The legislative session ended without the full General Assembly passing any legislation around transit. If we fail to act, Illinoisans could face steep cuts to public transportation when we hit the fiscal cliff in early 2026.
But the fight isn’t over! By organizing listening sessions and town halls, lobbying in Springfield, and advocating for working people in the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition, we helped compel the Senate to pass a bill to consolidate the region’s transit organizations and provide significant new funding both to stop massive impending cuts to public transit and to enable improved and expanded transit service moving forward!
Though the consolidation and any funding package will have to clear both houses and the Governor before it’s enacted, and the new bill contains some compromises (which we’ll discuss at our June 8 meeting), but this is a significant step forward. We now have a strong foundation from which to push a final package of legislation over the finish line, either in a special session this summer or in veto session in the fall. We will continue to build the people power we need to push for bold, progressive transit improvements funded by taxing corporations in our state.
We’ll also keep bringing more transit riders into the conversation. When we share our stories with legislators, we convince them to stand up to corporate interests and genuinely address how transit cuts would harm working communities and the environment. We’ll have more details on the state of our legislation and our next steps at our June 8 membership meeting–don’t forget to register here!
