Finding Solutions To Fund Transit: Combining Accountability & New Resources For World-Class Public Transportation
Executive Summary
Northeastern Illinois is home to the nation's second largest transit system. Hundreds of thousands of riders use CTA, Pace, and Metra every day, a testament to the value of transit in moving the region's goods, services and people where they need to go.
Northeastern Illinois' transit network directly reduces traffic congestion and air pollution while increasing mobility for those residents that lack transportation choices.
Looking to the future, the region is expected to accommodate 2.3 billion additional annual travel trips by 2030. Efficient well-functioning transit will only become more critical to what makes the region attractive to residents, visitors and businesses.
Unfortunately, the future of public transit is endangered in Northeastern Illinois. Rising transit agency costs for energy, security and employee benefits have grown while funding from an uneven and outdated apportionment of sales taxes across the six-county region has not kept pace with needs.
The outdated funding formula has created a transit budget shortfall that grows each year.
In recent years commuters have felt the effects of dwindling transit funding. Increased fares, less frequent bus and train service, and worsening delays have become the norm as the bus fl eet ages and deteriorating train infrastructure necessitates designated slow zones on many rail lines.
In March 2007, the Illinois Auditor General released a study of the fi scal management of the region's transit systems. While the report identifi ed several areas for greater effi ciency, the report also stated that even if fares were doubled, resources would still be inadequate to maintain the current system in good working order. In other words, management can be improved with fewer layers of bureaucracy, but those reforms must be combined with a major infusion of new resources.
The growing budget hole has now reached crisis proportions. The public agency responsible for managing these activities, the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), estimates the three transit service boards, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Metra and Pace, face a combined $226 million shortfall for the second half of 2007.
Without a permanent funding solution authorized by state lawmakers, the short-term consequence of these shortfalls will be dramatic service cuts and increased fares. Service cuts would not only harm the millions of transit riders who currently depend on the RTA. Cutbacks would also increase traffi c congestion for those who drive to work, and decrease economic output of the region as a whole as more time is wasted in traffi c congestion and commuters are less able to access parts of the region where jobs are plentiful.
While the consequences of inaction are grave, solutions are within reach. "Finding Solutions to Fund Transit" highlights basic principles for evaluating potential revenue sources and considers several funding options available to state lawmakers to create a sustainable funding system for supporting the growing public transportation needs of Northeastern Illinois.
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