With the Chicago area’s public transit system approaching the precipice of a $730 million fiscal cliff in just over a year’s time, state Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) said the crisis should be an opportunity for major reform.
“We need a central agency that is going to address safety, reliability (and) accessibility for the entire region — and that is what is lacking right now,” Villivalam said.
Given the magnitude of the situation, he said it’s time to assess the system that’s been in place for more than 40 years.
“We are talking about a system that we need for the future, and a funding amount for that system that is unprecedented,” Villivalam told WTTW News.
He’s among a group of lawmakers and advocates who don’t just want to plug the transit agencies’ budget hole — they’re looking to funnel $1.5 billion in additional state funding each year to create a sustainable, world-class public transportation system.
All that extra cash comes with a big catch — a pitch to replace the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, Pace and the Regional Transit Authority with a new regional mega-agency.
It’s an idea that backers say is long overdue, one that can clean up a bureaucratic mess, provide better service for the passengers who need it the most and create a transit system that’s less susceptible to fiscal storms.
“We know that the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action,” Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning Executive Director Erin Aleman said in December. “We are at a decisive and pivotal juncture with an opportunity to make a transformative change.”
But it’s an idea that’s raised the hackles of current agency leaders, suburban lawmakers and some transit experts who fear it’s folly to pin such high hopes on a merger, even if it sounds like a common-sense idea at first blush.
“We have long-established, collaborative working relationships,” Kane Country Chair Corinne Pierog told lawmakers at an August hearing. “A single governing entity would take away that local relationship and autonomy.”
While transit chiefs agree that improved coordination on issues like fare policy, service and capital projects would benefit the system and its riders, they’ve kept up a steady drumbeat that transit in Illinois has been chronically underfunded.
“We all may be victims of our own success,” Metra CEO Jim Derwinski said in July. “We do operate the leanest system in the country. We keep making it happen when we don’t have the right resources.”
CTA President Dorval Carter put an even finer point on the argument during a City Club speech last month.
“Why all the fixation on governance?” Carter asked rhetorically. “It’s an easy pill to swallow, and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.”
Whether it’s easy to swallow, many legislators don’t appear likely to cough up the money transit agencies are seeking from Springfield without changes to a system they see as outdated and byzantine.
“Four different agencies, 21 different appointing authorities, 47 different (board) appointments between RTA, CTA, Metra and Pace,” Villivalam said. “We need to ensure that this new system with this new funding is accountable and transparent.”
Cratering Ridership and an Outdated Formula
There’s wide agreement that the funding crisis has long been simmering, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought it to a boil. When Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered all Illinoisans who could stay home to do so in March 2020, ridership naturally plummeted. The number of passengers taking the CTA dropped nearly 80% year-over-year during the last 10 days of March. But the agency stalwartly kept its buses and trains running to ensure that essential workers and other people who relied on transit to get around wouldn’t be left in the lurch.
“Everyone needs to understand that there is no written playbook for what we’re dealing with right now,” Carter told the board in April 2020. “We’re all trying to figure it out as we go along.”
Pace, RTA and Metra officials echoed those sentiments — and warned there wasn’t a clear path to recovery.
“We have just been crushed,” then-Metra CFO Tom Farmer said that same month, outlining a ridership decline of up to 97% during the early days of the pandemic. “We all have to remember: Commuter rail will not be the same after COVID-19.”
Farmer’s prediction was no understatement. While federal COVID-19 relief money has made up for the decline in revenue from passenger fares, Chicago area transit agencies still aren’t seeing the ridership levels they did before the pandemic. The congressionally authorized cash for operations is expected to run out at the beginning of 2026 — which the RTA said could force 30-40% service cuts.
But many transportation watchers said the underlying problem predates the pandemic. The funding formula that determines how much state funding goes to each transit agency was put in place in 1983 — a compromise that critics said was crafted with an eye toward clearing the General Assembly rather than providing what was actually needed to power public transportation. That formula has long been a thorn in the side of the CTA, which argues it’s not getting a share of state funding reflective of the fact that it provides the vast majority of bus and train rides in the region.
That’s not the only math problem facing agencies. They’re also hamstrung by the fact that 50% of their operating revenue must come from passenger fares — significantly higher than any other transit peers around the country. And the state of Illinois provides far less money for Chicago area public transportation than its peers, according to the RTA — just 17%, compared to 28% in New York, 44% in Boston and 50% in Philadelphia.
Lawmakers Seek Solutions
With draconian cuts on the horizon, state lawmakers asked the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to bring together a huge group of stakeholders and come up with options to save the system. In December 2023, CMAP delivered its Plan of Action for Regional Transit, laying out options for governance reform and calling for $1.5 billion in new funding.
