One of the most important legislative debates next year will be about reforming, restructuring and finding a way to fund Northeast Illinois’ public transportation system. Statewide taxes could possibly be raised to pay for this, so you should pay attention no matter where you live.
Gov. JB Pritzker has said he’s not endorsing current legislation which would force the consolidation of the various transit systems. The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning has two separate proposal about how to accomplish a reorganization ahead of an impending “transit fiscal cliff” of $730 million in FY26 that will rise to $1.2 billion over the following five years.
The public appears open to at least the concept of consolidation, according to a new poll conducted by Global Strategy Group for the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, which supports transit agency consolidation. The polling and consulting firm works for Gov. Pritzker’s campaign, among several others in Illinois.
According to the poll of 600 likely voters conducted September 16-19, respondents backed the general idea 46-21. That’s more than two-to-one, but a third (33 percent) didn’t know enough to say.
Transit riders supported consolidation 55-20, non-riders supported it 34-23, Chicagoans supported consolidation 54-27, collar county voters backed it 53-19, suburban Cook County folks approved it 49-21 and labor union households supported consolidation 42-18.
But this isn’t really surprising. People naturally favor broad concepts like consolidating government agencies, even if they know nothing about the specifics. And that sentiment intensifies if they’re told consolidation will save big bucks.
72 percent told the pollster that potential consolidation savings of $200-250 million a year was a convincing argument. The savings range is claimed by the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, but the Regional Transportation Authority says they have no idea where those savings numbers are coming from.
Half of Chicagoans, by the way, gave the Chicago Transit Authority a favorable rating, while 48 percent had an unfavorable view of the system. That’s somewhat surprising, given all the negative press about the CTA over the past few years. The group refused to provide full toplines or crosstabs.
Also last week, leaders of the Chicago-area public transit agencies gathered together on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight program and for the umpteenth time publicly rejected any managerial reforms while demanding a $1.5 billion increase in taxpayer funding.
That didn’t go over well with Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago), who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, is sponsoring the consolidation bill and has held numerous hearings on the topic.
“I have said from the beginning that we need to provide adequate funding for public transit,” Sen. Villivalam told me. “It is good for our local economy, public health, quality of life, mitigating climate impact and much more.”
However, Sen. Villivalam continued, “With that said, I have heard from colleague after colleague. The appetite to vote on this unprecedented amount of funding without reform is just not there. Period.”
More from Villivalam: “We need specificity on how they plan on using funds to make public transit more safe, reliable, accessible, coordinated, environmentally conscious, and economically strategic. There must be accountability and transparency.”
He’s not wrong on any of this. And the word “coordinated” is important because the transit agencies have long resisted a seamless payment system and synchronized scheduling, which is a major benefit of Germany’s transit system governance, known as verkehrsverbünde.
Germany’s regional transportation associations don’t actually operate that county’s innumerable transit systems. Instead, the associations simply enforce and oversee unified fares and ticketing, and they synchronize the transit systems’ schedules. That might possibly be where the reforms here are heading, and a fact-finding trip to Germany is apparently in the works.
Even organized labor is taking a look at the German model, I’m told.
Despite strong public statements this year against consolidation from the Illinois AFL-CIO and the Chicago Federation of Labor, organized labor has worked over the past few months to bring together a multitude of smallish transit unions to quietly work on a solution.
Bringing those union locals together wasn’t an easy task by any means, because unions often side with their employers’ Statehouse positions. The pitch from above was to organize against any attempts to divide and conquer them by peeling off a few of the larger unions to support a solution that would benefit some and not others. That approach is apparently working.
The union locals want lots more money for transit. But the German governing model is something that could work for them because the various agencies would continue running their systems. Still, it’s way too early to say the unions could jump on board.
Rich,
We are writing in response to your recent post about the poll conducted by Global Strategy Group on behalf of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition. With regard to the results that suggest that Illinoisans support consolidation of the public transit systems by a 2:1 margin, we are pleased you acknowledged that generally people do favor broad ideas like consolidating government agencies, even if they know nothing about the specifics. As you well know, with all things “Springfield,” the devil is in the details.
We reviewed the poll questions and believe they were intentionally vague. For example, we have no doubt if asked simply if individuals support “unifying the CTA, Metra, Pace and RTA into one organization to improve service, safety and frequency of trains and buses thus attracting more riders,” it would be easy to answer in the affirmative. But important background data was missing, such as
• Would the make-up of the new governing board dilute suburban representation into policy and financial decisions?
• Does the consolidation and reform plan require tax or fee increases for Chicago, Cook, or suburban riders?
• If consolidation occurs, would suburban riders become burdened with subsidizing the Chicago Transit Authority’s $5 billion deficit?
In our opinion, important questions were not asked in this poll, including:
• If you are a suburban rider, do you support giving majority control of transit decision-making for the entire six-county region to Cook County and the City of Chicago?
• If you are a suburban rider, do you support tax or fee increases to help address the Chicago Transit Authority’s $5 billion deficit?
We are glad you are following this issue and we agree it will be a primary topic of discussion in the 104th General Assembly. But when Global Strategy Group begins its own poll memo with “Without any background information…” it calls the validity of the poll into question.
We are all aware that poll questions can be written to deliver a predetermined response, and the vague nature of this poll brings up a lot of questions about who was polled, where they live, what issues influence their responses, etc. Moving forward we hope for improved transparency on the important issue of public transit in Illinois.
Sincerely,
Senator Donald DeWitte, Minority Spokesperson, Senate Transportation Committee
Senator Seth Lewis, Minority Spokesperson, Appropriations- Infrastructure & Public Safety
Senator Craig Wilcox, Minority Spokesperson, Senate Labor Committee
