CITY OF JOLIET, IL
Outer Circumferential Rail Service Land Use and Planning Study

S. B. Friedman & Company currently is heading a consulting team that includes Lakota, Metro Transportation Group, and the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago to prepare a land use and planning study for the 29 planned station areas located along the proposed Outer Circumferential Rail Service (OCS) line (also known as the EJ&E).

The City of Joliet is the contracting agency for the land use study.  An OCS Task Force, which includes the regional councils of government, Metra, RTA, CATS, and NIPC, are working in coordination with the City of Joliet.  The main goal of the land use study is to provide a regional framework for transit-oriented development along the OCS line that supports optimal ridership and community preferences. The study will include analyses of socioeconomic data, land use patterns, and market potential at each proposed station area to develop varying scenarios of transit-oriented and transit-supportive development.  Workshops with the various OCS communities will be held to select the optimal land use scenario.  The study also will produce geographically indexed socioeconomic data for each preferred development scenario formatted to CATS’s data specifications and requirements.  These data will be used by CATS in its comprehensive travel demand forecast analysis.