Daily Herald opinion: Compromise and public transit: Mayors raise valid concerns about restructure, but reasonable minds can avert crisis

In an appearance with the Active Transportation Alliance last week, State Sen. Ram Villivalam was correct on at least two important points:

• Compromises will be necessary to solve the regional transit fiscal crisis before 2026 or the system “will come to a screeching halt.”

• No interest is going to be pleased with every feature of whatever final decision is enacted.

Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat who conducted listening tours to gather ideas for legislation on the crisis, actively involved diverse interests in the effort to cobble together an organizational restructure of the transit system. But the legislature’s failure to enact a solution before the May 31 session deadline shows there is still work to be done.

And an open letter to lawmakers from the Suburban Mayors Coalition for Fair Transit outlines some critical areas in the failed proposal, which called for replacing the RTA with a new oversight board called the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, that must be addressed. All deserve attention, but some in particular raise points that demand modification.

The provision limiting collar county representation to 25% of a new 20-member oversight board’s makeup while setting a 75% threshold for passage of significant measures clearly poses, in the words of the letter, “a real risk of disenfranchising any one subregion and discouraging collaboration.”

The notion of giving the NITA board authority to acquire and develop property near train and bus stations is a virtual broadside to communities’ local control and offers little, if any, contribution to solving the transit agencies’ financial problems.

The exclusion of elected officials from board membership exacerbates the shortcomings of both those provisions.

It is likely true that the mayors cannot get everything they want on these or all of their concerns — which also involve imposing a real estate transfer tax, adding a statewide sales tax on motor-vehicle food deliveries and establishing performance and service metrics that could favor the CTA over Metra and Pace. But the good news — or what ought to be good news if those revising the legislation are listening — is that there is room for the compromise Villivalam seeks within most if not all of these areas.

Allowing some members to be elected officials, for instance, would add a degree of accountability to NITA’s decision making. Setting an 80% voting threshold on major decisions or requiring that appointments allotted to the governor have collar county ties could help assure collaboration from all interests in NITA’s actions. Similar thinking surely could lead to revisions that may address other suburban and collar county concerns, even if they don’t satisfy every complaint.

To be sure, the areas outside the city of Chicago cannot expect to be happy with every aspect of a new transportation agency. If, for example, a so-called “pizza tax” on mobile deliveries is discarded, the $1.1 billion it would provide will have to come from somewhere else, and that source is likely to be just as upset. And, Villivalam’s statement to the transportation group that “we’re always going to have folks that try to pick apart any type of funding source” applies to structural and policy provisions as well.

So, lawmakers have no small task in getting this long-studied restructuring plan across the finish line. It is not an insurmountable one, however. Indeed, a solution appears very close. It can be accomplished if reasonable voices, including representation from the suburbs and collar counties, prevail.

And it must be accomplished within the next six months or the consequences will be severe for the more than 1 million daily commuters on CTA, Metra and Pace, many of whom, as the mayors emphasized, “are among our most vulnerable residents, who have no alternative means of transportation.”