With ‘drastic service cuts’ possible for RTA, McHenry County officials grapple with transit funding

McHenry County officials have been working to expand transit options, but they’ve done so while grappling with the potential for service cuts and a potential financial crisis for the Regional Transportation Authority.

Residents in municipalities such as Woodstock and Huntley could be seeing more bus service if a new Pace plan and adequate funding go through.

The suburban bus provider is working on a plan to restructure and modernize the system. The plan could change bus routes in the county, and officials talked about two different plans Friday.

Under one model, service would increase between McHenry and Crystal Lake, as well as between Woodstock and Crystal Lake, but a route that runs between Fox Lake and McHenry would be cut, as would service between McHenry and Woodstock.

Under the other model, there would be hourly headways and two new routes in Marengo and Algonquin.

What the county has proposed to Pace is to tweak the second model, routing the Marengo path through Huntley and the Route 47 corridor instead, and making changes to two routes that run through Crystal Lake and head south. County officials said that could better serve population centers.

But that extra service is contingent on the Chicago-area public transit agencies filling in a $730 million budget gap once American Rescue Plan Act funds go away, which is expected to happen early next year.

“Everything I mentioned ... is in jeopardy if the state can’t figure out what to do with transit funding in 2025,” McHenry County Assistant Director of Transportation Scott Hennings said at a transportation committee meeting Friday after providing the transportation committee with updates on McRide, the county’s dial-a-ride program, in addition to Pace.

Hennings said the state will have to figure out how to fund the gap and if filling it will allow for changes people want to the system.

While leaders seek a solution to close the budget gap, there’s also the potential to consolidate the transit agencies.

Last year, county officials expressed their opposition to proposed legislation to consolidate the Metra, Pace and Chicago Transit Authority boards. Local officials objected in part because they don’t want the county to shoulder any of the CTA debt, and they had concerns about their representation being diluted. McHenry County currently has a representative on Pace, Metra and RTA boards.

In September, Mike Buehler, the McHenry County Board chair, and Rick Mack, president of the village of Ringwood and of the McHenry County Council of Governments, called for maintaining separate Pace, CTA and Metra boards and for keeping the boards' supermajority voting power.

The county’s law and government committee was expected to discuss transit funding Thursday, but the meeting was canceled for lack of a quorum.

But a document included in the meeting materials listed talking points that were labeled as having support from the council of governments, indicating some of the changes officials might back.

Among them is an 18-member RTA board: five members from Chicago, five members from suburban Cook County, five members from the collar counties and three members appointed by the governor. It’s similar to the proposed RTA board that officials opposed, but according to the document, the council of governments supports keeping the three transit agency boards in place.

The McHenry County Council of Governments also threw its support behind funding that includes raising the RTA sales tax; the tax is currently 0.75% in McHenry County.

The county has expressed support for giving the RTA more authority, including oversight on items such as fare policy, capital planning and personal safety and security, but it also wants to keep a supermajority requirement for the board on items such as budgets and capital plans, according to records.

Hennings said Friday that the collar counties all believe the three boards should stay.

There’s less consensus on funding and how to close the gap, but there’s agreement that if the state will have reduced fare mandates, the state should pay for it, Hennings said.

In an October post on the RTA website, the agency said Illinois chronically underfunds transit agencies relative to other states with major metropolitan areas.

“Today, state funding makes up only 17% of operating revenue in Chicago. In New York that share is 28%, in Boston it’s 44%, and in Philadelphia it’s 50%,” according to the RTA website.

In a December news release when the RTA budget passed, the agency said the funding gap is about 20% of the operating budget. Left unchecked, the gap would lead to a 40% reduction in service across all the systems, according to the release. The RTA also called on the state to take action to close the budget gap by the first half of this year.

“If Illinois does not act by spring 2025, CTA, Metra and Pace will be forced to shift their focus from improvements and expansion to prepare for drastic service cuts and fare increases to balance their budgets,” according to the release.

The looming fiscal cliff comes while McHenry County and Metra are teaming up to build a new rail yard outside Woodstock. The project got an $850,000 federal grant secured by U.S. Rep Bill Foster, D-Naperville; it requires a local match.

The county has programmed about $11 million for the project from RTA sales tax funds, and the sum is equivalent to the engineering costs.

The grant match is part of this year’s budget allocation of $1.8 million toward the project, with the remainder to be spent in future years.

The county’s transportation committee advanced an intergovernmental agreement between the county and Metra for the design and engineering work.

That proposal, which was not discussed before its passage, now goes before the full County Board later this month.