* Last year, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning issued a comprehensive report on reforming and improving the area’s mass transit system. An important point that is kinda being lost in the din…

Importantly, in isolation, governance reforms cannot address the longstanding financial challenges northeastern Illinois’ transit system faces. The region needs more resources to succeed. Governance reform can, along with a suite of system improvement and funding solutions, maximize the efficiency of transit functions and strengthen responsible financial stewardship of scarce resources.

* But CMAP did recommend two options for transit agency consolidation…

Option 1: Integrate the RTA and the service boards into one regional transit entity

The service boards’ current service delivery responsibilities would be divided among service units. The regional agency would be represented by one board and one agency executive. To provide additional opportunities for input, the operating units could be represented by service committees that report to the regional board.

Option 2: Empower a regional coordinating agency to lead transit across the service boards

The three service boards would continue to exist as three separate agencies led by a regional coordinating agency. The service boards would provide transit operations and local service planning, while the regional entity would be strengthened with greater authority and resources to develop regional policies, coordinate comprehensive mobility planning, and allocate funding to the service boards. All four agencies would have their own agency executives and governing boards.

* The transit leaders pushed back hard on those ideas today during a Senate Transportation Committee hearing…

Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger: Quite honestly, we’ve read the report. We all are in favor, I’m going to speak for us all, you guys can say I’m wrong, but we’re all in favor of doing what’s best for the customer. We all want to do the best job we can. I do not believe that combining us into one organization will make us better. First of all, we all have board members who are local, who understand the local needs, and they give us a lot of input. Secondly, we all have different service areas. I cover, you know, 3,500 square miles, 15 times the city of Chicago. To put us all under one board, the needs of the suburban areas of farther away areas will not be met as well as they’re met right now. The system needs more money. And its Pace’s obligation to provide service in the suburbs. And I think putting us all in one service board will make those needs in the outer areas not as important, not because we don’t want to do it. We all want to do a good job, but just there’s pressures in different organizations. I also believe that we have been very adaptive to what’s going on, because we have this vast service area, and we have some dense areas. We go into the city of Chicago and the suburbs around the city of Chicago, we serve in one way. We have other areas that have no density, yet they still need to have service they need to move people. And I believe that the system we have today allows the input so that we can cover all of our service areas.

CTA President Dorval Carter: The model that’s been set up for governance today didn’t come by accident. It was a really, hardly negotiated compromise between the need for accountability as well as the need for local control over the entities that quite honestly impact those residents the most. In my particular case, 90% of the riders of CTA live within the city of Chicago. The Mayor of the City of Chicago believes that he is responsible for public transportation, and the governance model for CTA reflects that. I believe that the City of Chicago and CTA are both of the opinion that the governance model is not the problem here. It doesn’t need to be adjusted. The issue is getting the funding levels to work the way they’re supposed to, which will drive the decisions that I think everybody wants to see happen here, along with the ongoing collaboration I think you have between our agencies as we as professionals work to find ways to make our service better, more convenient and more efficient to our customers.

RTA Chair Kirk Dillard: The president said it very, very well. Funding cures most ills, and as I said in my opening remarks, over a 40-plus-year period, multiple general assemblies, multiple governors and multiple mayors have set up this governance structure with lots of input for a reason. I certainly do not believe the Civic Federation’s number that they put out. As I told you, the RTA might have 90 employees. Of that 90, if you back out those who take care of reduced fares and do the clerical things that we do, it’s a handful of people that really have the oversight responsibility. There’s value in maintaining an oversight responsibility outside of the day to day operations. These folks are up to their eyeballs in alligators every day. It’s very similar to an external auditor reviewing an internal auditors work. One of the reasons we have the lowest operating cost per mile, aside from the fact that we have a funding problem historically, is that the RTA does help hold these folks accountable. And if you let the operations people determine the ultimate budget they’re going to want to spend. So some oversight by us is, but I agree with them, they certainly need more money, but the RTA system does hold costs down, even though we need to really, really ratchet up the operations funding and capital too of the system. But funding cures most of the ills that all of you in the public have spoken about.

Metra CEO / Executive Director Jim Derwinski: I don’t think I could have said anything more than my colleagues at the table here have said, other than the fact we just hit 40 years this year, and looking back and trying to understand how we were formed, why we were formed. I did a lot of reading as well, reading the General Assembly floor remarks from 1983 when we amended the RTA Act. I read a bunch of the materials from 1973 debates, and actually found a thesis paper that went back to the beginning of time, almost 1870 and what transportation looked like here in Chicago. And really the problem has never shifted. It is a funding issue. If we adequately fund the system, the operators can do the right things. And I think the one thing that we all get, maybe victims of our own success. We do operate the leanest system in the country. We keep getting, we keep making it happen when we don’t have the right resources. And because of that, certain other things don’t happen. But we keep being victims of their own success by running as lean as we run. So I don’t know where the savings would be, and the combination of a bigger board … But in either case, I think it’s important that the local representation, meaning in our case, the collar counties and suburban cook have some voice, and what happens with Metro operations, and that could get minimized or lost in a grand board.

Please pardon all transcription errors.

…Adding… ICJC…

In response to today’s Senate Transportation Committee subject matter hearing on how public transit supports the economy, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC) released the following statement:

“Today we heard four transit agencies defend a status quo that simply isn’t working for current or potential riders who want a system that is more safe, more reliable, and more affordable. The status quo isn’t working for taxpayers who are paying for duplicate bureaucracies performing overlapping functions instead of funding one agency that improves transit across Chicagoland,” said Dany Robles of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition.

“We also heard from everyday riders who spoke about the essential role the region’s mass transit system plays in their lives. Transit is critical to our region’s economic vitality and an affordable, reliable public transit system is an irreplaceable tool to ensure equity and accessibility for everyone.

“The State of Illinois funds just 17% of transit operating costs, well below its peers. We know the path to more state funding starts with the reforms in the Metropolitan Mobility Authority Act.

“Without confidence in an efficient and equitable governance structure, we won’t be able to secure the funding to operate the world-class transit system we deserve.”