No CTA fare hike, service cuts in 2020 budget
Attention CTA riders: The CTA will not be raising fares or cutting service next year.
The welcome news was part of the transit agency’s proposed $1.57 billion operating budget announced Thursday.
The budget is $18 million more than its current budget due to increases in labor and security costs.
It includes money to begin adding elevators to the 42 CTA rail stations that still do not have them.
The CTA also proposed a $5.1 billion infrastructure plan that would span five years and include money for new rail cars and buses, as well as money to remove slow zones.
The infrastructure budget includes $310 million for engineering and design work that will, one day — when federal funds are secured — extend the Red Line by 5.3 miles to 130th Street.
The last fare increases the CTA rolled out were in 2009 and 2018 — raising the price of riding a bus or a train by a quarter each time.
The ability to hold the line on fare increases in 2020 comes despite years of declining CTA ridership. Overall rail and bus trips dropped 77 million from a peak in 2012 of 545.6 million rides to 468.1 million rides in 2018 — a 14% decline.
Ridership is expected to drop another 11 million rides in 2019, and predictions for 2020 shave off an additional 8.2 million rides, according to CTA officials.
The CTA attributes the losses, in part, to cheap gasoline and the proliferation of ridehailing companies such as Uber and Lyft.
The public will be able to weigh in on the proposed budgets at a public hearing at 6 p.m. Nov. 13 at CTA headquarters, 567 W. Lake St.