CTA releases its proposed 2023 budget during a time of rider discontent

CTA rider confidence is currently at a low point. Due to COVID-related staffing shortages, bus and train runs are often skipped, leading to longer, less predictable wait times. For example, the advocacy group Commuters Take Action analyzed transit data and found that on Wednesday only 65 percent of scheduled Blue Line runs actually materialized.

Adding insult to injury, predicted arrival times on on the CTA Train Tracker website, platform displays, and various apps are based on a mix of real-time data and scheduled trips, and most riders don't know how to tell the difference. (Tip: A Wi-Fi wave icon next to an arrival time means it's real, while a clock icon means it's scheduled, and therefore merely hypothetical, as you can see in the photo below.) So they often have the profoundly frustrating experience of waiting for a run that has appeared on a screen, only to have it vanish from the screen before the predicted arrival time.

We did a Freedom of Information Act request to try to find out why CTA president Dorval Carter ghosted his own 9/14 City Council hearing on poor transit service, infuriating advocates and alders. CTA once again used a loophole to simply black out the relevant info. 🤬@CDRosa pic.twitter.com/lasKjeyk9Z

— Streetsblog Chicago (@streetsblogchi) October 18, 2022

Carter's bizarre behavior aside, the CTA budget projects that ridership will continue to rebound next year, rising by about 9 percent over 2022 ridership. "To ensure that CTA meets that demand, the agency continues an aggressive, comprehensive recruitment program to address the biggest issue impacting service: attracting and retaining workers, especially frontline employees like bus and rail operators," the agency said in a news release.

The CTA hosted eight job fairs in 2022 and hired dozens of new workers, but says it's still a thousand workers short, including about 100 train operators and 650 bus drivers. The new budget would bump up labor expenditures from $1.24 billion in 2022 to $1.28 billion next year. The agency projects that it would continue to spend more on labor in 2024 ($1.32 billion) and 2025 (1.37 billion), according to a Sun-times report.

The CTA is also increasing the funding for security from $26 million this year to $41 million in 2023, the Chicago Tribune reported. This includes cash for unarmed security guards, dog patrols, and a program to hire off-duty Chicago cops to work in the transit system.

The agency also promised that it is tweaking the algorithms on the Transit Trackers to make them more accurate, and cited recent upgrades to the Bus Tracker website.

According to the CTA, American Rescue Plan funding will help bridge an estimated $390 million budget gap in 2023. It's unclear what the transit agency will do when the federal stimulus cash dries up in the future, which the CTA expects to happen in 2025, a potential fiscal cliff.

The CTA also released its $3.4 billion 2023-2027 Capital Improvement Program, which is separate from the operating budget. This includes money for the Red Line extension, which people have been asking for since the Nixon era. 

The capital plan also includes

• All Stations Accessibility Program, to make to make all 'L' stations ADA accessible
• Expansion of the electric bus fleet, with the goal of electrifying the entire fleet by 2040
• The Refresh & Renew program, which covers short-term improvements to train stations
• Better Streets for Buses, a plan for (modest) bus corridor improvements across the city

Questions the news release release raises include just how well are the station accessibility upgrades are going. And why is there no discussion of future route and line planning, aside from the Red Line extension?

More information on the proposed 2023 budget is available here.