Having finished one of the weirdest sessions of the General Assembly that I’ve seen in my time there, it took some time to digest what we just endured. Now that we’ve turned the page on June, it’s time to recap some of the unfinished business that remains before us. Aside from the ongoing and insoluble mess that is our public pension system, the biggest and most looming task going forward is to decide what to do with the gaping wound that is the Regional Transportation Authority.
RTA: Should We Stay or Should We Go?
As you no doubt have heard, the mass transit system in Northeastern Illinois is in a state of fiscal crisis. (You may reasonably ask: “What part of Illinois government isn’t in a state of fiscal crisis?”) If you want some background on how we got here and where we are at this point, click here for a pretty good rundown. The “Cliff Notes” version of the current dilemma is pretty simple: The Regional Transportation Authority, which is responsible for administering the transit systems in Chicago, Cook County and the collar counties completely messed the bed during COVID by not making any changes to operations, acting as if the money coming from Washington to pay for mass transit would never dry up and assuming that all those empty trains and buses would magically fill up with new and returning riders once the Governor ended his 40-something string of consecutive monthly disaster declarations.
I’m not saying that the end of the COVID gravy train is the entire reason we’ve reached this point, it just gave the RTA and the governing class in Springfield some breathing room to do what they do best, which is to ignore a problem that’s been building for years and then sink onto the fainting couch when the fecal matter finally hit the fan. As a result, all you’re hearing now is that the RTA needs an immediate injection of anywhere from $800 million to $1.5 billion of your money to stave off immediate disaster.
By “immediate disaster”, they mean service cuts and layoffs. Again, you may reasonably ask: “Why do we run buses and trains as if we’re still living in a world where men in grey flannel suits went to downtown offices every day?” The simple answer is: That’s the way it’s always been done. The real answer is a bit more complex. Much of it has to do with efforts by both the Federal and state governments to ignore the world as it changed around us and to prop up favored constituencies. While that familiar refrain comes as no surprise, a February, 2025 white paper titled “Addressing the Transit Productivity Crisis” by the Reason Foundation lays it out in black and white, stating at the very outset:
“[W]hile conditions have substantially worsened in recent years, public transit productivity has trended downward since the end of World War II, largely due to increasing household incomes, growing private automobile ownership, and the dispersal of households and then workplaces into the suburbs.”
Which begs the question: “Does our mass transit system exist to get people efficiently, safely and affordably from Point A to Point B, or is it nothing more than a taxpayer subsidized jobs program?”
The paper goes on to discuss the substantial barriers imposed by Section 13(c) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964:
“[W]hich established transit worker labor protections. This provision was included to ensure collective bargaining agreements continued to be honored during the period when transit systems and their workforces were transitioning from heavily unionized private ownership to government ownership…Section 13(c) generally requires transit agencies to either incur substantial upfront costs to pay off affected employees or delay the realization of labor-saving benefits. Transit agencies largely dependent on annual government appropriations face a strong financial disincentive to adopt practices and technologies that would improve service and reduce growing operating subsidies…Section 13(c) exists alongside federal, state, and local labor laws that apply to public-sector workers. Importantly, federal transit labor protections supplement rather than substitute for other general labor protections. As a result, Section 13(c) provides transit workers—and only transit workers—with special protections beyond those enjoyed by other government employees…[E]liminating Section 13(c)…would remove an impediment to transit agencies seeking to negotiate more-flexible labor contracts in the future.”
In 1964, most big-city transit systems were privately owned, but were under increasing financial pressures leading to bankruptcy. The Transportation Act was written to help local governments transition from private to publicly run systems. Section 13(c) was included to ensure collective bargaining agreements continued to be honored during the period when transit systems and their workforces were transitioning from heavily unionized private ownership to—at the time—sparsely unionized government ownership. It was designed to address the particular circumstances of the time, when just 2% of state and local government employees were authorized to collectively bargain and was never meant to cover newly hired public transit employees, who already had the right to collectively bargain.
As you can see, the fix isn’t simply one of throwing more (of your) money at the problem. It’s going to take something else that’s in short supply, which is the political will to bite the hand that feeds you in the form of electoral support.
This is not an issue that lends itself to a simple explanation. So you should look at today’s Reick Report as the first in a series which will attempt to answer one simple question: Can and should McHenry County opt out of membership in the RTA? How much are we paying for what we get and are we getting what we’re paying for? What public transportation services does McHenry County need? What would we lose in the way of service if we opt out that we couldn’t replace on our own at lower cost? What will we be obligated to do if we stay in the revamped agency?
These are all questions that demand answers before McHenry County makes the leap into the unknown. As your Representative, it’s my job to protect the interests of my constituents and represent the best interests of McHenry County. It’s your money we’re talking about, and I’m going to ask you to let me know what you think. Stay tuned.