By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
CTA and Metra say they’re on the precipice of a fiscal cliff and yet nobody seems to be asking the obvious question. With ridership still at 60% to 70% of their pre-covid levels, why are they operating their trains and buses as if it were 2019?
Just before covid, about 38 million people on average rode the city’s buses and trains every month, according to passenger trip data from the Federal Transit Administration. Today, ridership averages only about 26 million a month, not even 70% of where it was before the pandemic.
It’s the same for Metra. Before the crash, Metra was averaging about 5 million monthly passenger trips. Today, that monthly average is closer to 3 million.
That’s a drop of about 40 percent.
And yet despite the continued shortfall in ridership, operation data from the FTA shows that both transit systems are running more vehicle miles today than before the pandemic.
On average, CTA trains and buses averaged 10.4 million miles a month over the six months preceding covid. Most recently, the average is 10.7 million miles a month.
Metra is also operating at pre-covid levels, running an average of 3.7 million miles a month over the last six months.
Predictably, running all those miles while at just 60-70% ridership means big operating losses. And those losses have groups of all kinds calling for more tax hikes, more fare hikes and more state subsidies for the transit agencies – but little to nothing on efficiencies.
The Regional Transportation Authority has proposed 27 different revenue options, including tax hikes like increasing the regional sales tax and motor fuel tax.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning wants $1.5 billion in new operating support from the state.
And the Civic Federation and Center for Tax and Budget Accountability want to raise $2.6 billion for transit by expanding the sales tax to include services.
The starting point for lawmakers should be to right-size the scale of operations with the systems’ true ridership. They should force transit officials to obsess about efficiency, safety and customer satisfaction before the agencies even ask for another dime.
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If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Let’s spend money on the new storage yard in Woodstock!
The reason they are not fiscally responsible is because they are government.
Just raise taxes to pay for all the inefficiencies.
<heavy sigh> This was caused directly by the executive directors in their constant quest for transit access. Ridership? Never heard of her. Running as many trains and buses as possible is the game, just so they can tell us how many ‘service improvements’ they made. The political animals and executive directors might be in complete denial, but the RTA’s own reporting plainly shows their plight. Ridership | Chicago Region Transit Dashboard When a bus trundles down the street with a single rider, that’s not mass transit. When a train crew outnumbers its passengers, that’s also not mass transit. It’s Uber.… Read more »
How do you spell “union?”
I think it starts with fu.
The “top 11 revenue options” don’t include raising fares. How many years since CTA and Pace raised fares? How much has CPI increased since then? (Metra changed their whole fare system but I do not think there was any average fare increase).
Those options don’t include actually collecting anything for the land value supported by transit service.
And really, if the Authorities were serious about attracting riders, they would find ways to make their vehicles less noisy and uncomfortable.
From the report…
“It is impossible for RTA and the Service Boards to solve the funding crisis by raising fares alone, as fare increases of the magnitude needed to fill the budget gap — nearly doubling from what they are today — would drive down ridership and negate additional revenue brought in by higher fares.”
Currently they get $788M in fares and advertising and the shortfall is $730M, hence the “nearly doubling” reference.
According to the report they get $2.4B from public funding, roughly 3x the fare revenue. So the riders are only paying ~1/4 of the total revenue.
“We refuse to let transit collapse on our watch.” says the RTA’s shiny sales brochure. They didn’t let it, they caused it. Now they want a bailout. $3.9 Billion in operating expenses translates into $1.95 Billion in fares that must be collected. Fares and ridership must rise to cover this, or operating expenses must be cut. I read this RTA plea for more taxpayer funds with a dry eye. If transit really was ‘the answer’, this discussion wouldn’t be happening. At most, Chicago transit carries roughly 60% of what it did prior to the Coof, generating about $790 Million in… Read more »
Of course raising fares isn’t a complete solution, but it could cover part of the deficit.
It must cover 50% of operating expenses at the very least.
The math is so simple that even JB the Hutt could figure it out.
$1.95 Billion needed
$790 Million collected
Total fares must be 247% of what they are currently
This is a 147% fare increase, just to get to 50% operational coverage.
Metra had implemented a 10-year schedule in the mid-2010s that raised fares 3-5% every year. Keep in mind also that the F-K zone monthly fares were also > $200 before they did the 4 zone, max of $135/mo. I tend to think the Metra commuter is not as price-sensitive given that most are 10 rides / week commuters and also would face steep parking, fuel and maintenance costs, with the remainder being in-city or close-suburb users that will coninue to pay a premium not to be on CTA for parallel routes. if I were Metra I would seriously consider going… Read more »
The public sec transit unions–“United We Move”/ Sen Villivalam SB0005, +$730 mil funding bill response to declining ridership essentially replaces “fare box” revenue funding with direct state funding while making ZERO mention about declining ridership.They only claim efficiencies or cost saving though some vague platitudes by combining “universal fare” and coordination between CTA, METRA & PACE which would remain separate agencies? And most importantly–ZERO LAYOFFS!!!, what else is new. (https://unitedwemoveil.org/legislation) From yesterdays Politico (https://www.politico.com/newsletters/illinois-playbook/2025/04/08/7-things-holding-up-illinois-transit-bill-00277897): State Rep. Marty Moylan is out with a list of seven operational reforms he wants made to the Chicago-area transit system before he’ll let a bill… Read more »
The “United We Move”/ Sen Villivalam SB0005 bill is in really a TRANSPORTATION EBF, that switches funding from largely based on a per rider “fare box” fee to being funded via some other, yet to be determent, revenue sources. IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW EMPTY THE TRAINS OR BUSES ARE!!! Just as with state EDUCATION EBF it doesn’t matter how many empty class room space there are at CPS or Crazy 852 school districts. All that matters to the machine is ZERO LAYOFFS!! Similar EBF deal is being worked on for Higher Ed no matter how many empty seats!! The EBFs… Read more »
That is the question. Has the RTA outlived its usefulness as a legitimate transit provider, instead becoming yet another division in the Illinois DNC patronage army?
Yeah. I couldn’t keep a straight face typing that one.
“Send in…the clowns…”
Because it’s a union shop and Democratic Party kickback mechanism. Ridership? What’s that?