Chicago Transit Authority is getting extra funding for security and service improvements – including bus and el train service on the West Side.
The Northern Illinois Transportation Authority Act passed last October created new revenue streams to fund transit, including allowing a 0.25% RTA sales tax increase. Those measures took effect on June 1, and the Regional Transportation Authority Board of Directors voted unanimously at a special meeting that morning to make the increase official.
Before then, during the regularly scheduled May 21 meeting, the board approved a budget amendment on how to spend $132.2 million out of $199 million the tax increase is expected to bring in this year. While nearly half of the funding will go toward various safety and security improvements, around $54 million will go toward service improvements. On the West Side, this includes funding to increase bus service on Central Avenue and the extension of Laramie Avenue bus service past Grand Avenue.
The rest of the new sales tax funding is expected to be allocated this fall. RTA, which is being rebranded into NITA, will get a new governing board in September, and it will get more authority over CTA, Metra and Pace budgets, including the final say over any fare increases and service changes. The RTA board wanted to make sure its successors will have some extra funding to work with.
Route 85/Central serves, as the name suggests, the Central Avenue corridor between Loretto Hospital and Jefferson Park Transit Center. While it is relatively frequent during rush hours, the frequency drops to anywhere between every 15-20 minutes the rest of the day.
The budget amendment allocates $1.5 million to add four bus routes, including Route 85, to CTA’s Frequent Service Network. Launched in March 2025, the initiative increases bus service so that riders don’t have to wait more than 10 minutes to catch their bus. On the West Side, CTA previously added routes 12/Roosevelt, 20/Madison, 53/Pulaski, 54/Cicero, 66/Chicago and 82/Kimball-Homan to the network. Route 85 service increase is currently scheduled to begin sometime this fall.
The amendment also allocates $750,000 to extend route 57/Laramie. Unlike routes 54, 85 and most other North-South routes that serve the West Side, it doesn’t go north of Grand Avenue, creating a service gap between Central and Cicero avenues. The extension is expected to launch sometime this winter.
The amendment also sets aside a total of $5 million to improve on-time performance systemwide.
Blue Line’s Forest Park branch, the section of the line that runs in the median/aloneside Eisenhower Expressway, has been notorious for its slow zones, areas where trains have to slow down due to deteriorating track conditions. While the budget amendment gives CTA $10 million to address slow zones, none of that money will go to the West Side service.
That isn’t to say the amended budget doesn’t benefit West Side el service at all. CTA will get $1 million to more regularly clean the Blue and Red el line trains. The transit agency will give those jobs to employees hired through Greencorps Chicago, a nonprofit organization at the northeast corner of East Garfield Park that offers job training to Chicagoans who face barriers to employment.
On the safety and security side, around $20 million will go toward hiring more off-duty Chicago police officers to provide extra security, nearly doubling their head count from 99 to 180. Another $10 million will go toward increasing the number of K-9 units from 164 to 200. It would also get $2 million to expand its Safe Ride Specialists Crisis Intervention Team pilot program, where trained social workers seek to de-escalate volatile situations without involving law enforcement, and connect riders to social services they may need.
As previously reported by Austin Weekly News, CTA pays Haymarket Center to send outreach teams to the Blue Line to talk to riders who might be experiencing issues such as lack of stable housing, mental health issues or addiction.