“We cannot shy away from the scale of the funding needs our transit system faces,” city of Chicago COO John Roberson said at the news conference where the report was unveiled. “It is significant, but the value transit provides for the city and for our region is immeasurable.”
One of the options in the report calls for a strengthened RTA with new powers to coordinate service, fare policy and more among CTA, Metra and Pace. But the second, far bolder option — one that some saw as too ambitious for lawmakers to touch — proposed doing away with the current hodgepodge of structures and creating a new, single agency to oversee all transit in the Chicago region.
Fewer than five months later, legislators in the Illinois House and Senate introduced bills that tracked with the latter option, kicking off a debate that featured both broad consensus over the importance and benefits of transit and significant disagreement over how best to shape and sustain that transportation option. The proposal would create a new Metropolitan Mobility Authority, clearing away the current governing bodies and consolidating the region’s transit under one roof.
As sponsor of the merger bill in the Illinois Senate and chair of its Transportation Committee, Villivalam convened a series of hearings that kicked off in July and continued through the final meeting scheduled for Tuesday. The hearings have focused not just on the idea of restructuring, but also on the many ways transit benefits public health, the economy and the climate. Leaders from all the transit agencies and the RTA have been a consistent presence, along with a wide array of stakeholders: community leaders, passengers, employees, business interests, researchers and advocates.
State Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) speaks at a July 9, 2024, hearing about overhauling the CTA, Pace and Metra. (WTTW News)
“I think we can all agree that the RTA — or the MMA as it may be called — eventually does have to have control over all three of those service boards, who up until this point have all operated almost in a silo,” state Sen. Don DeWitte (R-St. Charles), ranking Republican on the committee, told WTTW News. “But the service boards are vital from the standpoint that for instance, Metra and CTA are both in the train business, but they run very different business models. CTA and Pace Suburban Bus service are both in the bus business, but they’re very different business models.”
So different, transit leaders argue, consolidation is the wrong answer for what ails the current system. And they certainly don’t agree that better service across the region will be the natural result of a merger.
“I think there’s a big difference between a conversation around consolidation and a conversation around reform,” RTA Executive Director Leanne Redden said at one of the hearings.
RTA leaders said they’re open to reforms that would increase coordination among the various bus, rail and paratransit options available to passengers, but that chronic underfunding is the critical issue that needs to be fixed. And Redden said it’s worth advocating for not just at the state level — but at the federal level, where transit funding has historically been focused just on capital projects. That’s an issue public transportation systems around the country are interested in tackling.
“The federal government provides all three entities a lot of money on the capital side of things,” Redden told lawmakers. “It provides basically no money on the operating side of the equation.”
But some backers of the MMA proposal said that granting the RTA new powers and keeping three separate transit agencies in place won’t meaningfully improve service. Audrey Wennink, a senior director at the Metropolitan Planning Council, calls the notion of a strengthened RTA “tinkering around the edges.”
“Honestly, I feel like they have authority that they’re not using right now,” Wennink said. “(I) have low confidence that giving them a little bit more is gonna change anything.”
Other transit experts are more skeptical that a merger will set the system up for future success.
“It’s no silver bullet,” said Kate Lowe, associate professor at UIC’s Department of Urban Planning and Policy. “There’s a lot of administrative costs to restructuring, and there is no guarantee that consolidation will actually improve the rider experience … without transformative levels of funding.”
Benefits and Board Seats
If there’s one area where just about everyone agrees, it’s that a robust public transportation network is key to the success of the Chicago area, no matter whether someone personally uses it. Among the key points advocates have cited are $35 billion in direct economic activity each year thanks to transit, a 13-fold return on investment for each dollar spent and massive reductions in vehicle emissions. It’s also critically important for people who don’t have or can’t drive a car, in particular riders who are low-income, elderly and/or disabled.
“Having a transit system with fast, frequent and reliable service unlocks opportunities for everyone,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said at a July hearing.
Preckwinkle is among the leaders who said it’s time for a new model.
“No option should be off the table if it holds the potential to improve mobility for those in our region who need it most — and that includes how the system is governed, not just how it is funded,” Preckwinkle told lawmakers.
The proposed MMA legislation outlines a board with three directors chosen by the governor; five of the mayor of Chicago’s choosing; five picked by the president of the Cook County Board; one each chosen by the chief executives of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties; and one chosen by the directors.
Currently, suburban county chairs can name directors to the boards of Metra, Pace and the RTA. With the picks for a new, unified board heavily weighted toward Chicago and Cook County, many suburban lawmakers have raised concerns they won’t be adequately represented.
“Some may be inclined to think that (since) the reduction is proportional across the system, it is alright. Nothing could be further from the truth,” McHenry County Board Chair Mike Bueller said in August. “Since McHenry County has so few voices to advocate for us, the loss of any voice along with their experience and knowledge of transit services is devastating for us.”
