Fact Book of the Regional Transportation Authority Issued
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FACT Book OF THE REGIONAL’98 TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY Issued September 1998 Regional Transportation Authority September 1998 To the Taxpayers and Riders of the RTA System: Welcome to RTA Factbook ’98, the official index of noteworthy RTA information. As the preeminent stakeholders of our vitally important system of public transportation, you deserve to know how the system operates and where it is headed. Let this publication be your first step in learning the dimensions of our activities on your behalf. Congestion robs us of mobility, productivity and time. Public transportation is a crucial element in our regional effort to maintain competitiveness and quality of life. Our system is strong and performs admirably. However, its capital needs are significantly unfunded, its operating costs are too high and ridership has declined alarmingly from post-war peaks. If we are to overcome these challenges it will be based on an informed public making business-like decisions. Such decisions will be grounded in facts, like those compiled here. Respectfully, Thomas J. McCracken, Jr. Chairman Regional Transportation Authority TABLE OF CONTENTS A Section I: Regional . I-1— I-16 Section II: CTA . II-1— II-18 Section III: Metra . III-1— III-14 Section IV: Pace . IV-1— IV-16 RTA BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chairman City of Chicago Thomas J. McCracken, Jr. Armando Gomez, Sr. Thomas H. Reece Michael Rosenberg Rev. Addie L. Wyatt Chicago Transit Authority Valerie B. Jarrett Suburban Cook County Herbert E. Gardner Mary M. McDonald Donald L. Totten Douglas M. Troiani DuPage County Arthur W. Angrist Kane, Lake, Duane E. Carter McHenry & Will Counties Frank R. Miller Section IREGIONAL REGIONAL Regional The Regional Transportation Authority was created in December 1973 through an act of the Illinois General Assembly and approved in a Transportation March 1974 referendum in the northeastern Illinois counties of Authority Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will. The RTA’s mandate was to ensure the development of a comprehensive and coordinated mass transportation system in the six-county region. Among its responsibilities, which at the time included the operation of some • The RTA was created in 1973 transit lines, the RTA was to provide financial support for the regional and ratified by the region’s voters public transit system. in 1974. In 1981, growing financial difficulties resulted in the fiscal collapse of • Under the 1983 amendment to the RTA. The State Legislature reorganized the RTA in 1983 to protect the Act, the RTA must recover the system from future financial crises. The amended RTA Act includes 50 percent of its operating expenses three key provisions: from system-generated revenues. • All day-to-day operating responsibility was decentralized into three • The RTA is a policy and financial distinct service boards - The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), oversight agency, with day-to-day Metra commuter rail and Pace suburban bus. operating responsibilities resting • A formula was established for allocating 85 percent of the RTA with three service boards. sales tax receipts directly to individual service boards, and a new state funding source equal to 25 percent of the sales tax receipts was provided to the RTA for discretionary allocation to the service boards. • As a condition for receipt of additional state funds, the regional transit system, when taken as a whole, must recover at least 50 percent of its total operating expenses from system-generated revenues. This includes the state’s reimbursement to the service boards for carrying children, students, senior citizens and riders with disabilities at a reduced fare. I-1 REGIONAL History Chicago’s transit history began with the development of the horse car, cable car, and finally the electric streetcar by the late 19th century. The region’s natural setting and geography had already made it the cross- roads of our growing country. By 1892, Chicago’s first elevated line was built. Five years later the Loop “L” opened and quickly became a vital transportation artery for thousands of commuters. Private transit companies financed and built the system at a time when Chicago was one of the world’s fastest-growing cities. In the decades before the automobile, most Chicagoans depended on mass transit, and this enabled financiers to pay for new streetcar tracks and elevated lines from the farebox. By the early 20th century, Chicago’s transit system entered a phase of consolidation, resulting in three companies control- ling the city’s streetcar, elevated, and bus lines. These companies were regulated by the state as public utilities. The Depression of the 1930s undermined the finances of the elevated and