Gas tax dollars from motorists around the country will be used to help Chicago, Illinois implement an innovative system to raise the cost of parking in the city. Under a $153 million federal grant approved in April, Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) will remove lanes from general purpose use on the city's busiest streets and devote them exclusively to a new rapid transit service using sixty-foot long articulated buses. The program also means more red lights for motorists as the double-sized buses will have the ability to change traffic lights.

"A million people a day ride the CTA buses, and too many of them are stuck in traffic," Daley said in a statement announcing the program.

Drivers who make it through the extra congestion will face significant new fees at their destination. To receive its share of the $1 billion in federal gas tax dollars the US Department of Transportation set aside for new tolling plans, Chicago had to come up with a form of congestion tax. The city decided on a unique plan to impose variable rate taxes on parking at off-street lots and at street-side parking meters. Using "peak period pricing," rates will go up sharply during work hours as a means of collecting more money from drivers when the city is most congested. A private contractor will be awarded a multimillion dollar contract to handle the complicated system needed to manage the pricing. The program will also increase fees on commercial trucks making deliveries downtown.

Chicago has already signed a lease agreement for the new buses, and the new taxing scheme is scheduled to be fully implemented by 2010.