“I think the suburbs will lose services, and that’s southern suburbs, western suburbs, northern suburbs … under a mega mass transit agency,” state Sen. Seth Lewis (R-Carol Stream) said at one hearing.
Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger agreed, arguing that striking a balance between the city and suburbs is part of why the current governance structure was put in place.
“One of the main drivers was the suburban mayors were not getting enough of the money and they needed more funding to put service out in the suburbs,” Metzger told lawmakers. “We’ve been there, done that, and it didn’t work, and we’re talking about doing it again.”
But Lake County Chair Sandy Hart broke with many of her suburban colleagues, saying that the proposed board appointments are fair given that the vast majority of rides happen in Chicago and suburban Cook County.
“If there was more public transportation, more people would absolutely use it,” Hart said at a September hearing. “But … you fix it from the center and work your way out.”
The primacy of city transit trips is another reason the idea of restructuring gives UIC’s Lowe pause.
“The CTA only receives less than 50% of the area funding and delivers over 80% of rides,” Lowe said. “We also know Black and Latinx residents are concentrated in the city of Chicago. There’s a real risk that they won’t get their priorities met with the restructuring.”
She cited a debate in Massachusetts over whether Boston’s struggling rapid transit system, known as the T, should become part of the state Transportation Department.
Brian Kane, a former employee of Boston’s transit agency and a member of its advisory board, told MassLive that form of consolidation “will just mean the T does what’s best for the executive branch, not necessarily what’s best for the riders or the public.”
But the Metropolitan Planning Council’s Wennink said a streamlined, well-funded transit system can bring equitable benefits across the region.
“People of all incomes and races have moved into the suburbs as well — there are more Latinos that live in the suburbs than in the city of Chicago,” Wennink said. “I think taking a very protectionist approach is not going to deliver the results people actually need, including people in the city that need to access a lot of employment in the suburbs.”
Wennink added that despite talk of improved coordination, the current system often puts agencies at odds for resources.
“They all have a lot of lobbyists that go to Springfield and compete against each other,” she said. “This is not productive in the big picture.”
It’s not just passengers and agency leaders who are affected by the debate — it’s also the transit employees who keep the system moving day in and day out. Antonio Adams, president of the union that represents Pace drivers, mechanics and dispatchers, fears that a merger could mean a slimmed down workforce.
“Legislators often become immune to the effect of layoffs,” Adams testified at a hearing. “This is not numbers on a piece of paper, this is the real world with real harmful results.”
Next Steps
The Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee is set to hold its final public hearing this week, looking at transit as a statewide priority. There’s also a working group in the Illinois House led by state Reps. Kam Buckner and Eva-Dina Delgado, who frequently cited a vision for a transit system people view as a first choice rather than something they take out of necessity.
Villivalam and DeWitte both told WTTW News that talks about where to come up with the proposed new money for transit is yet to be determined, with DeWitte understatedly noting it was “probably going to be a little bit longer conversation than perhaps the governance conversations.”
House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Westchester) told a City Club of Chicago audience in September he didn’t expect any action on transit’s future until the end of the spring session in 2025. But as lawmakers turn from hearings and working groups toward actually crafting legislation on reforms and funding, transit agencies say they’ll keep advocating for the services they see as essential to a healthy Chicagoland.
“Metra is not opposed to sensible reforms, but to date we have not seen clear and convincing evidence that full consolidation would be more efficient, in terms of achieving significant cost savings or significantly reducing bureaucracy, or more effective, in terms addressing the challenges we all are facing and meeting the needs of the six-county region,” a Metra spokesperson told WTTW News, expressing gratitude for the Senate committee’s work.
“We have shown throughout our 40-year history that we can deliver solutions to challenges responsibly and innovatively. We can do more, and we want to do more. Together, we can create a transportation system that fosters vibrant, healthy and connected communities across our entire region,” Pace’s Metzger said during her testimony, with a Pace spokesperson echoing appreciation for the committee’s time and the chance to participate in the hearings.
In a statement to WTTW news, the RTA’s Redden joined in the appreciative comments, and said the RTA is committed to changes that strengthen coordination rather than replace the current system — urging state lawmakers to act quickly on any reforms and much-needed funding.
“If Illinois does not act by the end of the spring legislative session in 2025, CTA, Metra, and Pace will be forced to shift their focus on improvements to prepare for drastic, unprecedented service cuts and, likely, fare increases to balance their budgets,” Redden said. “We stand in real danger of not just having this momentum interrupted but seeing service cuts implemented that could push the system into a death spiral of less service, longer wait times, higher fares, and fewer riders leading to even larger and harder to solve budget gaps in the years ahead.”