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This Thursday morning, CTA, Metra and Pace will share doomsday scenarios for what kind of service cuts they would have to make if the state doesn’t come through with more funding, as well as more optimistic scenarios for how they would use the extra money if it comes.
Last Friday, the Regional Transportation Authority, which provides oversight over all three agencies, sent out a press release painting a broad picture of what might be in store for the Chicago area once federal stimulus funds that have propped up transit budgets since the pandemic run out in 2026.
While many aspects of how funding cuts might impact Evanston specifically aren’t yet clear, all three systems are expected to reduce service frequencies on all modes of transportation. As many as 74 out of 127 CTA bus routes would be eliminated, some ‘L’ lines could lose some or all service, Metra early morning and evening service would disappear and Pace buses would stop running on weekends.
RTA’s Board of Directors asked the CTA, Metra and Pace to provide their doomsday plans back in January. The board will review their reports in more detail at its upcoming March 27 meeting, which will take place at 9 a.m. at the RTA headquarters in downtown Chicago, at 175 W. Jackson Blvd. Residents can attend the meeting in person or watch the meeting livestream.
On the edge of the fiscal cliff
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The pandemic lockdown caused all transit agencies to lose fare revenue, and while all of them have been regaining ground, none of the Chicago area agencies are quite back to pre-pandemic revenues.
None of them have been sitting idly. Metra has been pivoting toward a “regional rail” model, with more regularly scheduled off-peak and weekend service in hopes it can attract riders who don’t commute from the suburbs to the Loop and otherwise would’ve never considered it as an option. Among other things, the commuter rail agency beefed up mid-day service on the Union Pacific North Line, which serves Evanston. Pace has been quietly increasing evening and weekend service on many routes, but none of them serve Evanston.
The CTA has already struggled to run enough trains and buses to meet its existing schedules, but it’s started moving in a similar direction as Metra, with a recent announcement that it will increase service on 20 major bus routes throughout 2025, with the first eight routes getting service boosts this week. None of those routes serve Evanston.
The three agencies have also been trying to simplify their fare structures and create more inter-system passes to make the travel experience more seamless.
The Illinois General Assembly made it clear that it won’t give the transit agencies more money without reforms to the current agency structure, whether that involves combining CTA, Metra, Pace and RTA into one Metropolitan Mobility Authority, or giving RTA more power over the three agencies. RTA released its own proposal back in January that would also give it more oversight and more control over planning and fares. It suggested a combination of across the board 10% fare increases to fund more service.
Potential effects on Evanston
According to the RTA press release, if state funding doesn’t come through, “at least four of eight CTA rail lines will see service suspended on all or a portion of the line,” and “CTA will close or drastically reduce service to over 50 rail stations.” The train frequencies would be reduced “by 10 to 25 percent,” but the exact impact of that would vary depending on the time of day and the line.
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CTA also estimates that it might have to eliminate “as many as 74 of its 127 bus routes.” Four CTA routes currently serve Evanston, including the rush hour only Route 206/Evanston Circulator.
For Metra, “early morning and late evening trains would be eliminated, weekday trains would run only once per hour, and weekend trains just once every two hours.” On the Union Pacific North Line, weekday headways are sometimes as small as 12 minutes during rush hour, between 30-60 minutes mid-day and once every hour in the early morning and the evening. Weekend headways range between one and two hours most of the day, but the headways between evening trains can be as long as three hours. The press release doesn’t mention what would happen with express trains or special service to Ravinia.
Pace would drop all weekend service. In Evanston, this would affect Route 208, which serves parts of Emerson and Church streets, Route 213, which serves the Chicago Avenue/Green Bay Road corridor, Route 215, which serves the Howard Street corridor, and Route 250 and the Pulse Dempster service. Route 250 and Pulse Dempster provide one-seat service to O’Hare, and routes 208 and 215 provide one-seat service to Old Orchard Mall. Route 213, which currently operates Monday-Saturday, provides an ADA-compliant alternative route for the Howard to Davis portion of the Purple Line, where none of the in-between stations have elevators or other accessible features.
The press release also mentions that “late-night service after 8 p.m. would disappear from 62 routes, and more frequent running routes could see headways increase to 30- to 60-minute waits between buses.” That would most likely affect Dempster service and Route 213.
It’s not clear how it would impact Route 213 school service to Evanston Township High School, where the bus detours from the regular route to drop off students in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon.
Chicago area agencies will delve into transit cuts on Thursday is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.