

The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration are kicking off a new program to address the economic impact of traffic congestion in Chicago and across the country, dubbed "Freedom to Drive."

In a letter to Gov. JB Pritzker, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy asked Illinois to identify some of the worst areas drivers are dealing with in the state.

No one wants to sit in traffic, but it's part of living in Chicago, more so than any other city in the country, according to the 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard and Deputy Transportation Secretary Steven Bradbury.

"On average, the American commuter is wasting 63 hours a year in commuting time on the highways. In Chicago, unfortunately, it's way higher than that. It's more than 100 hours," Bradbury said.

Nationwide, that time stuck in traffic adds up to $269 billion in lost productivity, according to the feds.

The goal of the Freedom to Drive initiative is to reduce traffic delays by 19,000 hours a day, or 15 minutes per traveler.

"It's a big effort focused on congestion relief," Bradbury said. "The economy runs on our highway system."

The letter sent to Pritzker on Monday asks for the governor's office to identify the worst areas for congestion in Illinois within the next 60 days, identify critical bottlenecks, and outline plans or solutions the state proposes to address those areas.

"We're open to ideas from the states, from the governors on plans, steps that the governors would propose to take at the state level using highway trust fund money, and state money, and we would hope private investment," Bradbury said.

The federal government would then work with states to execute traffic reduction projects.

"I'd like to say relief is coming. It's not right around the corner. These are big projects," Bradbury said.

Bradbury said one concern on the radar is getting more people to use public transit and reduce the number of cars on the road.

"The unfortunate fact, however, is that the ridership levels in the CTA transit system are still lagging behind where they were before COVID hit, and that's because I think a lot of people in Chicagoland recognize that the 'L', the buses, they're not really safe, they're not really clean," Bradbury said.

Last month, the Federal Transit Administration launched an investigation into the Illinois Department of Transportation over safety issues in the Chicago Transit Authority system.

In a letter to IDOT, the feds said the agency has failed to do enough to protect passengers and transit workers.

IDOT's supervision over the CTA will now be evaluated over the next few months. If the FTA does not like what it sees, it could force IDOT to use federal funds to comply with its directives.

"So, the Secretary, through the Federal Transit Administration, has issued directives to IDOT as well to clean up its act and improve its efforts to oversee transit," Bradbury said.

Pritzker has called the Trump administration's investigation of IDOT a "sham."

"As the Trump Admin fails to keep airports running and make transit safer, Sec. Duffy launched a sham investigation into our local transit," Pritzker posted on social media last month.

In a statement on Monday regarding the Freedom to Drive initiative, a spokesperson for Pritzker's office said, "The State of Illinois is already taking significant steps to reduce congestion through major efforts like Rebuild Illinois, the recently passed Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act, and other initiatives.

"While the state welcomes any federal initiative that meaningfully wants to support those goals, the best way the Trump Administration could help is by releasing the federal funds that Illinois has already been awarded and is owed. Those dollars would allow us to continue advancing projects that improve mobility, support transit, and further reduce congestion overall," a Pritzker spokesperson added.