Daily Herald opinion: Impending 'fiscal cliff' at RTA requires more innovation than just creative ways to increase taxes

The Regional Transit Authority's newly released draft strategic plan contains much to recommend it.

It stresses safety and reliability. It urges actions to make the Chicago area's public transportation system more accessible to the disadvantaged who need affordable transportation to jobs. It envisions actions to combat climate change.

Worthy goals all.

The devil lurks in the details of achieving them. It will come as no surprise to most people to find that devil has a familiar name - tax increases, and it's at least a little disappointing that following a year of examination and reflection involving more than 1,000 diverse stakeholders, the most appealing response the agency could come up with for addressing an impending - in the RTA's phrase - "fiscal cliff" on the horizon is the seeming go-to response for every governmental operation, higher taxes.

The threat looming for the transit agency is undeniable, and the causes are largely outside its control. And, it may be that tax revenues have to play some part in the solution. But it is more than a little discouraging that eight of 11 "highest-scoring funding solutions" outlined in the report involve some form of increased taxes or fees outside of users of Pace, Metra or the CTA, the three agencies overseen by the RTA.

The report does, legitimately, take pains to warn that, facing a potential $730 million shortfall in 2026, service cuts and fare increases have limited, even to some degree counterproductive, value at the scale needed to provide long-term stability. But it is woefully short on suggestions for expense controls that could be implemented and only too comfortable suggesting options for raising revenues from the general population.

"Innovation is required not only to rethink how we fund transit and meet the changing needs of riders, but also to improve how our transit agencies work together ...," the report declares, and one could not agree more. Unfortunately, the dominant forms of "innovation" in the draft report focus all but exclusively on creative ways to increase taxes and fees.

Don't misunderstand. Public transportation is critical to the nation's and the region's future, and Pace, Metra and the CTA each play an important part in supporting our economy and reducing pressures on the climate, not to mention simply providing efficient ways to get around.

We'd just like to see more discussion of how the agencies themselves are going to adapt structurally and operationally to the pandemic-related changes that are battering public transit and less focus on the many ways taxes and fees can be imposed.

The draft report is available at www.rtachicago.org. It's available for public comment through Jan. 9, with adoption planned for Feb. 16. Examine the document for yourself and let the RTA know your reactions.