The Chicago metropolitan area’s public transit system, a lifeline for over 1.5 million daily riders, is teetering on the edge of collapse. A proposed legislative package to reform and fund the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and its subsidiary agencies, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), regional rail service Metra and suburban busing system Pace, failed to pass during the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session ending May 31. The system is staring down a fiscal cliff estimated to be somewhere between $770 million and $1.5 billion.

Chicago’s plight mirrors transit disasters nationwide. Philadelphia’s SEPTA proposes 45 percent service cuts and a 9:00 p.m. rail curfew. San Francisco and New York face similar shortfalls. All states are facing the impact of the evaporation of federal funding and the bipartisan refusal to tax the wealthy or corporate profits.

The RTA has warned of a “doomsday scenario” if funding is not secured by 2026. Without urgent intervention, riders face catastrophic service cuts, transit workers face mass layoffs and the entire region will face the negative economic impact.

The CTA, one of the largest transit systems in the country, would bear the brunt of the cuts. Under the current proposal, CTA could see cuts to rail service, with at least four of eight CTA rail lines suspended entirely or in part, and over 50 stations closed or severely scaled back. Remaining trains would run 10-25 percent less frequently. Also, 74 of 127 bus routes may vanish, leaving 500,000 riders without nearby access. All told, it is estimated that 1 in 5, or 20 percent, of city residents would be left without access to public transportation.

Metra, the region’s commuter rail system, would see early morning and late evening trains disappear. Weekday trains would run only once per hour, and weekend service would drop to a single train every two hours.

Pace, whose buses serve suburban communities, would face dire cuts with the elimination of all weekend bus service. Service after 8:00 p.m. would be eliminated on 62 routes, and wait times between buses would increase to between 30–60 minutes. Pace’s ADA paratransit services, which operate across the RTA’s service area to provide transport to residents with disabilities, would be reduced by 66 percent on weekends, leaving those riders stranded.

The economic fallout would be staggering, with an estimated $2.6 billion in lost GDP annually, 3,000 transit workers laid off and 90 million fewer rides in the first year alone under this plan. For a region where 20 percent of workers rely on transit, the cuts would deepen inequality, isolate low-income communities and severely exacerbate traffic congestion.

The Illinois legislature ended its spring session with no funding resolution, opening the door to massive cuts. The Illinois Senate narrowly approved a last-ditch funding plan in a 32-22 vote at 11:40 p.m. on May 31, but the House, embroiled in finalizing the state’s $55.2 billion budget, lacked the votes to advance the measure.

The effort’s collapse was driven by opposition to a $1.50 “environmental impact fee” on deliveries. Because the ruling Democrats will do nothing to cut into the profits of megacorporations and only support regressive taxation, the Republicans could cynically posture as opposing the measure as a tax on working families! The failed 11th hour effort was already a watered-down compromise, and plans for governance reforms are meaningless without funding.

Public outrage and worker resistance

The WSWS spoke with riders and CTA workers last week who are very concerned about the proposed cuts and angry at the indifference shown by local and state leaders to the impact of such cuts on the population.

One rush hour commuter captured the stakes succinctly: “If the CTA collapses, Chicago will not be far behind.”

One train conductor said, “You’re right that this is not like other budget crises. I have seen a lot here, and it’s been bad before. But with Trump, there’s a lot that’s unknown, and they [state and local officials] haven’t done right by the system for a long time, a long time. And maybe, now, it gets chaotic.”

When asked what the ATU is doing to mobilize workers against cuts, he said, “Nothing. I have heard nothing.”

A young rider highlighted that transit is a right: “I think you just have to go back to the basic principle that public transit is, you know, it’s a service for the people. I mean, any cuts would be catastrophic. Just socially, culturally, economically … I don’t understand why this is a thing that should be happening.”

Another young rider spoke forcefully on the class character of the cuts. “The city spends on things to make people with money feel comfortable, but that money should be put into this—to pay the workers, to have the trains and buses needed. Cutting the funds, even contemplating it is ridiculous. This would be breaking apart the majority of Chicago, which is not the wealthy. By cutting the funds you’d be cutting our access, and that’s what they’re trying to do right now in politics, to cut our access in any way.

“It’s a dictatorship … when you think about it. Systematically, that is what it is.”

A rider said, “If the cuts were to happen, that’s going to have some type of effect on me. I have to have some way to get back and forth to work, it’s my only way of getting around right now. … They need to get the funding figured out. A lot of people have to get to work.”

The current fiscal crisis facing Chicago’s public transit system is the foreseeable result of decades of deliberate policy prioritizing corporate interests over public infrastructure.

The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) and its service boards CTA, Metra and Pace have been systematically starved of reliable funding, trapped in a cycle of service cuts, fare hikes and declining ridership that politicians have refused to break.

The CTA, Metra and Pace pleaded for funding as Illinois politicians Democrats and Republicans alike handed out billions in corporate tax breaks, draining the state of revenue that could have been applied to transit and numerous other public services

In 2021, the Illinois government extended millions in subsidies to Rivian, an electric vehicle company, while transit agencies slashed bus routes. In 2024, Chicago offered an estimated up to $1 billion in tax increment financing for billionaire-owned downtown developments, even as the CTA proposed shutting bus lines and slashing rail service.

While riders and rank-and-file transit workers want action, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) leadership has failed to mount a serious fight. Instead of organizing strikes or mass protests, the union has channeled workers’ anger into lobbying the Democrats, the same politicians enforcing austerity.

Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former CTU organizer once hailed by the pseudo-left as a “progressive,” has fully embraced an austerity agenda, declaring that the city “must do more with less.” His handpicked budget working group, stacked with corporate executives and union bureaucrats, are now preparing mass layoffs and service cuts and will raise no challenge to the ruling class agenda to starve social services.

For independent rank-and-file action

CTA workers and residents in the large metro area cannot rely on Democrats, Republicans or union bureaucrats to defend public transit.

Rank-and-file committees must organize independently of the ATU and Democratic and Republican parties behind the austerity to demand:

• No layoffs, service cuts or fare hikes! Fully fund transit through taxes on the billionaires and corporations!

• Expropriate the fortunes of oligarchs like Musk and Pritzker to invest in infrastructure!

• Unite workers across all sectors–transit, education, postal services and logistics, manufacturing and healthcare–to strike against austerity!

The millions of people who rely on transit everyday cannot afford a 40 percent cut to essential transit service. But appeals to the political elites are futile. Only a mass movement, fighting for socialist policies, can reverse the decades-long assault on needed public services.

As the clock ticks toward 2026, Chicago’s transit system and the city’s future hangs in the balance. The choice is stark: Surrender to austerity or fight for a world where public transit is a social right, not a privilege.