At about 4:22 AM this morning the Illinois Senate concurred with the Illinois House on bill SB2111 (PDF), approving a revenues and reform package that will close budget gaps and provide additional funding for the state’s 63 transit agencies. Among the reforms are establishing a new oversight authority that will centralize service planning and fare-setting in Chicagoland and assigning powers to build transit-supportive development, among other major and unique policy changes.
Additionally, the bill includes the People Over Parking Act, which was introduced by Rep. Buckner earlier this year and prohibits municipalities from requiring car parking for residential and commercial uses in areas served by transit. The bill, which will go into effect on June 1, 2026 (per House Amendment 4), will also apply in home rule communities. This includes Chicago, which passed its own transit-adjacent parking reform that took effect on September 25, 2025.
Specifically, the ban on parking mandates applies when the following is true:
- a development project is for new construction or renovation and that is not a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, or other transient lodging
- the project is located within one-half mile of a public transportation hub (nodes) or one-eighth mile of a public transportation corridor (street segments)
A public transportation hub is a node that includes rail transit stations, a boat or ferry terminal that is served by a bus stop or a rail transit station, and street intersections where two or more bus routes meet and those bus routes have a combined frequency of 15 minutes or less during the morning and afternoon peak commute periods. This means that new housing will soon be able to be developed, at lower cost, within a half mile of the Highland Park Metra station without any parking.
Metra has 168 stations outside of Chicago, and there are also Metrolink rail stations in Illinois communities east of St. Louis, Missouri. That’s in addition to higher-frequency bus service in Champaign and some communities served by Pace bus.
A public transportation corridor is a street segment that has one or more bus routes that have a combined frequency of 15 minutes or less during the morning and afternoon peak commute periods.
The fine print
Municipalities are still allowed to enact minimum parking requirements for bicycles; and they can establish maximum parking allowances. The act does not apply to existing approved Planned (Unit) Developments but will apply to any amendments or extensions if the amendment or extension will increase the car parking requirement.
In situations where developments are voluntarily providing car parking, municipalities can impose requirements that reserve space for car share vehicles, that some parking be made available to the public, and that parking must be made available for a charge. Municipalities cannot require that parking be made available for free.
I believe that this new law will override Chicago’s requirement that projects in the Downtown zoning districts and projects in transit-serve areas that are served only by Metra obtain an administrative adjustment to build less parking that otherwise required.
Finally, Illinois has existing code regarding electric vehicle charging and sets a standard for how much of the provided parking must be “EV ready”, “EV capable”, and “EV installed” (read the Illinois Electric Vehicle Charging Act) – those requirements are not impacted by the People Over Parking Act.