As far as I'm concerned, today's presentation by Regional Transportation Authority Executive Director Leanne Redden at the agency's monthly board meeting was this week's second biggest news story about an Australia native. The biggest headline was country musician and Nicole Kidman ex-husband Keith Urban's puzzling performance of Chappell Roan's LGBTQ-friendly anthem "Pink Pony Club" for Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago compound.
It's not clear exactly what the C&W star's intent was in playing that song in front a president responsible for policies that undermine LGBTQ rights. But since this site's mission is primarily transportation news and advocacy, rather than disco-pop / county performance analysis, let's focus on this week's other Aussie-friendly anecdote related to (u)(U)rban planning.
Today's RTA hearing took place less than a month after the October 31 "Halloween Miracle," in which Springfield lawmakers passed forward-thinking transit reform and funding legislation around 4 a.m. That saved the CTA, Metra, and Pace from the brink of financial ruin, but also mandated replacing the RTA with a more powerful umbrella agency called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, starting June 1. So this was one of the last several RTA board meetings before there's a new transit oversight sheriff in town.
During today's hearing there were presentations and discussions of the 2026 budgets proposed by CTA, Metra, and Pace, which their mothership must sign off on next month. Thanks to the $1.5 billion in new annual state funding that passed, these budgets do not include service cuts or fare increases. The RTA also presented its proposed 2026 budget. I'm sure mainstream news sources are covering what was said during those presentations, but I'd like to focus on Redden's opening remarks, which I found illuminating.
"I'm joining you fairly fresh from this year's [American Public Transportation Association] study mission that included really valuable learning opportunities that I was able to attend with transit executives from both across the country, but meeting with people in Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo, some of the most impressive transit systems worldwide," Redden began. "There were a lot of takeaways from that for me. The Tokyo system alone serves 30 million people daily and has more than 2,000 rail stations. I got to experience many of them. I got lost in one of them. Their service is provided by 48 different operators across their region."
"And while I know that we will never be the Land Transport Authority in Singapore, for example, or the expanse or breadth and depth of Seoul and Tokyo systems, there really were some great takeaways from that trip," Redden added. "And I think, as importantly, inspirations to bring back for us to contemplate and build upon as we look to set up the NITA going forward and really set up that future entity for success."
"There were some great examples of some of the things that our region is being tasked with going forward... how to do joint development and better integration of land use and transportation," Redden continued. "Those Asian cities are the pinnacle of those examples, and something we can take little bits away from and grow and aspire to be more like that."
"I also saw some great examples of customer-facing information and integration of that information across different platforms, both hard signage and digital signage," Redden said. "And how to communicate with customers, as well as some of the creative ways that they're thinking about fare payments and integrating that not just the transit system, but also into the way people pay for things around their cities."
She said her biggest takeaway from the trip was the connections she made with professionals in other parts of the that she can contact with questions in the future. "Spending time with these experts that run these world-class systems really does provide inspiration that's important to have this pivotal moment for our."
Redden pivoted to talking about what's going on in Chicagoland. "It goes without saying that this [RTA] meeting would have been significantly less cheerful had it not been for the passage of SB 2111 on the last day of October," she noted. "The budget presentation will conclude with the RTA staff presenting our budget, and that will be a flat budget from our agency's perspective that is really focused on setting up the Northern Illinois Transit Authority for success going forward."
"So as you consider this, I want to highlight some key measures that everyone really needs to keep in mind before we move to that very next step of allocating those future dollars," she added. "The bill must be signed still by [Governor JB Pritzker] and after its effective date, on June 1, this board will need to act to increase the RTA sales tax [by 0.25 percent, a quarter per $100 purchase, to fund transit.]
'We will also closely watch the economic forecast and how much money we can expect to receive into the transit system," Redden continued. "And finally, discussions with lawmakers will continue to ensure that a mutual understanding of steps and the funding required to meet the immediate requirements of SB 2111... Our intention is to set up, as I noted, NITA for success, and ensure that the new agency is ready to go on day one, since there is a lot to do and a very tight and robust schedule of deadlines that the new entity must meet [including metrics for reliability, safety, frequency and cleanliness]."
Redden moved on to talking about how the new transit bill prioritizes improving pedestrian access to transit. "While the RTA has a history since 2014 of granting funds to communities across the six county region to construct bicycle and pedestrian connections near transit agencies through the Access to Transit program, SB 2111 equips NITA with the potential to expand those efforts."
"To that end, the RTA is once again going to open up its call for projects to fund transit-supportive development and trail-supportive development in the form of small-scale pedestrian and bicycle access capital projects," Redden added. "The RTA launched the Access to Transit program about 11 years ago to improve access to the region's transit system for both pedestrians and cyclists, thereby implementing recommendations from planning studies that have been completed through the RTA's community planning program. So to date, the program that already exists has funded 51 projects to municipalities throughout the region, and has included a total investment of about $23.8 million."
"This current call for projects launches today, and applications will be due January 16," Redden added. "More details are available on the RTA website, and I encourage you all to spread the word to the communities and your colleagues and those you interact with, so we have a good, robust set of applications."
She concluded by noting that the RTA board will meet again on December 18 for a vote on the combined regional budgets. She said the agency will hold a online public hearing on the RTA budget on Thursday, December 4, 4-6 p.m. It's necessary to register in advance, which you can do here.
With that, the RTA board meeting moved on to the four proposed 2026 budgets, which I expect you'll soon be able to read about in the daily papers. But I thought the Australian-born executive director's opening speech was a very high koala-ty presentation (sorry).
Watch a video of today's RTA board meeting here.
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