Overview
- House Democrats filed a late plan to raise about $1.5 billion for CTA, Metra and Pace alongside a governance overhaul creating a Northern Illinois Transit Authority to coordinate fares and service.
- The proposal includes a 7% statewide amusement and streaming tax, a $5 surcharge on large‑event tickets, a 0.25‑point increase to the RTA sales tax in Cook and the collar counties, a 4.95% tax on billionaires’ unrealized gains, and new revenue from suburban speed cameras.
- Pritzker said the package is not advancing in its current form, questioned the unprecedented unrealized‑gains tax, rejected expanded speed cameras, and called for further negotiations with the Senate.
- The Senate’s spring bill that the House sidelined relies on a $1.50 per‑package delivery fee and other surcharges, leaving major differences to reconcile before Thursday’s adjournment under a three‑fifths vote requirement.
- RTA now pegs next year’s shortfall near $200–230 million with larger deficits returning in 2027, as agencies advance fare increases and contingency service reductions and transit workers campaign to avert layoffs.