Putting the funds to work | Regional Transportation Authority

Maintaining and improving the system

The capital program includes the funds used to invest in long-term maintenance and upkeep plus any improvements and expansions of the system.

The region has a 10-year need of over $36 billion, of which about 30 percent can be funded. The vast majority of the need is for maintenance projects for the transit system's approximately 1,500 miles of track, 7,500 vehicles, 400 stations, and 70 maintenance facilities.

The 2022-2026 capital program contains $5.6 billion in funding, but more is needed to achieve regional priorities such as more equitable and sustainable transportation, and better accessibility. Explore the region's capital projects on an interactive map .

Where does capital funding come from?

Capital funding comes from a variety of federal, state, and local sources. The federal government, through the Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) provides both formula and discretionary funds to the region. The state provides both bond funds (when new state capital programs are enacted) as well as gas tax revenue referred to as “PAYGO”. Local sources include bond issuances by both RTA and the Service Boards as well as funding pools made available through various local governmental sources. The region continually advocates for additional funding to meet the great need to both maintain and improve the system. Recent efforts have resulted in over $425 million a year in sustainable additional funding.

How is capital funding spent?

In conjunction with the regional strategic plan, Invest in Transit , the RTA and the Service Boards have been working together to articulate and advance a regional transit capital strategy, which can be used to guide project programming. This includes using the following lenses in the project selection process:

Priority Projects: The set of core capital initiatives
Strategic Goals: The goals capture the RTA’s and Service Boards’ shared priorities
Core Requirements: The required activities that are central to the Service Boards’ capital programs

The 2022-2026 Capital Program

The current capital program is available in the Proposed 2022 Operating Budget, Two-Year Financial Plan, and Five-Year Capital Program and in an interactive format on the RTA’s Mapping and Statistics website (RTAMS) on the Regional Capital Program page . The proposed 2022-2026 five-year capital program totals $5.260 billion.

The Service Boards have identified 75 Priority Projects that they would advance with additional funding in Invest in Transit and subsequent annual updates. The current 2022-2026 capital program funds a portion of the Priority Projects and about 14.5% of the total 10-year need. Four projects have been fully funded. Twenty-five do not receive any funding, showing that additional investment is needed to advance them all.

CTA’s five-year capital program has $3.474 billion available for capital expenditures. CTA’s capital projects are largely focused on moving the system toward a state of good repair, which includes replacing and rehabbing both buses and rail cars.

Metra’s five-year capital program has $1.497 billion available. Metra continues to concentrate its capital budget on improving rail cars and locomotives as well as improving stations, bridges, and the right-of- way for its trains.

Pace’s five-year capital program is $289.4 million. Pace continues to focus on maintaining their rolling stock as well as providing for maintenance of other assets, and also shifts the focus of capital investment into electric vehicles.

In 2022, a new performance‐based capital allocation process was adopted by the Board for federal formula and PAYGO funding, starting in the 2025 and moving forward.

2023-2027 Capital Program

The 2023-2027 Capital Program is developed throughout 2022. The RTA encourages public engagement. Key activities are:

May 19: Five Year Capital Program Call released by the RTA Board
Early June: Preliminary federal funding estimates for the region are released, see tables below.

2023-2027 Federal Formula Funding Estimates

In accordance with public participation requirements for 49 USC §)5307 (A)(1) federally funded projects, below are the preliminary federal formula funding appropriation estimates* per Service Board for calendar years 2023-2027.

CTA

	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	Total
Urbanized Area, Section 5307/5340	170,686,166	175,158,144	192,038,133	196,935,133	201,542,764	$936,361,064
Bus and Bus Facilities, Section 5339	13,064,504	13,579,246	13,996,128	14,520,983	15,027,765	$70,188,627
State of Good Repair, Section 5337	247,113,373	252,549,867	256,918,980	262,468,430	267,612,811	$1,286,663,462
Federal Formula Total	$430,864,043	$442,287,257	$462,953,966	473,924,546	$484,183,341	$2,293,213,153

Metra

	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	Total
Urbanized Area, Section 5307/5340	107,635,749	110,455,805	106,847,459	109,695,225	112,384,611	547,018,849
State of Good Repair, Section 5337	144,859,564	148,046,474	150,607,678	153,860,804	156,86,476	$754,250,996
Federal Formula Total	$252,495,312	$258,502,279	$257,455,137	$263,556,029	$269,261,087	$1,301,269,845

