MPC Has The Hottest Ticket In Town

Forget about Cubs playoff game tickets. (And forget about the hapless Cubs.) The real hot ticket in town is to the Metropolitan Planning Council's upcoming "invitation only" event. Transportation aficionados, public officials, academics and transportation industry representatives are all clamoring to get a precious invitation. Rumor has it that folks are lining up at the MPC's door, hoping to obtain a ticket. To escape the shame of not receiving an invitation, others are arranging urgent appointments that require them to leave town that day.

Here's the MPC's description of the event:

On Monday, Oct. 15, decision makers will connect with global, national and regional transportation experts at "Moving the Region in a New Direction: the Inaugural William O. Lipinski Symposium on Transportation Policy," a day-long, invitation-only forum, co-sponsored by McCormick Tribune Foundation, Metropolitan Planning Council, and Northwestern University, to build consensus on new ways to plan, manage and finance metropolitan Chicago's transportation network in the coming decades.

The guest list includes the following:

• Hon. William O. Lipinski, former U.S. Representative and former Ranking Minority Member, Aviation, Rail, and Highways subcommittees

• Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), Chair, U.S. House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure

• Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston), Illinois House of Representatives and Chair, House Mass Transit Committee

• Randy Blankenhorn, Executive Director, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning

• Edward Hamberger, President & CEO, Association of American Railroads

• Todd Litman, Founder & Executive Director, Victoria Transport Policy Institute

• Timothy J. Lomax, Research Engineer, Texas Transportation Institute

• Hani S. Mahmassani, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University

• Daniel Murray, Vice President of Research, American Transportation Research Institute

• Robert Puentes, Scholar Fellow, The Brookings Institution; Author, Taking the High Road: A Metropolitan Agenda for Transportation Reform

• Robert J. Schillerstrom, Chair, DuPage County Board

• Suzi Schmidt, Chair, Lake County Board

• Gunnar Soderholm, Director, Stockholm, Sweden 's Congestion Charging Program

Hope springs eternal each day as I rummage through the mailbox.