Chicago Transit: $770M Shortfall, 40% Service Cuts Loom

The Illinois state legislature ended its session without closing a massive, looming budget gap for the Regional Transportation Authority of Northern Illinois, the oversight and financing authority for Chicago-area transit agencies.

As Dan Zukowski explains in Smart Cities Dive, the three agencies say they will be forced to make service cuts of up to 40 percent and eliminate almost 3,000 jobs without new funding. “Service on at least four CTA rail lines could be suspended on all or a portion of their routes with train frequencies across the network cut by 10% to 25%. As many as 74 of its 127 bus routes could be eliminated. Metra commuter rail service would be cut by 40% and all weekend service on the suburban Pace bus network could be eliminated, the RTA said.”

The state legislature could take up transit funding again in the fall, but the agencies must start planning for cuts “because they legally cannot plan service based on funding they aren’t certain to have,” according to a source from Better Streets Chicago. Transit officials warn that the cuts will impact the most transit-dependent Chicagoans and could, in some cases, double commute times.