Metra ended September with a $7 million shortfall, and it has some members of the Regional Transportation Authority board concerned. The agency’s officials have outlined a plan designed to erase the shortfall, which was oiriginally $18.5 million. But several board members said it relies too heavily on stronger-than-anticipated sales tax revenues.
Chicago-area transit agencies are facing big budget deficits, and the state of Illinois is broke and won't help. But the Regional Transportation Authority has approved a 45,000 no-bid contract, and it's unclear what the consulting firm will deliver.
The head of the Regional Transportation Authority said Thursday that he backs the CTA's decision to demand major changes to work rules -- and impose fare hikes and service cuts if talks fail.
Prompted by revelations of excessive spending at Chicago Housing Authority and other agencies, the Regional Transportation Authority has revoked credit card privileges for most employees, officials say.
The move also follows curious expenditures by a high-ranking RTA official, Jody Plahm, whose RTA-issued credit card was used in 2009 to pay $940 for a child’s tuition at Mother McAuley, an all-girls Catholic high school on the Far Southwest Side, according to records obtained under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
A controversial bid to make some seniors pay again to ride CTA, Metra and Pace failed yesterday in the Illinois Senate.
Promoted by the Regional Transportation Authority as a measure that could bring Chicagoland’s transit agencies closer to solvency, the bill would have allowed only low-income seniors to ride for free, making others to pay half fare.
The RTA said the measure, known as “means testing,” would have brought $37 million per year back into the system’s coffers — not enough to restore all of CTA and Pace’s recent service cuts, but enough to make a difference. Read more...
