Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter plans to resign on Jan. 31. He plans to take a job as the president and CEO of Saint Anthony Hospital on the city’s West Side.

Local public transit agencies are encouraging residents to celebrate the holiday responsibly by taking advantage of free late-night transit services. Here’s how to hitch a ride.

Local and federal officials had been racing to finalize funding for the Red Line Extension before the end of the Biden administration. The $1.9 billion in federal transit grant money will help fulfill a decades-old promise to extend the heavily used train line past 95th Street, down to 130th Street.

The CTA’s Red Line Extension project will create four new stops on the Far South Side. Residents in nearby communities harbor both concerns about how the project will play out and hope about how it could improve their communities.  

With transit advocates hopeful they’ll see shovels in the ground next year to kick off the long-awaited Red Line Extension, the Chicago Transit Authority is racing to finalize the $1.9 billion in federal funding needed to complete the 5.6-mile project before the Biden administration leaves office.

Santa and his elves are returning to CTA buses and trains for the holiday season. The holiday tradition will return starting the week of Thanksgiving and will run through late December, the Chicago Transit Authority announced Tuesday.

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.

The Chicago City Council confirmed four of the five Chicagoans picked by Mayor Brandon Johnson to serve on the board of the Regional Transportation Authority, which is facing a $730 million deficit in 2026.

The endorsement of the city’s Transportation and Public Way Committee sends the nominations of Natasha Jenkins, Thomas Kotarac, Jarixon Medina, Dennis J. Mondero and Nora Cay Ryan to the full Chicago City Council for confirmation.

An impending fiscal cliff has led to calls from some lawmakers and transit advocates for reform — perhaps as drastic as merging CTA, Metra, Pace, and RTA into a new regional agency. That’s an idea the current transit agencies say is the wrong move.

The Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee has been meeting since July to grapple with the thorny issue of funding for the Chicago area’s transit system and whether to replace the CTA, Metra, Pace and Regional Transportation Authority with a single agency that will oversee bus, train and paratransit services. The proposal also calls for $1.5 billion in new funding. 

The Chicago area’s public transit system is approaching the precipice of a $730 million fiscal cliff in just over a year’s time. A group of lawmakers and advocates don’t just want to plug the transit agencies’ budget hole — they’re looking to funnel $1.5 billion in additional state funding each year to create a sustainable, world-class public transportation system.

With the Chicago area’s transit agencies facing a $730 million fiscal cliff, state lawmakers have been working on a plan to preserve and improve public transportation.

The solution to the Chicago area’s public transportation woes isn’t merging CTA, Metra and Pace into a single entity — it’s finally tackling the “decades-long, discriminatory and racially charged funding policies” that have left transit agencies “fighting over scraps,” according to CTA President Dorval Carter.

Metra, Pace and the Chicago Transit Authority collectively expect to be $730 million short come 2026 and are seeking a lift from state government.

A 30-year-old Chicago man has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder following a fatal Labor Day shooting on a CTA Blue Line train in suburban Forest Park. At a bond hearing Wednesday, Rhanni Davis was ordered detained pending trial.