The Proposed Chicago Bears Stadium at Arlington Park
An independent traffic and siting analysis, built entirely from public data — for residents, neighboring municipalities, the Illinois General Assembly, and the press.
Combined report · May 22, 2026
Independent Traffic & Siting Analysis (55 pages)
Five findings, five adoptable recommendations, three audit questions for the Bears' eventual study, and full methodology and data-provenance appendices. Every input is a public dataset — no FOIA requests, no commercial data products — so any reviewer can re-pull the sources and verify or refute the findings.
32,000
Round-trip vehicle trips on a typical Sunday game day (range 13,000–44,500)
112
Local residential street links over capacity in every scenario tested
9,031
Homes within 500 feet of Algonquin Road, the most residential corridor
30.6%
Impact-corridor intersections in the lowest equity quartile (vs. 20.4% baseline)
Executive Summary
The proposed Bears stadium at Arlington Park, if built as currently described, would generate roughly 32,000 round-trip vehicle trips on a typical Sunday game day on the suburban road network around Arlington Heights. The most important finding for residents is not the total vehicle count: it is that 112 individual road links — all on local residential streets, not arterials — are projected to run over capacity on game days in every mode-share scenario tested, including the most favorable case in which Metra runs full surge service and one in three attendees takes the train.
The analysis uses only data any reader can access — no FOIA requests, no commercial subscriptions, no proprietary travel-data products. That discipline has a cost (intersection signal timings and commercial origin-destination data are unavailable), but it means every input is reproducible from its public source: any reviewer can re-pull the same data with the provenance information in Appendix C, re-run the analysis, and verify or refute the findings. It is offered as a parallel public-data baseline against which the Bears' unreleased Kimley-Horn traffic study — and any other analysis — can be compared.
The bottom line
Arterial improvements alone — signal timing on Algonquin, channelization on Route 53 — will not protect the neighborhoods. The residential spillover lands on Meacham Road, Euclid Avenue, Northwest Highway, Wilke Road, and Campbell Street under every scenario tested; the corridors with the worst physical impacts also carry the highest concentration of lower-equity neighborhoods; and the transit mode share that would soften the picture rests on Metra surge service that no agency has publicly committed to run.
Principal Findings
Finding 1
Where the 32,000 vehicles come from and where they go.
A typical Sunday game day generates roughly 32,000 round-trip vehicle trips (13,000 to 44,500 across four mode-share scenarios) — 16,000 arriving, 16,000 leaving. Eighty-four individual roads at the edge of the three-mile ring funnel inbound traffic to the stadium; the top five carry 29% of all Bears vehicle trips by themselves, heavily northbound on Illinois 53 and eastbound on Algonquin, reflecting where roughly 85% of regional traffic enters the study area.
Finding 2
Algonquin Road and Illinois 53 are worst on every axis.
Algonquin Road carries the most homes within 500 feet of the corridor (9,031 addresses). Illinois 53 carries the most crashes (4,964 in 2022–2024) and the most flood-hazard exposure. Both are also the top corridors in the event-day model: Route 53 northbound runs over capacity and Algonquin runs at borderline failing service.
Finding 3
112 local-street bottlenecks that no mode-share assumption fixes.
112 individual road links — all on local residential streets, not arterials — are projected to run over capacity on game days in every scenario tested, including the most favorable case in which Metra runs full surge service and one in three attendees takes the train. The named streets are Meacham Road, Euclid Avenue, Northwest Highway, Wilke Road, and Campbell Street. Arterial improvements alone will not fix this.
Finding 4
The Metra UP-NW surge-service gap.
The Sunday UP-NW timetable runs about 10 trains per direction, and no public commitment from Metra, the RTA, or the State exists for stadium-event surge service. The plans the Bears have shown add 43 commuter parking spaces — not service. Any analysis that relies on a meaningful transit mode share is resting on a commitment that is not in the public record.
Finding 5
Equity concentration follows the corridor impact.
30.6% of intersections on the named impact corridors fall in the lowest Cook County Digital Equity Score quartile, versus 20.4% across the wider study area. Algonquin sits at 76% first-quartile; Illinois 53 at 57%. The corridors with the worst physical impacts also carry the highest equity concentration — the fact pattern that triggers Title VI / Environmental Justice review.
Five Recommendations
Written so that any village trustee, township board member, or state legislator can adopt them directly.
- 1
Public release of the Bears' Kimley-Horn traffic study before a final state vote on the Megaprojects Bill.
- 2
A publicly binding Metra surge-service commitment — specific train counts, platform-capacity work, and who pays — if any transit mode-share claim is to be relied on.
- 3
Explicit local-street mitigation for Meacham, Euclid, Northwest Highway, Wilke, and Campbell.
- 4
A Title VI / Environmental Justice review, given the equity concentration on the impact corridors.
- 5
A corridor-by-corridor comparison protocol for the Bears' eventual study against this report's per-corridor baseline (Appendix G).
What this report is not
It is not a stamped Traffic Impact Analysis. It does not design road improvements, recommend signal timings, or quantify construction costs; it does not analyze the Hammond, Indiana alternative site; and it does not take a position on the Megaprojects Bill itself. Bommarito Consulting LLC prepared this analysis at its own expense, without commission, contract, or grant from the Chicago Bears, Kimley-Horn, any municipality, or any party supporting or opposing the project.
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