Editorial: Strapped for time, Springfield punts on transit funding and reform

Chicago Tribune

03-06-2025

State lawmakers left a large pile of major issues on their agenda for the waning hours of the 2025 spring session. Very few of them were addressed other than the must-pass budget for fiscal 2026. Color us unsurprised.
Despite a $1 billion shortfall that had to be plugged, the $55 billion budget proved to be anticlimactic, largely hewing to the outline Gov. JB Pritzker offered in February.
So what passed for news in the capital emanated mainly from what happen rather than what did.
At the top of that list was the fiscal crisis the Chicago-area's public transit agencies are facing, which those agencies have said will mean substantial service reductions if Springfield doesn't act in the coming months.
Following the end of the session, Pritzker and legislative leaders said the General Assembly likely would take the unusual step of acting over the summer on the issue. That's good. For the sake of commuters and the region's economy, they should act well before what would normally be the next opportunity — the fall veto session in November.
Springfield should learn from the mistakes of the just-concluded session.
Everyone has known for over a year that a transit overhaul and rescue needs to happen, and yet the effort still turned into the equivalent of an all-nighter for a student who hasn't done the coursework over the semester. The mad scramble for funding sources to plug the transit agencies' $770 million budget hole foundered, as rank-and-file lawmakers, stakeholders and most importantly the public were given no time for due consideration and feedback.
The typical Springfield gambit of waiting until the eleventh hour to spring controversial initiatives on the public in order to keep determined opposition from forming backfired spectacularly.
First, late last week state Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Ram Villavalam, D-Chicago, proposed a package of revenue generators including a 50-cent surcharge on tolls, a redirection of suburban sales taxes to transit, higher suburban real estate transfer taxes and a region-wide tax on Ubers and Lyfts. Suburban officials predictably balked at the lopsided nature of that 'deal,' creating the need for an immediate Plan B.
Villavalam pivoted with only hours to spare to a $1.50 charge on delivery of most retail products. The Senate approved the so-called pizza tax, the derisive sobriquet effectively wielded by opponents, by a 10-vote margin, but the House left town without acting, an acknowledgement the votes weren't there.
That proposal deserved to die. Among other things, there's no logical reason downstate Illinoisans should pay an extra $1.50 on deliveries mainly to bail out bus and train service in the Chicago area.
Making the idea worse was that Democrats in the Senate added a provision forbidding retailers (yes, like pizza makers) from showing the tax in a separate line item on their receipts. Nothing says confidence in your own policy-making like doing your utmost to keep consumers (most of whom double as voters) from understanding why their costs have risen so much.
It was the Democratic version of President Donald Trump's temper tantrum in late April when news surfaced that Amazon was considering showing customers the cost of tariffs in their product purchases from its low-cost website dubbed Haul.
So when lawmakers reconvene to take another stab at transit reform and funding, they should learn from this setback and embrace transparency. They must be more open with the public about the tax and fee mechanisms on the table and allow time for feedback.
As we said last week before the unproductive weekend in the capital began, safe and reliable public transit is critical to the region and the state. And the need for more revenue is inescapable. But public acceptance of whatever funding solution emerges, even if grudging, is critical to ensuring this rescue mission succeeds. And to win that support, Springfield must break with the cloak-and-dagger machinations and engage the public.
For the lawmakers, there's really nothing to lose at this point by being transparent given that people now have seen the sausage-making. Thirty-two senators are on record having voted for the pizza tax and have nothing to show for it.
While we acknowledge that settling on an appropriate source of money is delicate and complicated, we believe it's not impossible to find a means the public can accept. But to achieve that, a proposal must have two attributes.
First, it has to be broadly and fairly distributed among constituencies who have a legitimate stake in the future of public transit — including, by the way, those paying CTA bus and train fares that could stand to rise a little, if only to $3 or $3.50. Second, it must be related as directly as possible to the issue at hand. Part of the problem here is that Chicago's disastrous privatization of parking meters and the Chicago Skyway has reduced some of the logical levers and private garages already are drowning in some of the highest tax rates in the nation.
Still, ride-share taxes are clearly in the same world. So for that matter is congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing in New York, even though it has been the subject of controversy, has the virtue of generating revenue for public transportation in a city that is traffic-choked by any definition. That is not to say we're advocating congestion pricing for Chicago; indeed, we have editorialized against such a charge out of concern for the massive potential harm to downtown Chicago, which needs more activity, not less. But at least congestion pricing in support of public transit can be defended on grounds that the two are related.
To its credit, Springfield made substantial progress on giving regional transit officials far more power over local systems such as the Chicago Transit Authority. Those governance provisions, which appeared to have broad support in both chambers, are crucial to giving Illinoisans outside Chicago confidence that they're not bailing out an unpopular city government without appropriate safeguards. We also see the logic of sending some money from whatever Springfield raises to improve transit downstate. That's only fair.
Failure isn't an option. Come back to Springfield this summer, lawmakers, and get this needed transit reform done the right way.