Chicago Area Transportation Study

The Chicago Area Transportation Study (CATS) was an organization that played a major role in developing regional transportation modeling and significantly shaped the way transportation planning is done in the United States today. Although the first metropolitan-level transportation study was carried out in Detroit in 1953, CATS researched and standardized the process starting in 1955. This work led to the institution of the Metropolitan Planning Organizations that exist in all major US metropolitan areas, as well as the Urban Transportation Modeling System (UTMS) that is key to transportation planning and engineering.

At the time of CATs' founding, there were already nearly 300 miles of limited access roads built or approved in the Chicago area, but the question remained of how the system would be updated as the region continued to grow. A three-volume study of travel surveys, land use and travel forecasts, and plans for dealing with future growth [Page 365]was proposed to be carried out within the developed parts of the region. At that time, this included the city of Chicago, the remainder of Cook County, all of DuPage County, and the innermost fringes of Lake and Will Counties. Local, state, and federal funding contributed to the establishment of CATS as an independent organization, and its board included no elected officials in an attempt to remain politically neutral.

At the start of the process, members of CATS and relevant jurisdictions realized that some of the data they were using had not been updated since the 1930s, so not only would they need to carry out intensive data collection, they also would need to develop an institution that would ensure those data were updated regularly.

However, the data collection soon proved too intense to be easily repeatable. Interviews were conducted with 57,000 households across the region, about 1 in 30 of those in the metropolitan area. Cordon interviews gathered data from 200,000 travelers in trucks and cars at multiple entry points into the Chicago metropolitan area. Surveys were conducted with 9,000 rail commuters with the assistance of the then privately owned railroads, and a survey of boat captains on the Sanitary and Ship Canal was done as well.

Finally, CATS carried out a never-before-done land use survey of the metropolitan region. Over 300 temporary employees carried out the various surveys at a cost of a million dollars in 1956, and the study itself was not completed until 1962. Ironically, despite the beginning goals, the intensive nature of data collection has made it a feat that has never been replicated.