The funding is there — what’s next: Five takeaways from Metra, Pace and CTA leaders

While some of their peers are cutting to the bone and raising fares, transit agencies in the Chicago area face a rosy financial future for the first time in years.

Armed with a significant cash flow, local leaders outlined plans to improve safety and expand bus and train service before an audience of hundreds at the American Public Transportation Association TRANSform & EXPO Tuesday.

Here are five takeaways from the forum featuring executives from Metra, Pace, the CTA and the new Northern Illinois Transit Authority.

‘Hiring aggressively’

In 2025, state lawmakers passed legislation channeling more tax revenues to Metra, Pace and the CTA to offset massive pandemic-related shortfalls. The law also replaced the Regional Transit Authority with a more powerful oversight agency, NITA.

To staff NITA and deliver on reforms, “we are hiring aggressively,” Chief Transition Officer Maulik Vaishnav said during the conference held at McCormick Place.

Current postings on NITA’s website include: transit safety chief, transit ambassador program manager, fare integration manager, and assistant NITA board secretary.

A bus surge

“Frequency, frequency, frequency,” Pace Executive Director Melinda Metzger said of the suburban bus agency’s priorities.

“For us speed is everything. If we’re faster than a car, people will ride.”

Pace is expected to release detailed plans on expanded service at its Oct. 21 meeting.

Acting CTA Director Nora Leerhsen said NITA funding will help deliver 24 Frequent Network bus routes, which run every 10 minutes, by the end of 2026.

“All of those routes are regional in nature … connecting either to a Metra train or a Pace bus route. That lays out for you how our system has so much potential,” she said.

Fare integration

A key aim of the NITA reform was integrating Metra, Pace and CTA fares into one seamless system.

It’s a complex task, because unlike the CTA and Pace, “Metra is an open system,” Executive Director Jim Derwinski said. “We don’t have any gates. We don’t have the ability to know who’s coming and going.”

And while Pace regular fares are $2 and the CTA charges $2.25 -$2.50 for buses and trains, Metra tickets are distance-based.

But solutions are out there, Derwinski said, pointing to Germany, where riders can pay a monthly flat rate and experience unlimited travel throughout the country on all public transport.

“Those are the kind of standards we want to try to achieve,” he said.

Helping riders in crisis

This month, the CTA is rolling out a one-year pilot program to assist riders experiencing trauma, like homelessness, and to diffuse potential crimes, Leerhsen said.

The initiative involves deploying Safe Ride Specialists consisting of crisis intervention experts and community violence intervention specialists who will focus on the Red, Blue, and Green lines.

The teams, in collaboration with social service agencies, will offer first aid, housing aid, mental health counseling and violence de-escalation for teenagers and young adults, among other assistance.

The move comes amid widespread concerns about violence on the CTA.

Freight train untangling

One of the greatest obstacles to Metra increasing service are the “big, long, lumbering freight trains that are moving America and bringing the goods that we all need,” Derwinski said.

The commuter rail agency operates on multiple tracks, including ones owned by Union Pacific and BNSF, and crisscrossed by other freight railroads.

Untangling that congestion with solutions — specifically grade separations — would be game-changing, he noted. “That would bring the frequency of service we want. And frequency of service will drive ridership.”

mpyke@dailyherald.com