Dillard: Transit Agencies Preparing for "Pretty Scary Decisions"
RTA Chairman Kirk Dillard after speaking to the City Club of Chicago in February. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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How are Chicago area mass transit agencies preparing for the future after the legislature failed to pass governance reform and a plan to help close a $770 million “fiscal cliff” for 2026?
Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Chairman Kirk Dillard, a former state senator, tells The Illinoize the agencies are facing “some pretty scary decisions” including layoffs and service reductions.
RTA is the he financial and oversight body for the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace.
Dillard says the first challenge is reforming governance among the agencies and bringing them under one roof, which has proven to be difficult.
“One size doesn't fit all, and the mission of each of the three, CTA, Metra, and Pace are very different,” Dillard said. “Even though pace and CTA both run busses, they run very different types of service, including the length of the travel and not all. The problem has been mostly the CTA service as well as safety. Generally Metra and Pace run well and it's safe.”
Dillard said the Senate package, which included multiple tax increases, did not address the operational challenges facing transit agencies.
“When you're looking at the revenue sources, I would submit if they can't pass a package as large as the one that the Senate did on Sunday, they back out everything but operations,” he said. “I'm all for transit oriented development. But maybe that needs to stand alone on its own in a year or two down the road. We really analyzed the first round of the revenue package. We crunched the numbers and only $385 million, which is only half of the fiscal cliff, went to operations. We need operations money. And while the other stuff is great and I love it, this is all about operations money and the legislature, in my estimation, needs to focus on operations and maybe maybe wait on some of the other things that aren't operations.”
Some legislative leaders have said they believe the deadline to get a funding plan in place is closer to the end of 2025, but Dillard says the agencies will be running into problems far sooner.
“By law, the RTA will give a budget mark to the CTA, Metra and Pace, and that number we're going to give them in the next few months can only be by law. [That’s only] money that we have and know is coming in hand,” he said. “So they're going to get a number that's going to require them to really take a hard look at making massive 40% service cuts. And then you can't just flip a light switch on and off. We're going to have to start really sharpening the pencil and try to figure out what would happen in the doomsday scenario. And none of us want that to happen. And I don't think the legislature wants that to happen either. But they're going to see a process set by state law and federal law. We're going to have to start literally outlining what cuts and reductions there would be in service. We're going to have to make some pretty scary decisions, and hopefully we'll never have to have them come to fruition.”
