The CTA on Wednesday rescinded some of the most severe service cuts and fare hikes threatened for September, but daily commuters still would suffer under the revised plan if new state transit funding is not approved soon, officials said.
The unexpected easing of the service crunch came thanks to $20 million in newly discovered operational savings for this year, said Ron Huberman, Chicago Transit Authority president.
Service overall would be cut by 8 percent, compared with the original estimate of 13 percent announced in May.
Even with the revised plan, however, the CTA would lose 100,000 rides each day as a result of higher fares and reduced service. It also would have to lay off about 700 employees, mostly bus drivers.
In the modified plan, service would be suspended on 39 bus routes, down from the 63 bus routes tapped for elimination in May.
Among the bus and rail routes winning a reprieve:
*Thirteen express routes in Chicago would be restored.
*Yellow Line/Skokie Swift trains.
*The Purple Line/Evanston Express, although offering Purple express service line would be a daily decision based on how well the Red Line operates on adjacent tracks along the North Side, officials said. In another service tweak, the Evanston Express also would make stops at Sheridan to pick up and drop off riders who normally rely on the Red Line, the CTA’s busiest rail route.
*Some late-night “OWL” service will be restored.
Fare increases remain on the table, although they would be less than originally projected.
CTA officials canceled plans to raise fares to as high as $3.25 per ride after anguished riders laid out the miseries they would endure under the original plan.
Under the new plan, the current $2 cash bus fare would rise to $2.50. The cash rail fare would increase by 50 cents, to $2.50, during off-peak hours, and increase by $1, to $3, during rush periods.
Fares would go up 14 percent for users of the Chicago Card. Other fare cards, including one-day visitor passes, would rise 11 to 20 percent, officials said.
Only reduced-fare customers would not see a fare increase.
But Huberman said service cuts and fare increases could be canceled on short notice if the funding picture brightens.
Still, riders on Wednesday bemoaned the tangled state of transit.
Stuart Cooper, who takes the Evanston Purple Line Express daily to his job downtown, said he blames both the CTA and state government for not working with each other or planning ahead. He said he expects Huberman to make some good changes.
Raising fares “is just something they have to do [because of] the way they do things,” Cooper said of the CTA. “If they planned things better, they would not have to.”
Patrick Smith, who works at the Art Institute of Chicago, said he’s glad the CTA is saving the No. 148 Clarendon/Michigan Express bus.
“I think that’s excellent because it’s used,” said Smith, who lives in Lakeview. “It’s always packed. It’s better than the 145, which has way too many stops.”
Huberman and CTA chairman Carole Brown hailed the $20 million in new internal belt-tightening as yet another sign to the General Assembly and the governor that the transit authority deserves new funding to erase a more than $100 million operating deficit.
Huberman had identified $18 million in administrative cuts. The CTA will also transfer $57 million from its capital improvement budget to prop up the operations shortfall, but that move will defer maintenance on buses and trains and likely lead to less reliable service.
“This is not about playing politics,” Huberman said. “We need a structural fix” to correct the state funding shortfall, he said.
But the strategy of rolling out piecemeal cost efficiencies could backfire, raising questions about the CTA’s credibility. Customers, and suburban and Downstate legislators already are skeptical that funneling millions of additional dollars to the CTA would improve the transit authority’s often-criticized performance.
“The CTA has a long history of scaring riders with doomsday scenarios. They claimed the sky was falling, and now only half the sky is falling,” said Michael Pitula, a community organizer with the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.
The revised contingency package of service cuts and fare hikes would take place on Sept. 16, barring state action on funding, officials said. Regardless of whether the revised cuts are implemented, the CTA is printing new bus and train schedules. That will cost the agency $2.1 million, Huberman said.
Huberman acknowledged that the new budget contingency package, containing $7.5 million in service reductions and $7.5 million in fare hikes, would still create tremendous hardships, especially for the elderly, people in poor neighborhoods, students and commuters who do not have access to cars. But the goal is minimizing difficulties by scaling back the doomsday plan, he said.
“Buses will still be crowded, and we realize some people will still be left on the curb,” Huberman said about the plan to operate 314 fewer buses during peak hours.
As an incentive for riders to save money and while also helping to speed up boardings of trains and buses, the CTA plans to waive the $5 fee to purchase Chicago Cards.
Some civic and business groups blamed the sorry state of transit funding in the Chicago region on state officials neglecting the operating and capital needs of the CTA, Metra and Pace for years.
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jhilkevitch@tribune.com
