Frustrated by a lack of funding needed to repair and expand the Chicago area’s mass transit network, the board of the Regional Transportation Authority on Friday unanimously approved a bare-bones 1998 budget of more than $1.68 billion.
The budget, including the spending plans for the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace, calls for $1.29 billion in operating expenditures and $408 million for capital improvements.
Taxpayer subsidies will provide 48 percent of the operating budget, with most of the remainder coming from fares. The agency is required by law to pay for at least 50 percent of its operating costs with fares and related revenue.
“This proposed budget for 1998 embodies the financial steps necessary to operate public transportation for our region, but not to rebuild and maintain the system on which we and our economy have come to depend,” RTA chairman Thomas McCracken Jr. said. “Our capital shortfall is grave and worsening.”
Unfunded capital spending needs for the next five years, mainly for CTA structures and Metra bridges, tops $3 billion, McCracken said.
The CTA’s budget calls for spending $782 million on operations and $191 million for capital improvements. That agency is still $2.3 billion short of the $3.3 billion it needs to invest in repairs and improvements over the next five years. It has made service cuts and reduced its work force to achieve its 1998 budget goals, McCracken said.
Overall ridership is down, with the bus system recording about 10 million fewer riders than the previous year. But rail ridership was up almost 5 million, reflecting the renewed availability of the Green Line, which reopened last May after a two-year, $350 million face lift.
Metra’s budget will be about $379 million next year, $13 million more than what was spent in 1997. It calls for stable fares and cuts and $150.5 million for capital improvements.
Metra also projects continued incremental ridership growth. So far this year, there has been double-digit growth in the number of commuters riding in from the far suburbs.
Pace presented an operations budget of $109.6 million, a 1.3 percent increase over last year’s budget. The suburban transit agency is struggling to increase ridership and contain costs.
Pace had projected ridership this year to be up 1.4 million, but ridership has been essentially flat for the first three-quarters of the year.