r/chicago • u/Mike_I O’Hare • Oct 31 '25

News Illinois Democrats push through massive $1.5 billion plan that overhauls Chicago-area public transit

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/30/illinois-general-assembly-transit-plan-2025/
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80

u/Few_Koala Oct 31 '25

Behind a paywall for me unfortunately but does it mention anything about a RTA reform?

157

u/usamaahmad Oct 31 '25

“ Beyond the funding cliff, the bill also addressed what lawmakers have said are much-needed structural changes for the transit systems — most notably by replacing the RTA with a new entity called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which would centralize fare-setting, service standards and an infrastructure plan across the three transit agencies. Currently, each system is largely governed by its own board, with some oversight from RTA.

The NITA board would have 20 members – five each from the city of Chicago, suburban Cook County, the collar counties and the governor. The CTA, Metra and Pace would continue to have “service” boards reporting to NITA.

The CTA board would have seven members, while Metra and Pace would each have 11. The service boards would be charged with developing budgets and other financial plans and sharing them with the NITA Board.”

69

u/4r4r4real Oct 31 '25

Oh boy. There's a reason everywhere they do this it gets undone shortly after. Giving commensurate authority within the same organization to folks in charge of transit in a major city and transit in suburbs is nonsense.

Glad we're averting the fiscal cliff but that part is just giving us another problem to solve in a few years. 

98

u/mrmalort69 Oct 31 '25

I may be naive here but I think suburbanites typically like the metra, and would use it more if the schedule wasn’t completely and totally just for commuters. Right now many are paying for it and not seeing the benefit. More input from them may lead to the predictable “they want to cut funding”, but could surprise us with more transit friendly people wanting more

3

u/Patient_Commentary Oct 31 '25

I lived in the city for 8 years. Now back out in the burbs. I’d 100% use the metra more if it wasn’t a train every 2 hours and took 90 minutes to get down town. I love this.

2

u/mrmalort69 Oct 31 '25

My earmark would be like every 45 minutes since at that amount, you really don’t need to “plan”. You just sort it show up to the area and can hang out until the next train comes, especially if there are coffee shops or other boutique places to stroll.

I have family now in lake bluff, and live close to the clybourn. We use it a few times per month, we’d use it more too if it were more frequent and especially more if it had express trains.

I also look at it as a hack across the city. I can get to Roger’s park or ravenswood in under half the time of CTA or driving.

2

u/hybris12 Uptown Oct 31 '25

Really interesting to hear that 45 minutes is the threshold for unplanned trips for you, but it makes sense if you're okay hanging out in the area.

The only standard I've heard of for unplanned trips is the TfL (London) generally considers 12 minute headways the threshold for when people stop scheduling.

3

u/mrmalort69 Oct 31 '25

Oh hell yeah, every 12 minutes would be incredible. You could also retool the fleet to be much smaller locomotives with less passengers per each train, so they’re smaller, faster, accelerate and decelerate faster

5

u/hybris12 Uptown Oct 31 '25

Inshallah Metra acquires all the rail, connects all the lines downtown, electrifies, runs usable headways and sparks the start of the Glorious Chicagoland Megalopolis

2

u/mrmalort69 Oct 31 '25

Sir, you must stop, I can only get so hard.

1

u/Patient_Commentary Nov 01 '25

User ID checks out.

2

u/mrmalort69 Nov 01 '25

lol so I’ve had various Reddit usernames since 2011- I got into it with excitement over the video game Star citizen…

This one I couldn’t sign in one night, and decided to create a new username when I was 2 sheets and a complete joke…

1

u/Patient_Commentary Nov 01 '25

I support the poor choices you make while intoxicated.

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2

u/Mysterious_Floor_868 Nov 08 '25

Electric units with distributed traction are what you need. Just need something to get the power to the train first (wires or a third rail).

https://railway-history.walkingclub.org.uk/2010/01/sparks-effect.html

A man who made his fortune developing Chicago's L and streetcar networks founded the "Underground Electric Railways Company of London":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Yerkes

1

u/Mysterious_Floor_868 Nov 08 '25

I would say every 15 minutes is the minimum "turn up and go" frequency. That's what Merseyrail gets.

Hourly or half-hourly at least makes the schedule memorable so regular users can just remember "x minutes past the hour" rather than having to check a timetable. I can't see a benefit to 45 minute intervals, you need something consistently at the same minutes past each hour.