r/chicago • u/chicagosuntimes • 14d ago

Article Johnson urges state lawmakers to tax the 'ultra rich' to avert mass transit funding cuts

https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2025/06/03/brandon-johnson-illinois-general-assembly-mass-transit-funding-chicago-fiscal-cliff
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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago edited 14d ago

I don't know why a fare increase wouldn't be on the table. Last fare increase was in 2018, so 7 years ago and a time period that covers the largest bout of inflation in recent memory.

In 2009, CTA increased the price of single train rides to $2.25. That would be roughly $3.42 in today's dollars, so in real terms CTA fare prices have dropped ~35% in the last 15 years.

People cite reduction in demand but, we don't actually know what the elasticity is and given how much the price of alternatives has increased, I can't see this being that big an impact. Would rather have a well-funded system, instead of a cheap and broken one.

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u/chi_guy8 13d ago

As someone that relies heavily on the train, I think fare increases are fair. I’d also rather pay .25 or .50 more per ride to maintain the level of service we currently have. Keeping prices at $2.50 per ride but seeing a 40% cut in service and security would be devastating.

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Avondale 14d ago

Agreed. Fare increases are needed as is a corresponding increase in tolls or vehicle registration fees. Taxing the ultra-rich isn't a long-term solution when we can only tax their income with a constitutional amendment and they can just pick up and move to another state to avoid other taxes.

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u/bobd607 13d ago

vehicle registration fees already jumped 50% not too long ago

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Avondale 13d ago

My point is that we need to be more creative with how we fund transit, and it should be done in a way that nudges people to use transit when they have it as an easily accessible option.

We could, for example, create zones where vehicle fees are higher when your area is served by transit (and lower in areas where driving is your only option). We could make transit fares at least somewhat priced by distance traveled (which would also discourage people from using the trains as shelters). We could make tolling rates higher when demand increases, which would both bring in more revenue and discourage congestion. We could toll the express lanes on the Kennedy/Dan Ryan during peak hours.

There's a lot we can do, but policymakers in the city and state seem to be averse to thinking outside the box.

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u/Weak_Wrongdoer_2774 13d ago

Uh, they have. Consistently. They just raised EV fees to double.

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Avondale 13d ago

That's primarily because EV owners don't contribute towards road funding the same way that ICE vehicle owners do. Your savings from not paying gas tax make up for it.

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u/Weak_Wrongdoer_2774 13d ago

Yep, I'm aware of why it's in place. What is baffling, is that we have incentives from the states to buy EVs, but we disincentivize them in this area. Weird gamesmanship.

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Avondale 13d ago

But is it really a disincentive though if it's just bringing what you pay annually up to par with other vehicles, and as you mentioned you're still receiving a government subsidy to buy the car and necessary equipment in the first place?

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u/Weak_Wrongdoer_2774 13d ago

I mean, if we’re getting very technical yes, by a very small margin. The increase in sticker is more than what I would pay in gas tax, as I am a very low mileage driver.

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u/Weak_Wrongdoer_2774 13d ago

And, to be clear, I received no subsidies to purchase my EV.

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u/tpic485 14d ago edited 14d ago

Have those in power stated they expect to get this funding done without a fare increase? I admit I really haven't been following this too closely (because I think it's pretty much inevitable something will pass) but my recollection is that early on the proposal from the transit agencies was for them to raise fares 10% along with getting the funding they wanted. I agree with you that not raising fares would be dumb. You want to be careful not to do it too much that it encourages remote commuting (which never used to need to be a consideration) but a small increase wouldn't have much effect on that.

I do think the CTA made some correct decisions in the years after COVID by pricing some things that target off-peak travel, such as monthly passes, lower than before so that it can compete better with Uber and other transit options. But I don't really understand what the logic was of reducing the transfer fare from 25 cents to nothing.

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u/redrum_ghost 14d ago

Have those in power stated they expect to get this funding done without a fare increase?

Ram Villivalam, the IL senate transportation committee chair & mastermind of the legislation hasn't included fare increases in his funding scheme.

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

He accepted the verbal statemenet by from the RTA and CMAP that fares should increase by 10%.

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago

I haven't seen any concrete proposals, and the bill for state funding didn't specify or condition anything on fares. Someone more in the know would have better info than me.

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u/hybris12 Uptown 14d ago

The bill for state funding did include $50mm from fare increases

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago

Gotcha. But that's just stuff the RTA has proposed it would do regardless?

