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Chicago's Public Transit Is in Limbo
CHICAGO – Cities and states across the country are reckoning with a major funding crisis for mass transit, and Chicago has become the latest city to fall off its “fiscal cliff,” failing to guarantee funding for its transit systems.
With federal pandemic funds drying up, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), the regional agency that oversees the three operators that make up the northeastern Illinois transit system, announced in March that the state needed to find $770 million to keep the systems running as usual through 2026. Ideally, RTA officials argue, that figure should be more like $1.5 billion to actually improve the system.
But when the Illinois General Assembly’s session ended on May 31, state lawmakers hadn’t agreed on a new revenue source for the region’s mass transit. For months, the RTA and local transit advocates have been sounding the alarm, saying that date was Springfield’s deadline to prevent the region’s transit system from falling off the cliff.
The failure to resolve the mounting fiscal issues could end up being disastrous for Chicagoans who rely on transit and the workers who are employed by the three regional transit operators: Pace, Metra, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). According to the RTA, the lack of funding could cost 3,000 transit workers their jobs. One in five Chicagoans could lose their transit options: The CTA could reduce or completely cut service to 50 of its rail stations and be forced to cut 74 of its 127 bus routes—and end up having fewer bus routes than Kansas City and Madison, Wisconsin.
With federal pandemic funds drying up, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), the regional agency that oversees the three operators that make up the northeastern Illinois transit system, announced in March that the state needed to find $770 million to keep the systems running as usual through 2026. Ideally, RTA officials argue, that figure should be more like $1.5 billion to actually improve the system.
But when the Illinois General Assembly’s session ended on May 31, state lawmakers hadn’t agreed on a new revenue source for the region’s mass transit. For months, the RTA and local transit advocates have been sounding the alarm, saying that date was Springfield’s deadline to prevent the region’s transit system from falling off the cliff.
The failure to resolve the mounting fiscal issues could end up being disastrous for Chicagoans who rely on transit and the workers who are employed by the three regional transit operators: Pace, Metra, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). According to the RTA, the lack of funding could cost 3,000 transit workers their jobs. One in five Chicagoans could lose their transit options: The CTA could reduce or completely cut service to 50 of its rail stations and be forced to cut 74 of its 127 bus routes—and end up having fewer bus routes than Kansas City and Madison, Wisconsin.
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2025-06-10-chicagos-public-transit-in-limbo/
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