streetcar companies, depriving them of the capital needed to renew their operations. By the end of World War II, the city’s transit providers were straining to carry record numbers of riders on equipment that had seen a minimum of maintenance and renewal. The General Assembly, due to the importance of Chicago’s transit system, passed the Metropoli- tan Transit Authority Act in 1945, creating the Chicago Transit Author- ity (CTA) and empowering it to acquire and operate public transporta- tion in the city and nearby suburbs. The legislation freed the CTA from regulation as a utility, and gave it the power to set its fares and routes. In 1947, the CTA acquired the bankrupt streetcar and elevated lines, and five years later bought Chicago Motor Coach, thus bringing all of the city’s local transit lines into a single organization. Using bonds backed by future farebox revenues, the CTA replaced worn-out street- cars with new buses, and wood-bodied “L” cars with steel equipment. The CTA also revamped its “L” service by closing dozens of stations and several branches that no longer attracted enough riders to justify operation. Meanwhile, in the suburbs, several of Chicago’s commuter railroads began to replace their old coaches with modern bilevel cars. The law required CTA to fund all operating costs from its farebox, but this became increasingly difficult by the 1960s. The CTA maintained financial stability through the 1960s by deferring maintenance and equipment replacement. Despite these measures, in 1970, the CTA started to lose for the first time. The losses forced the state, city and county to step in with a succession of short-term subsidies. Financial problems were also affecting the suburbs, as commuter railroads raised fares and suburban bus companies approached bankruptcy. Over the next few years, political leaders, led by Governor Richard B. Ogilvie and Mayor Richard J. Daley, realized that northeastern Illinois needed a coordinated framework for managing and financing transit in the city and suburbs. The result was the creation of the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in December 1973 through an act of I-2 REGIONAL the Illinois General Assembly. The RTA Act was approved by the citizens of the six northeastern Illinois counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will in a March 1974 referendum. Support for the creation of the RTA was split, with a majority of voters in the City of Chicago favoring the RTA and a majority in the suburbs opposed. These results largely reflected voters’ views of their immediate interests as users or non-users of mass transit. Although the divisions of the 1974 referendum were reflected in the politics of regional transit over the next decade, the RTA made impor- tant contributions during the 1970s. RTA subsidies and capital grants helped stabilize the CTA, the suburban bus systems and the region’s commuter railroads. The RTA also stepped in to continue service when several suburban bus companies went bankrupt during the 1970s, and two commuter rail operations followed suit in the 1980s. However, a prominent weakness of the original RTA was fiscal over- sight. From 1980 through 1982, growing financial difficulties brought the RTA to the brink of collapse. During 1982, CTA fares went up by 50 percent, commuter rail fares doubled, and some suburban bus routes were temporarily suspended because the RTA could no longer provide subsidies. The state legislature again stepped in and reorganized the RTA in 1983 to protect the system from future financial crises. The amended RTA Act decentralized operating responsibilities into three distinct service boards: the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Metra commuter rail, and Pace suburban bus. Metra and Pace were created by the 1983 legislation to relieve the RTA of all responsibility for transit operations, permitting the RTA to focus on its core missions of financial oversight and regional planning. The amended RTA Act also established a formula for allocating RTA Sales Tax receipts and required that at least 50 percent of operating expenses be recovered from system- generated revenues. The RTA also serves the region through its administration of reduced- fare and paratransit eligibility programs as well as its support of the development of new transportation technologies such as personal rapid transit, alternative fuel buses and itinerary planning systems. The 1983 reform legislation also helped build a constituency for mass transit in the suburbs as well as the city. The creation of Metra and Pace made the suburbs into stakeholders who shared a key interest in the future of the region’s transit system. While RTA oversight has provided financial stability for the region’s transit system for more than a decade, the system faces significant challenges as it moves into the next century. A continuing lack of capital funding,