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CHICAGO — Transit workers and advocates once again called on the state to fill the funding gap facing the CTA, Metra and Pace while a Regional Transportation Authority board member stressed the agency may not be doing enough at a Thursday board meeting.

Nora Cay Ryan, board member for the RTA, said agency officials should be sounding the alarm every chance they get on the agency’s fiscal cliff and putting themselves into rooms with lawmakers. The comments came after Rob Nash, RTA director for government affairs, said the agency has been left out of negotiations with lawmakers for some time.

“In these meetings, I don’t feel the sense of urgency,” Ryan said during the Thursday meeting. “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. We are on the menu. So what do we need to be doing right now to get ourselves in that room?” 

The urgency comes as lawmakers are debating how to best fund the transit systems in the region, which are collectively staring down a $202 million fiscal cliff that could trigger mass layoffs and services cuts starting next year. While the shortfall is much smaller than earlier projections, which were as high as $771 million, the budget gap persists and can get worse heading into 2027, officials said. 

The budget gap shrunk thanks in part to an unexpected increase in sales tax revenue, cost-saving measures and a fare increase, according to the RTA. 

State legislatures failed to pass a bill that would reform the regional transit system and provide more than $1 billion annually in new funding to the CTA, Metra and Pace. The bill, which passed in the state Senate, would’ve done this in part by charging a $1.50 tax on food deliveries and putting a new surcharge on the Illinois Tollway system. 

The state’s fall veto session ends next week as lawmakers are still working to reach an agreement over how to fund public transportation, Capitol News Illinois reported last week.

“Unless Springfield passes legislation by next Thursday to fix the transit fiscal cliff during this veto session, we’re heading for disaster,” Pennie McCoach, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, said at a press conference Thursday. “The General Assembly needs to pass real revenue and reform or we are going to see mass layoffs, routes and line closures and a devastating blow to our regional economy.”

McCoach, whose union represents rail operators and other transit workers, said the uncertainty is hurting her members. 

Audrey Wennink, representing the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition and senior director of transportation policy at the Metropolitan Planning Council, said the transit systems are “in crisis.” Inaction from legislators would mean the CTA reducing service by 22 percent and possibly eliminating 1,700 positions beginning this summer, Wennink said.

That would be about a 15 percent reduction of its workforce, according to CTA’s employee data.

“We cannot wait until the spring legislative session to address this matter. We must fix and fund transit during the veto session next week,” Wennick said. “Transit is not something you just switch on and off. You cannot decide to fund it the day before you plan to shut it down. This is a large, complex system.”

Leo Wong, a CTA electrical signal maintenance specialist, said he was “deeply concerned” as a transit worker and lifelong rider. He said it is reminiscent of when the CTA issued pink slips to over 1,000 workers in 2010 — and one of them had his name on it. 

“When these pink slips started coming out, they would get rescinded, then get sent back out about a month later,” Wong said. “The uncertainty and the mental stress alone was demoralizing.”

While Wong is back at the CTA, he sees things repeating and said the anxiety is building for every transit employee in the region. He’s calling on Springfield to think about the workers who help move people throughout the region. 

“It’s extremely important for families and people in our neighborhoods,” Wong said.

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October 24, 2025 at 07:50AM