The Chicago Transit Authority on Friday unveiled its $2.1 billion proposed budget for 2025 that maintains fare prices but doesn’t plan for a major impending deficit the year after when federal COVID-19 money runs dry.
The preliminary budget, which the community can comment on at a hearing Nov. 7 at the agency’s downtown headquarters, is 8.1% higher than the previous year. The CTA said the increase accounts for its ongoing initiatives to increase hiring and increase rail and bus service above pre-pandemic levels.
The agency, in a news release Friday, touted making progress on three of its 2024 goals. The CTA said it continues to improve ridership. The system had an average weekday ridership of 948,946 in July, about 67% of the average 1.4 million weekday riders in 2019.
The CTA said it now has more bus operators than it did before the pandemic. Rail service in August reached 96% of pre-pandemic service level, the CTA said.
In addressing the impending “fiscal cliff” it will face in 2026 — when federal COVID-19 grants run out and the region’s transit agencies will face a combined $730 million deficit — the CTA reiterated President Dorval Carter Jr.’s past call to revamp the state’s transit funding formula from the 1980s.
“This deficit is a direct result of an inadequate state funding formula, passed in 1983, that has been further exacerbated by the ridership and revenue declines caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the CTA said in the release.
“While there has been increased public transit funding since 1983, many of those funding changes have not kept up with the cost of employee wages and pension payments which required systemwide service cuts in the past to afford,” the agency wrote.
Leaders of the CTA, commuter rail agency Metra, Pace Suburban Bus and the Regional Transit Authority have asked state lawmakers to increase transit funding to save them from making service cuts when federal grants deplete. However, the leaders have resisted a proposed state bill that seeks to increase funding in return for combining the agencies into a single one called the Metropolitan Mobility Authority.
State Sen. Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat and a lead sponsor of the bill, has been holding public hearings across the region and state seeking feedback about the proposed bill. Villavalem told Chicago Tonight last week, “At the end of the day, we need a central agency that is going to address safety, reliability, accessibility for the entire region. And that is what is lacking right now.”
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch has said the bill won’t be addressed until next year’s budget session.
CTA’s proposed budget also lays out an ambitious capital plan that includes major construction projects including the ongoing Red and Purple Modernization Phase One project, which is revamping Red Line tracks and the stations at Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn and Bryn Mawr.
The Red Line Extension, which the CTA approved funding for this year, is anticipated to begin construction in 2025. The CTA also plans to add elevators and accessibility improvements to six stations next year, including the four in the Red and Purple Modernization project, and at the Racine Blue Line and Austin Green Line stations.
A public hearing will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 7 at CTA headquarters, 567 W. Lake St. Speaker registration and more budget information can be found online at transitchicago.com/finance.