Potential service cuts to the Chicago Transit Authority’s bus and “L” service have been delayed by “two to three months,” thanks to a funding transfer by the Regional Transportation Authority.

The RTA’s board voted unanimously on Thursday to shift $74 million from the Metra commuter rail system and the PACE suburban bus operation to the CTA in 2026.

CTA, Metra, and PACE serve Evanston. RTA is the funding umbrella for the transit systems.

While all three operating agencies face a “fiscal cliff” of major service reductions, layoffs, and fare increases next year as federal COVID relief dollars run out, the CTA will go over its cliff first.

The combined “cliff” is $771 million, but CTA, Metra, and PACE each face their doomsday at different times in the year.

Transferring some Metra and PACE dollars to the Chicago Transit Authority will, according to the RTA, give state legislators a little more time to come up with an overall transit funding solution while preventing CTA service cuts in the first quarter of 2026.

Metra and PACE cuts would come later, assuming no legislative resolution.

RTA officials called the funding shift “shared sacrifice.”

Executive director Leanne Redden said the money going to CTA represented “a small amount of discretionary” dollars, and would be a one-year transfer only, assuming the legislature comes through with an overall funding package.

$74 million is about 1% of the combined Metra and PACE projected budgets for 2026.

There was some pushback to the transfer.

An RTA board member from McHenry County, Brian Sager, said “this is real money which Metra is sacrificing. What will Metra and PACE give up,” he asked, by shifting some of their money to the CTA?

The answer was that the money comes out of operating funds, not capital construction nor equipment purchases. Sager ultimately joined his RTA colleagues in voting “yes” on the transfer.

RTA director Redden also said that Metra leadership was “on board” with the switch.

CTA, by the way, does not serve McHenry County. And that’s one of the issues facing Chicagoland transit — competing interests from different communities.

Those competing interests are represented in the legislature, which is trying to find a funding solution which can get enough votes.

Lawmakers return to Springfield in October, and transit funding is on the agenda.

If those lawmakers want to see what could happen in Chicagoland without a financing package, they only need to look to Philadelphia this Sunday.

That’s when the first of two rounds of service cuts take effect because the legislature could not come up with a budgetary solution.

More cuts are slated for Jan. 1, when Philadelphia’s transit service will end up being about half of what it is now.

Besides okaying the finance shift to CTA, the RTA board also OK’d a money-saving plan for paratransit, increasing the fare from $2 to $3.25, and limiting passengers to 30 trips per month when using subsidized taxi or rideshare vehicles instead of fixed route vans.

“This is the first action of the fiscal cliff,” said one board member.

“It’s hard, but the future is going to make this (monthly rides) cap miniscule compared to overall cuts.”

Without a legislative funding solution, Chicago area transit systems face a 40% service reduction.

Summing up the situation, one board member said “we have a lot of choices that are bad or worse.”