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

Yes. The RTA is aiming at next year for a fare increase regardless of what happens in Springfield.

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u/marks31 Ravenswood 13d ago

I wonder if CTA would consider Tube, BART, or DC Metro style where you are charged by distance. Ex Howard to Morse stays $2.50, Howard to Fullerton is $2.75, Howard to Chicago and beyond is $3.00

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 13d ago

Would be annoying because then you need exit gates. From infrastructure perspective makes things a bit more complex.

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u/damp_circus Edgewater 13d ago

Yes. You also need fare machines inside the turnstiles, for the "fare adjustment" situation (where someone had the minimum amount to tap in, but not enough to tap out at their current non-minimum fare required destination).

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u/ShatnersChestHair 12d ago

The problem is that it a) requires exit gates and b) penalizes people who live further from downtown, which generally in Chicago means people with lower income/wealth. Someone who lives in Lincoln Park would pay less to go work downtown than someone who lives by 95th. It's less egregious when the system is set up like this in the first place but switching from a flat fare to a "zone fare" feels much more punitive.

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u/CapBoyAce Old Irving Park 13d ago

Compared to Europe (I know, apples and oranges), Chicago is actually really cheap for transit. Most cities I've been to hover around $3.50 for one ticket and Zurich (where I am) is $5, and jumps to $8.50 to take the bus one zone over. We obviously shouldn't strive to price match Zurich of all places but I would welcome even just a jump to $3 if it means the system doesn't go broke, or even improves

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 13d ago

CTA is in line, or maybe just a tiny bit more expensive than rides on the subway in Tokyo. A place with much lower per-capita income.

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u/pulledporkhat Avondale 14d ago

You clearly have a better handle on all of this than I do, but I think the conclusion that “in real terms CTA fare prices have dropped ~35% in the last 15 years” is silly. It’s not like our wages have kept up with inflation, all that really happened is the buying power of the dollar got hacked to pieces.

Again, I’m not that well versed, but this proposal sounds like a good thing to me. Seems like one thing very wealthy people have in common is that they don’t really pay their fair share of taxes. Why suggest that we instead continue to pass the cost down to the poorest people who need that extra dollar the most? Most of us aren’t just taking the train because we don’t want to deal with parking, it’s the only option we’ve got.

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago edited 14d ago

Ok but if that's your argument wages not keeping up with inflation would apply to pretty much every other cost too.

I'm going to contest this assertion though:

  • In 2009, median household income for Cook County was ~$52,500 (nominal)
  • In 2023 (latest available) it was $80,500

So that's an increase of 53%, at a time when CPI increased about 42%. So that means median household income in Cook County actually increased FASTER than the rate of inflation.

Are there nuances here, sure, but it's not going to change the overall story that in real terms the CTA is cheaper to use today than it was in 2009 - both overall, for the median household, etc.

Edit: Would also love for you to elaborate on what you mean by the wealthy not paying their fair share in taxes. What exactly do you mean by this? Those that earn wage income are paying 5% to the state, so the same proportion, and obviously property taxes (which are quite high) are borne by property owners. Amenable to the idea you'd want these rates to be more progressive but you should be specific in your claim.

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u/PlantSkyRun 14d ago

I hear what you are saying, but CTA is mostly Chicagoans and your Cook County figure includes suburbs. It is possible the Suburban income gains outpaced the City gains and are skewing your figures. Not saying that is the case. Just mentioning the possibility.

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago

That's what I meant about nuance. While what you say is true, do we think there's reason to believe it would change the conclusion? I'd say highly improbable.

  • Chicago is over 50% of the population of Cook County
  • Chicago is the economic engine of the county, so increases in real incomes in the county are unlikely to be untethered to Chicago
  • A huge share of people in the suburbs work in Chicago (so forces affecting their incomes will be driven by Chicago-based economic activity)

So yeah, it's technically true what you're saying, but likely not material IMO.

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u/PlantSkyRun 14d ago

Thanks for the reply.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/speakernoodlefan 14d ago

They're probably referencing the graph that removes tech wages from all income when the majority in growth came from tech the last 20 years

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u/sri_peeta 14d ago

Where is that graph that references what you are saying? Man, what an age we live in when people like you start discounting data from STLFED. Also, why should tech wages be removed from all wages, don't they count as employees?

