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The Chicago Transit Authority board approved Wednesday the agency’s $2.16 billion operating budget for 2025 – with CTA President Dorval Carter facing sharp questions from directors about proactive security measures, better engagement with the public and the board, and increased transparency.

Board members said improved communication will be key to the agency’s survival as it faces down a projected $539 million fiscal cliff in 2026, after the CTA runs out of pandemic-era relief funding that’s been keeping its operating budget afloat in the first quarter of that year.

After pushback from board members, the agency moved $3.3 million from its original allocation for private security services and will instead put it toward as-yet-undetermined public safety pilot projects, with officials saying those experiments will be guided by public input and focus on proactive security measures.

CTA Board Chairman Lester Barclay thanked Carter for being responsive to board feedback on public safety, calling it directors’ “highest priority” and saying they were “not pleased” with current efforts. He cited the increased presence of Chicago Police Department members on buses and trains during August’s Democratic National Convention as a deterrent to crime that will improve rider experience.

“We’re lagging a little bit with security and customers feeling safe” as compared to improvements in service, Barclay said.

Carter echoed Barclay’s call for more officers on the system, saying the presence of police makes both passengers and employees feel safe and that “whatever the (current) number is, it’s not enough.” But other board members pushed back, with director Rosa Ortiz saying police should not be the first tactic the CTA uses to boost safety, and citing long-strained relationships between the CPD and communities of color in Chicago. And fellow board member Rev. Bernard Jakes repeated a critique from many riders that the private security guards contracted to work on the CTA often appear to do very little.

Board members also pressed Carter for a robust community engagement process on the public safety pilot programs, though Carter strongly resisted the notion that any outside advisers would have approval over what kind of programs the CTA ultimately implements. He also got into a sometimes tense back-and-forth with the board over the metrics for such a pilot and how frequently the agency communicates the results of its efforts to the board.

“We need to have a better way of measuring – has this been effective, has this been not effective, and here’s why,” board member Neema Jha said. “I think that’s a very, very fair ask, which today I don’t feel like we have.”

Perhaps the sharpest criticism came from Roberto Requejo, a longtime advocate for equitable transit-oriented development who joined the board earlier this year. Noting that this was his first time going through the CTA’s budget process, he suggested that this experience was an opportunity to rethink how the agency crafts its spending plan – especially heading into 2025 when state legislators will need to take major action to prevent transit from going over a fiscal cliff. 

“I know that we cannot control what Springfield is going to do, but we can control how we show up,” Requejo said. “We can show up as an agency that is a collaborator, that is an open agency, that is looking for partnerships, that is looking for dialogue, that is honest and transparent about what works and what doesn’t, that proposes a different future for transportation – or we can show up as an agency that insular, that is top down, that is opaque, that doesn’t quite respond to the needs of the public.”

He expressed optimism that the agency could live up to the former ideal, but said his experience during budgeting “gave me some hints as to what may be some of the underlying reasons why we are not quite there yet,” arguing that board members weren’t brought in until “pretty late in the game” and asked to approve a plan, rather than being proactively engaged throughout the process.

Carter did not respond to Requejo’s comments, expressing confidence to the board that state lawmakers understand the importance of transit and are committed to its survival, but did not address the ongoing calls from some legislators that additional funding for public transportation be tied to major reforms – including the proposal to merge the CTA, Metra, and Pace into a single regional transit agency.

Without the needed state funding, the CTA will be faced with service cuts and layoffs, with Carter acknowledging the odds of operating funds coming from a federal source are “probably very slim.”

Those odds got even slimmer last week with the reelection of former President Donald Trump, under whose leadership former top officials at the U.S. Department of Transportation tried unsuccessfully to make major trims to the grant programs that transit systems rely on for major capital projects.

Given the uncertainty a second Trump administration poses, Carter said the CTA is working diligently to land the final federal approval and funding commitments for the Red Line Extension before the Biden administration hands over the keys.

The budget approved Wednesday keeps fares steady and, officials say, will fund service levels that exceed pre-pandemic bus and train runs in 2019. Directors also approved a $6.95 billion capital improvement budget from 2025 through 2029 that includes the massive Red Line Extension project. 

The board also OK’d a two-year intergovernmental agreement with the city that will keep outreach teams on trains working to aid people using the CTA as a shelter of last resort, which WTTW and Block Club Chicago reported on earlier this year.

The program had previously only been funded as a pilot program one year at a time, but officials say the two-year approval will allow greater certainty for the outreach teams from social service organizations Threshold and Haymarket. The CTA and those groups say the program has had a significant positive impact, connecting people who are homeless with shelter beds, permanent housing, social services, food, and harm reduction supplies.

Current budget projections show that at the end of next year, the CTA will have just $63 million remaining of the $2.2 billion in federal relief money it’s received. With state lawmakers currently debating the future of transit in the Chicago area and the debate expected to kick into high gear in the upcoming spring legislative session, Carter said he and his team are heading into 2025 with a sense of urgency.

“We can’t afford to lose this fight,” he said. “This is a make it or break it point.”

Contact Nick Blumberg: [email protected] | (773) 509-5434 | @ndblumberg