Illinois House Majority Leader Robyn Gabel told Evanston Now on Saturday that “we’re determined” to come up with a funding and governance package for mass transit in the Chicago area.

Legislators failed to reach consensus on such a deal before their session ended on May 31.

“We just ran out of time,” Gabel said.

The three components of the Regional Transportation Authority, the CTA, Metra, and PACE suburban buses, face a combined $771 million deficit in 2026 when federal COVID relief dollars run out.

Failing to fill that gap, the RTA has said, will mean 40% cuts in service, along with layoffs and fare increases.

Gabel said that lawmakers “pretty much agree on the structure,” which would see the Regional Transportation Authority reconstituted as the Northern Illinois Transit Authority. The new agency would have additional powers to coordinate services.

However, a Senate-approved food-and- package delivery fee, which would have helped fund transit with a $1.50 charge on some home delivery items, apparently stalled the measure from even getting a vote in the House. Opponents called the fee a “pizza tax.”

Rep. Tracy Katz Muhl, a legislator from some suburbs north of Evanston, told Evanston Now that “I expect we’ll be back” to work on a transit deal, whether it’s in a special session or during the veto session.

House and Senate negotiators will “have to settle someplace where both chambers are comfortable, ” she added.

There is one more potential challenge.

Gabel said that the availability of some money “depends on the federal level” of support, at a time when the Trump administration is cutting back on just about everything.

Gabel, Katz Muhl, and Rep. Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz were at an Evanston restaurant on Saturday to endorse long-time Democratic activist Rachel Ruttenberg in the state senate primary in March.