Merger of Chicago-area transit agencies may be just the ticket for riders

This editorial board has long believed that the day has passed when four distinct agencies were responsible for the region’s mass transit system.

And now more than half of likely voters in Chicago and Cook County say they believe that too, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Funded by the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition and conducted by Global Strategy Group, the survey shows that 54% of Chicagoans want to see the Regional Transit Authority, Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace merged into a single transit agency , while 27% are against such a move.

In suburban Cook County, 53% support a merger and 19% oppose it.

The people are talking. State legislators and transit agencies themselves would do well to listen.

Something has to give with public transportation, which will face a $730 million “fiscal cliff” next year when federal pandemic relief money runs out.

A way to ‘transform traffic’

The results of the survey, conducted last month, found support among city and suburban elected officials who have supported a proposal in the General Assembly, called the Metropolitan Mobility Authority Act, that would replace the four transit boards with a single entity.

State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights, said a merger could eliminate the inefficiencies she saw as an RTA board member.

“What struck me when I was on this board was the lack of control the RTA had over the region,” she said. “There was no way the RTA could require the three service agencies to work together. Either you approved their budgets or you didn’t.”

State Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, a Chicago Democrat who is the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, said “the first step to transforming transit is to unify these transit agencies.”

Support among the 600 respondents rose to 72% when they were told that a Civic Federation analysis estimated the merger could eliminate up to $250 million in overlapping administrative costs.

But is this number real? RTA executive director Leanne Redden pushed back against the $250 million figure. She told the Sun-Times, “We don’t believe and have never seen data to support” this.

Along with the merger, the Metropolitan Mobility Authority Act would provide $1.5 billion in state funding, and lawmakers are right to want consolidation and streamlining in exchange for that funding.

Without an infusion of money from the General Assembly next year, transit agencies would likely cut service by up to 40% and substantially increase fares, according to the RTA.

Job 1: Serving the public

The RTA, CTA, Metra and Pace oppose the proposed merger, arguing that the agencies are hampered by a funding model in which the state provides just 17% of the money needed for their budgets. State governments in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts provide 40% to 50% of transit funding.

“So why all this fixation on governance?” CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. asked the City Club of Chicago last month. “It’s an easy pill to swallow and a lot cheaper.”

Perhaps. But transit systems as they currently exist do not fully serve the public, and that must change. Take Carter’s CTA, for example, which has had rampant complaints of “ghost” buses, unreliable rail service and chronic cleanliness and safety problems.

And while this board supports the $5.3 billion CTA Red Line extension that is scheduled to begin construction next year, we can’t help but wonder if a consolidated transit agency could at least investigate whether bolstering services and stations along the nearby Metra Electric line could have been a less expensive alternative that would still provide more service to Far South residents.

The CTA goes to the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Agency on Friday with a new budget for the Red Line project that includes a federally mandated contingency fund. This fund, if used, would increase the price of the extension to US$5.75 billion – or US$1.4 billion per stop.

Would merging the agencies automatically improve transit service in the region? If history has taught us anything, it’s that there are no guarantees when it comes to government in Cook County.

But there is no doubt that a four-headed system with a combined total of 47 board members, separate fare collection systems – and competing with each other for public transport funding – is not the way to run a railway.

Or a public transport system.

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