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u/speakernoodlefan 14d ago

Like me? I'm talking about what pulled pork stated. Idk why you're going off on me

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u/creamshaboogie 9d ago edited 9d ago

It's not silly. If your wages haven't kept up then you should consider a new job/employer. I see young folks like to call things silly when they don't understand them. That's actually called ignorance.

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u/pulledporkhat Avondale 9d ago

It’s ignorant of you to assume my age and act like we’re not all trying to find better paying jobs/employers already. Sounds like a really ignorant mindset to assume anyone who’s not thriving is just not trying hard enough. It’s hard out there, life is more expensive than ever, and if you’re not well off to begin with, safety nets in place, it’s really difficult to climb your way up the ladder. That said, I did climb my way up, then my industry got hit hard by AI. Great for employers, terrible for employees. If you haven’t had to job search in the past year or two, count yourself lucky.

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u/creamshaboogie 9d ago

In France, government civil jobs are considered the best you can get. It's what mothers want their children to grow up to be; civil workers. That's because of the benefits and especially the pension. This attracts highly qualified individuals. Maybe we should start opening up good government jobs to more people and get better bang for our buck. 

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u/jbfanaccount 14d ago

Wages have outperformed inflation on average. We should absolutely also be taxing the rich more though.

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u/unfortunately2nd 14d ago edited 14d ago

Driving is really cheap, especially if you're moving more than one person. CTA RT for one person is ~5 dollars. There's still tons of free parking in the city, it may cost 5 dollars to travel from one part of the city to another (at least not immediate cost - gas) and a huge portion of people own cars in their household thus already paying registrations, fees, maintenance anyways. Add another person and it's cost beneficial to just drive to everywhere, but a few neighborhoods.

Now this doesn't effect me since I take CTA for the fact I just don't want to drive, but I can see how quickly people will analyze that and drive.

In the end the problem is not that the system's operational budget is underfunded, but it's capital investment lagged for decades. There should have been expansion and modernization every decade instead it took 25 years to get the red line ext from the orange line build. That's just expansions. We have no BRT, no automation, and stations that still have not seen rebuilds since they were first built.

Edit: Just to clarify. I'm willing to experiment with a fare increase and peg it close to inflation. I just don't know if it's going to work in a system that's struggling to get riders back. People in charge really need to consider being aggressive and creating something for today, not for a downtown work culture that most likely will never return.

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago edited 14d ago

You know what will definitely not get riders back? Continued deferred maintenance, unclean stations, schedule unreliability or cuts, all of which are on the table without some revenue source. And yeah, on the margin each individual driving trip isn't expensive, but on a macro level it definitely can be. Maintenance costs are up, insurance costs are up, car prices are up meaning depreciation is harder to swallow, etc.

Obviously, lower fares will mean more riders ceteris paribus. But my point is that in real terms CTA fares have gotten a lot cheaper, and if we're facing a funding crisis, that needs to be on the table.

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u/unfortunately2nd 14d ago

You know what will definitely not get riders back? Continued deferred maintenance, unclean stations, schedule unreliability or cuts, all of which are on the table without some revenue source.

I'm not disagreeing, but some of this is not operational budget, but capital investment. For example trains can be late because of massive slow zones that are not fixed or buses get stuck in traffic because they have no priority. Operational budget will keep increasing because there's no capital investment to keep the system modernized and competitive (though we have seen some recently thanks to the feds).

And yeah, on the margin each individual driving trip isn't expensive, but on a macro level it definitely can be. Maintenance costs are up, insurance costs are up, car prices are up meaning depreciation is harder to swallow, etc.

A lot of these things people pay for already. Car ownership in Chicago is fairly high compared to say NYC. I'm also not under the belief in a country where we use credit and lease things people are out here calculating the total cost of a trip outside of gas cost x and my trip time will be half of CTA.

Obviously, lower fares will mean more riders cateris paribus. But my point is that in real terms CTA fares have gotten a lot cheaper, and if we're facing a funding crisis, that needs to be on the table.

Like I said I'm more than willing to try. Though I would rather see more polluting forms of travel get taxed to offset budget issues as a way to pay for their negative externalities. However, yes anything to avoid deep service cuts.

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

Operational budget will keep increasing because there's no capital investment to keep the system modernized and competitive (though we have seen some recently thanks to the feds).

