The following are key findings listed by each of the goals in the RTA Vision, which is presented in Section 2.0 of the full report.

Transportation Options

• Transit ridership has been growing since 2003. However, auto travel is growing even faster.
  

• Service coverage, service span, and service frequency are generally good for CTA givent he dense urban environment that it serves. However, there are opportunities for serving emerging and re-emerging travel markets. Metra provides excellent peak direction, peak period radial service, but service for reverse commutes and off-peak travel are not convenient. Pace’s traditional high ridership routes have good service levels and spans. However, in many areas, service does not operate every day, or only operates during peak periods or during the day, making it difficult for people to rely on public transit for the full range of travel needs. Many Pace routes, such as those in Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, Waukegan and other outlying communities, operate only during daytime hours Monday through Saturday.
  

• On-time performance is excellent for Metra, and generally improving for CTA bus and Pace. CTA rail is showing a recent decline in on-time performance due largely to construction activities.
  

• Full regional fare integration does not exist. Metra’s fare structure and fare collection system differ dramatically from that of CTA and Pace. Current regional fare integration with Metra is limited to only Metra monthly pass holders, so that fare integration for occasional transit riders using Metra is not available. This represents a significant opportunity to move towards a seamless regional transit system.
  

• Overall, the Service Boards (CTA, Metra, and Pace) compare well with their peers in terms of operating efficiency and effectiveness.
  

• The Service Boards have extensive capital assets (replacement value in excess of $27 billion) that must be maintained.
  

• There has been a significant reduction in the size of the capital program with the expiration of Illinois FIRST. The 2007 capital program is expected to be half the size of the 2004 program. The federal share of capital funding will increase to 75 percent, as state and local capital funding declines. The RTA has had to resort to the use of paper “tollway credits” to capture all available federal funds.
  

• Significant unfunded capital needs (several billion dollars) exist to bring the system in a state of good repair. A wide range of specific project needs were identified, including bus, rail car, and locomotive replacements and overhauls, bus garage, rail yard and shop replacements and upgrades, rail system structure/bridge rehabilitations/replacements, signal upgrades, and passenger facility and station upgrades.
  

• Available operating funding is not keeping pace with rising costs, resulting in an operating shortfall that is caused by increased costs for security, fuel, healthcare, insurance and claims, and ADA paratransit costs that affects all three Service Boards.
  

• The Service Boards have had to resort to transferring capital funds to help cover theoperating shortfall. In 2006 alone, the Service Boards used $102 million of capital funds for operating.
  

• The CTA pension is severely under funded. It is estimated that an annual payment of over $130 million will be required by CTA starting in 2009.
  

• In 2007, the operating shortfall will continue to increase and may require the transfer ofcapital funds to operations, service reductions, and/or fare increases. The Service Boards cannot continue to transfer capital funds to cover operations in 2008, because as maintenance and rehabilitation costs continue to rise in the future, service reliability will decline, starting a downward spiral.
  

Livability and Vitality

• Transit helps to create and sustain jobs, supports economic growth and development, attracts and concentrates new development, strengthens the financial health of local and state governments, and benefits residents and businesses.
  

• An earlier study of the economic benefits of the RTA system estimated an over 6-to-1 benefit/cost ratio on dollars invested in public transportation to bring the RTA system to a state of good repair.
  

• Transit plays an important role in improving the region’s air quality. The RTA system accounts for annual reductions of 1,840 tons of volatile organic compounds and 750 tons of nitrous oxides, which are both ozone precursors, and 10 tons of fine Particulate Matter, the equivalent of pollutants emitted by 3 billion auto vehicle miles.
  

• Transit is estimated to be about twice as energy efficient as private vehicles. The RTA system results in gasoline savings of 150 million gallons per year.
  

Demonstrated Value

• The RTA system directly and indirectly provides well over $12 billion in economic benefits to the region and 120,000 jobs. Additional non-monetary benefits, such as improved air quality, improved access and economic development, also result from our transit system
  

• The Illinois FIRST program provided the RTA the ability to issue a total of $1.6 billion in capital investments bonds, increasing the size of the capital program to $3.8 billion from 2000 to 2004. Major accomplishments using Illinois FIRST funding included new CTA and Pace buses, Metra railcars, life-extending overhaul of buses and rail cars, capacity expansion of the Brown Line, reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Branch of the Red Line, reconstruction of the Blue (now Pink) Line Douglas Branch, replacement ofbridges on the Union Pacific-North and Rock Island Lines, North Central Service Improvement, UP-West, and Southwest Service Upgrade and Extension Projects, and garages and facilities improvements.

• Population and employment growth in the region, sprawl, and demographics show continued growth in core transit markets (the Central Area, satellite cities, City of Chicago and adjacent suburbs), large growth in suburb to suburb commutes and reverse commutes that require a family of services (fixed-route, express, dial-a-ride, paratransit, vanpool, and other flexible services) to meet growing demand.
  

• The Texas Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility report ranks the Chicago region second nationally in travel time ratio, which means that for the average metropolitan Chicago traveler, it takes 57% longer during the peak period to travel the same distance as when roads are not congested. The Chicago region is ranked third in travel delay, excess fuel consumed, and congestion costs. This report estimated public transportation saved the Chicago region $1.6 billion in congestion costs and that 182,000 new daily transit riders are needed every year to keep current levels of congestion (9% of current ridership).
  

• A Federal Transit Administration study of six urban corridors served by high-capacity rail transit corridors, including the I-55/CTA Orange Line corridor, found that transit passengers saved 17,400 hours daily over auto travel in the corridors, road users in the corridors saved 22,000 hours of delay per day due to the absence of vehicles from public transportation users, travelers on surrounding roads in the corridors saved an additional 20,700 hours per day as spillover congestion was reduced, and that this delay reduction represents a savings of $225 million annually in the six corridors analyzed.
  

• Increase of 2.3 billion annual person trips by 2030.
• Improved land use and transportation coordination is needed through transit oriented development and working with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning to implement regional initiatives.
• Chicago is the nation’s busiest rail gateway, with 1,220 trains each day passing through the region and an almost doubling of freight traffic expected over the next 20 years. Through an unprecedented partnership with Metra, the City of Chicago, the State of llinois, the federal government, and the Association of American Railroads, the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency (CREATE) program was developed to reduce passenger and freight railroad conflicts and provide operational improvements along five key corridors.
  

The region must seize the opportunity to develop a world class transit system – through improved land use and transportation integration, new technologies, such as smart cards for fare integration and seamless travel, alternative fuel vehicles for improving air quality, and bus rapid transit to improve transit speeds. Service to new markets, better schedule and service coordination, and new methods of service delivery for greater efficiencies should be pursued.

Moving Beyond Congestion – the time is now.