Pace

	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	Total
Urbanized Area, Section 5307/5340	57,748,129	59,261,130	53,127,676	54,359,992	55,510,148	205,250,320
Bus and Bus Facilities, Section 5339	1,802,001	1,872,999	1,930,500	2,002,894	2,072,795	$9,334,827
Federal Formula Total	$59,550,129	$61,134,129	$55,058,177	$56,362,886	$57,582,943	$289,688,264

Regional

	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	Total
Urbanized Area, Section 5307/5340	336,070,043	334,875,078	352,013,993	360,990,349	369,437,524	1,763,386,987
State of Good Repair, Section 5337	391,972,937	400,596,342	407,526,658	416,329,234	424,489,287	2,040,914,458
Bus and Bus Facilities, Section 5339	14,866,505	15,452,245	15,926,629	16,523,877	17,100,561	79,869,816
Federal Formula Total	742,909,485	760,923,665	775,467,280	793,843,461	811,027,371	3,884,171,262

Early August: Preliminary capital funding estimates by Service Board are released, see tables below.

2023-2027 Capital Program Funding

		2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	Total
CTA
	Federal	475,977,674	447,707,257	469,373,966	554,599,878	490,603,341	2,438,262,116
	State	141,875,000	141,875,000	135,519,000	135,519,000	135,519,000	690,307,000
	Local	105,000	105,000	105,000	105,000	105,000	525,000
	Bonds	171,379,576	77,500,000	77,500,00	-	-	326,379,576
CTA Total		789,337,250	667,187,257	682,497,966	690,223,878	626,227,341	$3,455,473,692

Metra
	Federal	283,295,312	258,502,279	286,479,274	263,556,029	269,261,087	1,361,093,982
	State	86,275,000	73,775,000	74,456,000	74,456,000	75,364,000	384,326,000
	Local	5,000,000	-	6,166,000	-	-	11,166,000
	Bonds	130,000,000	-	-	-	-	130,000,000
Metra Total		504,570,312	332,277,279	367,101,274	338,012,029	344,625,087	1,886,585,982

Pace
	Federal	61,014,129	76,788,129	55,058,177	56,362,886	57,582,943	306,806,264
	State	11,350,000	11,350,000	17,025,000	17,025,000	16,117,000	72,867,000
	Local	-	-	2,055,000	-	-	2,055,000
	Bonds	-	-	-	-	-	-
Pace Total		72,364,129	88,138,129	74,138,177	73,387,886	73,699,943	381,728,264
SYSTEM TOTAL		1,366,271,692	1,087,602,665	1,123,737,417	1,101,623,793	1,044,552,371	$5,723,787,938

September 15: RTA Board reviews capital funding amounts for adoption
October/November: Service Boards hold public hearings on their Proposed Five Year-Capital Programs
By November 15: CTA, Metra, and Pace boards review and adopt Five Year Capital Programs to submit to the RTA.
November 17: Service Boards present their Five-Year Capital Programs to the RTA Board
November/December: RTA holds public hearings on the regional proposed Five-Year Capital Program
December 15: RTA Board reviews regional Five year Capital Program for adoption

See more about the process on the 2023 Regional Operating Budget and Capital Program page.

Project Management Oversight (PMO)

The RTA is responsible for ensuring that the Service Boards are spending capital funds and managing their capital projects effectively and efficiently. The RTA conducts periodic project reviews with Service Board project managers to ensure that capital projects are being implemented according to scope, on schedule, within budget and according to established project management guidelines.

Read the December 2022 PMO report

Strategic Asset Management

The RTA, as part of its financial oversight function, has historically maintained an interest in ensuring that the Service Boards have sufficient funding to operate and maintain their physical assets. For many years, the RTA has facilitated regional funding campaigns, overseen the issuing of bonds to provide funding for capital investments, and monitored the delivery of major projects of each of the Service Boards in order to achieve this objective. These efforts have been challenged for decades, as the lack of consistent, reliable capital funding has led to aging assets, unreliable service, and an enormous backlog of unmet capital funding needs.

Under current FTA rules, the Service Boards are now required to maintain Transit Asset Management programs, plans, and datasets for submission to the National Transit Database (NTD).

CTA TAM Plan: https://www.transitchicago.com/performance/
Metra TAM Plan: https://metra.com/performance-budget-planning-information
Pace TAM Plan: https://www.pacebus.com/pace-transparency

The RTA still maintains an interest in regional capital funding activities and has transitioned its TAM activities into a strategic asset management (SAM) framework to monitor the state of good repair of all of the regional transit assets of the system as a combined portfolio. The SAM function provides RTA with the tools to track mid- and long-term regional investment needs and to inform capital programming and planning processes for strategic investments, as referenced in the Framework For Transit Capital Investment and the Potential Impacts of State Funding on Transit State of Good Repair report..