Pace express bus service along I-90/Jane Addams Tollway would be reduced if the state doesn’t come through with funding. (Photo by Igor Studenkov/for Chronicle Media)

Chicago area transit agencies outlined what would happen if the state fails to come through with extra funding before COVID-19 mitigation federal stimulus funding runs out in 2026.

CTA, Metra and Pace fare revenues are yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, even as they experimented with increasing off-peak and weekend service to try to attract riders beyond the traditional 9-to-5 weekday commuters. The agency heads have argued that the state underfunded them even before the pandemic — the drop in fare revenues simply made the problem worse. The state legislators indicated that they wouldn’t increase funding without structural reforms, whether it’s combining the three agencies with the Regional Transportation Authority, which provide oversight over them, or increasing RTA’s oversight powers.

In January, the RTA Board of Directors asked the transit agencies to develop doomsday plans for what kind of cuts they’d have to make if the state doesn’t come through before the Illinois General Assembly adjourns the end of May. They presented the plans during the board’s March 27 meeting. While the plans didn’t get into too much detail, the statistics they did present were stark. The CTA would reduce service on four out of eight ‘L’ lines and cut 74 out of 127 bus routes, which would leave some Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs with little to no service. Metra would run its trains less frequently, with lines that haven’t had their pandemic-era cuts reversed hit especially hard, and Metra Electric line’s Blue Island branch would be eliminated altogether. Pace wouldn’t cut any routes, but it will end all weekend service and significantly reduce service on express routes.

According to the RTA, the three agencies would need to cut a total of around $770 million, or around 40 percent of each of their respective budgets, if the budget gaps aren’t filled. The RTA worked with them to find around $113.2 million in savings, a number that includes an extra $50 million if they raise fares by 10 percent across the board.

In a memo to the RTA board, the CTA indicated that it may “need to eliminate service on all or a portion of four of its eight rail lines and close or severely diminish service to over 50 rail stations,” which would represent about a third of all ‘L’ stations.

In her presentation, Nora Leerhsen, CTA acting president, shared a map of potential bus service cuts. While no neighborhood or suburb would be spared, because of the geography and other factors, some areas would be hit harder than others. The East Side and Hegewisch neighborhoods, for example, are separated from the rest of Chicago by the Calumet River, and the cuts would affect its only non-rush hour bus connection to the city. North suburban Evanston would lose all but one CTA route, and west suburban Oak Park would lose all of them. While both have Pace bus routes as well, the cuts would leave holes in their transit network.

Leeran noted that the cuts would hurt K-12 and college students who rely on buses to get to schools and colleges, as well as some of the poorest Chicagoans.

“These individuals cannot afford a car, and for them, the CTA service is literally lifesaving,” she said, saying that they rely on buses and trains to get to work, buy groceries and make their medical appointments.

Janice Thomas, Metra’s Chief of Staff, told the RTA Board that service on eight lines will drop to once every hour on weekdays and every two hours on weekends. The cuts would hit the BNSF Line, Union Pacific North and Union Pacific Northwest lines particularly hard. North Central Service and SouthWest Service lines will see their service reduced more severely. Like the Heritage Corridor line, they operate only during weekday rush hours, running three trains to Chicago in the morning and three trains to the suburbs in the afternoon.

Metra Electric’s Blue Island branch serves Chicago’s Far South Side and a few south suburbs, and it lets riders transfer to Rock Island District line. As previously reported by Chronicle Media, the branch saw its service reduced even before the pandemic.

Thomas warned that, if the cuts were to go into effect, it would be hard to restore them on the seven lines it doesn’t own outright.

“We fight with freight [railroads] for every slot of our schedule,” she said. “It could take five to 10 more years to get them back.”

Pace already has no weekend service in McHenry County, while Kane County and most of DuPage and Lake counties don’t have any Sunday service, so ending weekend service across the board would hit Cook County the most. Pace executive director Melinda Metzger told Chronicle Media that service on the two Pulse services, the express bus services along Milwaukee Avenue and Dempster Street in the northwest suburbs, which operate as frequently as once every 10-15 minutes most of the day, would see their headways rolled back to once an hour.

Pace provides “school service” to suburban high school districts that don’t offer school buses, such as New Trier High School in Winnetka. Those buses deviate from the regular routes to pick up students from the surrounding area and drop them off closer to the school. Metzger confirmed that this service would be cut, but she couldn’t give any specifics.

Pace is also responsible for providing paratransit service in the entire six-county area. Metzger warned the RTA board that, because federal law requires Pace to provide paratransit service within three-fourths of a mile of an existing bus route or rail station, any service cuts would shrink their service area as well. It would mean that during the weekends, most of the suburbs would lose their paratransit service altogether.

Dennis Mondero, one of the RTA directors who represents Chicago, asked how many employees each agency would have to lay off. Leeran said CTA would lay off around 2,000, while Thomas said Metra would lay off 635 and Metzger said Pace would lay off “a little under 400 people.”

Director Michael Lewis, who represents south suburban Cook County, asked how the agencies determined whether to make cuts. Leeran said “we wanted to hit clearly how severe those cuts were across the region.” Thomas simply said that it was a “hard conversation.”

“Some areas, we’d have very infrequent services,” Metzger said. “So, we’re trying to spread the pain, it’s the only way i can say it, so not every area gets hit.”

RTA Director Elizabeth Gorman, who represents southwest Cook County, asked the transit agency heads how they felt about the process in Springfield.

“There’s been a talk about governance, and we haven’t gotten to the money aspect of this, and this is an important part of the whole process,” Metzger responded.