Politics
Illinois Lawmakers Weigh in on $1.5B Funding Package Set to Reshape Chicago-Area Transit
Illinois lawmakers last week signed off on a sweeping $1.5 billion transit funding package that reshapes how the CTA, Metra and Pace are run and funded.
The plan also creates what’s called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority to oversee the transit agencies, which critics say have long failed to coordinate their service and meet rider needs.
The new board has five directors appointed by the governor, five by Chicago’s mayor, five by the Cook County Board president, and five by the collar county board executives.
“When we made these appointments, when we decided what this was going to look like in terms of the need for board representation, we wanted to make sure that we were creating those appointments based on offices, not on people,” said state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado (D-Chicago). “We wanted to maintain the appointment structure similarly to what we have done with CMAP in the past, and it’s worked very well in CMAP, and so we think this is a great way for us to remake the transit agencies.”
The measure also fills looming budget gaps by redirecting $860 million in motor fuel sales tax revenue to transit, using $200 million in interest from the state’s Road Fund, and raising nearly $480 million through RTA sales tax increase of .25 percentage points in the Chicago area.
Lawmakers said the overhaul is needed to keep trains and buses running as federal COVID-19 aid dries up and ridership remains at pre-pandemic levels.
Senate Bill 2111 was approved last week after more than a year of negotiations and multiple versions of the bill.
State Sen. Don DeWitte (R-St. Charles), the Republican spokesperson for the Transportation Committee, thinks the package “will be sufficient in resolving issues that have been in place for quite some time that have caused a lot of grief and aggravation for legislators in Springfield, as well as the transit riders here across the Chicago metropolitan area.”
The bill ultimately avoided controversial statewide taxes on streaming, package deliveries or billionaire income, instead relying on regional sales tax hikes and road fund revenue. It did, however, direct 15% of gas tax money and 10% of road fund interest downstate.
State Rep. Travis Weaver (R-Peoria) doesn’t think that split is fair to his constituents.
“People that I represent in the greater Peoria area got absolutely robbed on this,” Weaver said. “Historically, the Road Fund split has been about 55% downstate, 45% for Chicagoland. Now that’s 85% Chicagoland and only 15% for downstate where the vast majority of our road miles are.”
State Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago), who chairs the state Transportation Committee, noted there are funds and projects benefitting downstate Illinoisans such as: $129 million going to downstate transit agencies; funding a Quad Cities to Chicago rail project costing $475 million; and an interconnectivity project from Peoria to Joliet to Chicago.
“We also provided that transformational investment of $1.5 billion to ensure that we have a safe, reliable, accessible system for several decades to come,” Villivalam said. “That was always the goal — to make sure we’re not just doing a Band-Aid solution, but preparing ourselves for a world-class system for the future.”