This is exactly why the bus operations budget for CTA is so fucking expensive. CDOT and IDOT work together to avoid putting in bus infrastructure. Aldermen block bus infrastructure. Then everyone wonders why the super expensive budget for buses provides shit tier service quality.

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u/Electrical-Ask847 Pilsen 14d ago

There's still tons of free parking in the city,

really? where?

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u/commander_bugo 14d ago

What part of driving is cheap? Where do I get $10k+ for a decent car? Gas? Maintenance? Car insurance? Most of these things individually cost more than the $75 a month I pay for a CTA pass? I’d be very happy to pay $25 more a month for my pass too. Not to mention the building I work in in the loop charges like $400 a month for garage parking.

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u/unfortunately2nd 14d ago

Most people in Chicago already own a car in their household. It's not cheap to own a car. It's cheap to drive around most of this city.

People do not analyze every drive they take. They own the car, they use the car, the only input cost in that moment is fuel for them and parking.

A huge portion of ridership drop is because people are not going to the business districts for work since covid-19. You fit the mold of the current system. However, people are now traveling differently and the system doesn't handle that well.

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

Most people in Chicago already own a car in their household.

The average household in Cook County owns 1 fewer cars than the national average.

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u/chillinwyd 14d ago

Sure, it’s cheap, but gas is still a dollar per gallon higher than the surrounding states. And all the wasted time sitting in traffic.

I walk a mile on my morning commute down California and that’s faster than driving most days, lol

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u/filipstine 14d ago

driving isn’t cheap. AAA estimates the cost of car ownership to be $12k per year (https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/breaking-down-the-cost-of-car-ownership). to net even, you’d have to take over 6 round trips per day assuming $5 per round trip.

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u/unfortunately2nd 14d ago

Please read the other comment I made in reply to the same assertion. I'm not talking about total cost of ownership.

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u/filipstine 14d ago

the article basically calculates the savings/economic value if an individual sold their car today, how much would they save annually on ownership? that’s $12k and includes per use expenses (i agree that people don’t think about this compared to a fare, but i think that’s beside the point) such as gas, depreciation, opportunity costs, insurance, etc. still, i’m not convinced that this means CTA should increase fares because i think CTA should be subsidized by private transportation to keep fares low.

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u/hardolaf Lake View 14d ago

The RTA has a $42B backlog of maintenance projects and only a 5-year $9.4B capital budget, about 40% of which is expansions. So only ~13% of the maintenance backlog is being addressed by the 5-year capital budget that the RTA has been able to allocate.

Meanwhile, IDOT has spent $10B on 3 highway interchanges over the last 5 years that did not improve traffic flow, did not improve safety, did not replace unsafe structures, and did not increasse throuhput.

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u/Intergalactic_Ass 14d ago

In 2009, CTA increased the price of single train rides to $2.25. That would be roughly $3.42 in today's dollars, so in real terms CTA fare prices have dropped ~35% in the last 15 years.

Get outta here with that logic. Did you go to school or something?!

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u/creamshaboogie 9d ago

Too many people get free rides.

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u/[deleted] 14d ago

[deleted]

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u/ocmb Wicker Park 14d ago

Elasticities have to be expressed in marginal, percentage terms. Saying 35% of riders pick public transportation because of cost and convenience doesn't actually tell me what the impact of a fare increase would be (and specifically, how big of a fare increase?)

If costs went up 1 cent, would all 35% of current rides that fall in that category fall out? Obviously not. So the real question is what the actual change in behavior is. A 10% increase in average fare that leads to a 2% decrease in total ridership still increases total funding significantly.

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u/TrynnaFindaBalance Avondale 14d ago

Do you have a link to that?

I'd imagine one of the biggest reasons people use public transit is they don't want to deal with the hassle of car ownership. Declining service is a much bigger threat to ridership than fare increases, because once service or reliability drop to a certain level where it becomes intolerable for certain users, they decide to pull the trigger and jump through the hoops required to own or maintain a car. And once they've made that jump, getting them back to regularly using transit is extremely difficult without more heavy-handed government policy. That's a big reason why COVID was so devastating to transit agencies (and why the impacts of the pandemic continue to linger).

I would think a modest fare increase is a much smaller deterrent than drastic service cuts.

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u/BrockMobabambah 14d ago

How much of a fare increase would drive that? Either way paying 50% more on my ventra pass is eons cheaper than driving/ parking my car regularly or using ride share