Transit Fiscal Cliff

Read the first half of this series, "Next stop, fiscal cliff: Advocates respond to Illinois legislators’ failure to fund transit before the deadline."

After more than a year of negotiations and debate, transit revenue and reform failed to pass the state legislature by the budget deadline on Saturday, May 31. There are still options to avert the transit fiscal cliff, though they require a higher threshold to pass. Local transit agencies must dedicate significant resources to preparing for difficult service cuts in the meantime.

Good morning Streetsblog Chicago readers. I hope that as you read this, you've got a cup of strong coffee, or whatever your favorite morning beverage is, while we face the sobering outcome of Saturday's late-night Illinois General Assembly session.

We're in the eleventh hour for the state legislature to address the looming $771 million Chicagoland transit fiscal cliff. The end of the regular legislative session is this Saturday, May 31, and transit budgets that need to be in place by the end of fall. Facing increasing labor costs, slow ridership recovery, and a state-imposed farebox recovery ratio of 50 percent, the options are either to reach a state agreement on additional funding, or balance the budget through a combination of service cuts and fare increases.

I'm confident that the generally car-centric folks on the Chicago Tribune editorial board deserved the spanking I gave them on Friday for their rather arrogant editorial about our region's looming $770 million total transit budget gap. "Chicago’s transit agencies want you to panic," the headline stated. "They don’t explain the whole truth."