CTA, Metra and Pace said Monday they would soon be planning cuts in their 2026 budgets, after state legislators missed their first big deadline to fund public transit with the close of the spring legislative session Saturday — inching the transit agencies one step closer to the edge of the “fiscal cliff.”
Now it’s unclear if lawmakers will approve the $770 million needed to cover the agencies’ budget holes in 2026 when federal pandemic aid runs out.
But the feared 40% “doomsday” service cuts are not certain — at least not yet.
Lawmakers could return to Springfield for a special session this summer to either take up the bill that passed in the state Senate or hash out a new one. They could also vote on it during the fall veto session.
“We’re in the seventh inning of a nine-inning game,” said Joe Schwieterman, director of DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.
State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, told the Sun-Times he considers the final deadline for transit funding to be the end of the calendar year.
But any vote now will be harder for lawmakers. With the spring session over, votes now require 60% approval instead of a simple majority.
The CTA is expecting to plan its 2026 budget this summer with “a number of scenarios that could occur,” the agency said in a statement Monday. The CTA did not say when those cuts could be finalized.
The CTA previously said it may have to cut half its bus lines. Four of eight CTA rail lines would see suspended service on all or portions of the lines. And more than 50 stations would close or drastically reduce service.
The cuts to CTA could become a reality as early as March 2026, an RTA official has told the Sun-Times. But the CTA and other agencies would have to first hold a series of public engagement sessions to make the cuts equitable, as required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Metra said it is now planning its 2026 budget with a $220 million hole. The budget process will take place through the fall, and the first cuts could happen as early as January, Metra spokesperson Michael Gillis said in an email.
Pace has a $60 million budget hole next year. The agency was hoping for $150 million in more yearly state funding to expand bus service, said Pace spokeswoman Maggie Daly Skogsbakken.
The Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the three other agencies, said it would work with the other agencies in coming weeks on their 2026 budgets, which by law must only include funding that has been approved. The RTA said it will “continue our work to achieve consensus and deliver a solution” in Springfield.
Transit experts on Monday were left wondering if there is enough steam to push transit reform over the finish line.
“Producing the budget is such a furious effort that it’s hard to achieve something as ambitious as a total transit funding reform,” Schwieterman said.
The good news, he said, is that the taxes envisioned to help transit funding seem palatable to many Chicago-area residents. Lawmakers did not include a controversial sales tax on services.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, rebrands the RTA as the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which would set unified fares and assume capital planning powers. The bill would set a $1.50 tax on food and package deliveries to inject more than $1 billion to stave off the fiscal crisis and increase security personnel on buses and trains.
Gov. JB Pritzker on Sunday said a transit bill is necessary, but he would refuse to sign anything that includes broad-based tax increases, which the current version passed in the Senate does not. Pritzker said lawmakers must work “over the summer and in the fall to make sure” a bill is sent to his desk.
Another option for lawmakers is a stopgap budget measure to fund transit agencies through the next year, said Kate Lowe, an associate professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Though she said she hopes the governor will step in, she said she fears the proposed cuts will hit low-income people the hardest. Lowe said one of the first items on CTA’s chopping block will likely be its 10-minute bus network, which the agency announced last year to improve service on the South and West sides.
Schwieterman wondered whether there is enough momentum to pass a bill. A lot of focus was placed on the May 31 deadline after the RTA spent $750,000 on an ad campaign to pressure lawmakers to pass a funding bill.
“There might be some loss of momentum,” Schwieterman said. “The legislators tend not to act until we are literally standing on the edge of a cliff.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the RTA spent $750,000 on its ad campaign.