March 26, 2025
The following is testimony delivered by Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson to the Illinois House Transportation: Regulation, Roads & Bridges Committee at a March 25, 2025 subject matter hearing on transit reform proposals. The original testimony has been edited slightly for publication.
A thriving public transit system is the backbone of the Chicago region’s workforce and economy. This is not just a “Chicago” issue—it’s a Northeast Illinois regional issue. And as that region goes, so goes the State.
Public transit is critical to attracting and retaining a talented workforce and the tax base that supports long-term growth. And growth—of businesses and population alike—is how we move beyond the fiscal burdens of our past. But today, we are held back by a fragmented system that isn’t working for the people or businesses of the region.
There are real opportunities before us, like the new PsiQuantum campus on the South Side, that signal global ambitions for this region. But those ambitions will be undercut if access depends on owning a car. Across the region, we have transit deserts in some areas, and in others, overlapping rail lines that neither connect nor coordinate. This is especially true in historically underinvested communities. The system, simply put, is not working as it must
That failure points directly to governance. The structure under the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), as it exists today, allows for serious deficiencies in accountability and transparency. Every time you read a news story about the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), you’re reading a story about the RTA. Chronic underperformance isn’t just about agency-level competence—it’s about oversight. We cannot continue to invest in systems that aren’t governed to deliver.
This is a moment for meaningful change.
Multiple proposals are before the General Assembly, yet we do not see this as an either/or moment. Along with governance reform is a need for funding to avoid potentially catastrophic service cuts. To be clear, this is nota choice between governance reform or new funding. It must be both. The RTA estimates that $771 million will be needed just to close a fiscal cliff in FY2026 , and experts say that upwards of $1.5 billion is needed for a truly competitive system. Either is a huge ask of Illinois taxpayers, who are already among the most taxed in the nation. To ask taxpayers to foot the bill without structural reform, at a time when the State and localities also have other pressing fiscal challenges, would be to miss a generational moment.
Of the bills under consideration, the proposed Metropolitan Mobility Authority Act most closely represents an opportunity for a bold reimagining of what is possible. But it doesn’t matter what the new agency is called—what matters is the substance. We need more than better collaboration or a unified fare structure. We need a single board of directors with decision-making power.
To those suggesting we simply give more authority to the RTA: that has been tried and that has failed. We still see fragmented decision-making and a lack of coordination. Look no further than the Red Line South Extension, the Fair Transit South Cook pilot project, or Metra’s multi-million-dollar rebranding effort with its publicly-financed lobbying team, that renamed lines without accounting for names throughout the entire system. These are symptoms of a system that doesn’t speak with one voice.
We urge lawmakers not to waste this moment by making incremental improvements that tinker at the margins. A well-functioning, fully integrated regional transit system is not just a luxury—it is critical to our future competitiveness and equity. We need real structural reform that, with effective and consolidated leadership, will elevate performance under a unified vision.