CTA Riders Risk Ghosting Service Away 

It was May, 2021, I’d just moved to Chicagoland, and I had a hot date scheduled at Loyola Beach right after work. I was staying in Evanston at the time, right by the Purple Line, from which I could transfer to the Red Line and get off at the Morse stop to get to my date.

My trip, shortly after 5pm, went perfectly. The date was great - we had a healthy back and forth banter - and in my opinion we seemed to be a solid fit, at least for a second date. Then, I went back to the Morse stop to take the Red Line back north.

I got ghosted.

Not by the date. Well, technically yes, but more importantly by the train. The train was supposed to arrive within 10 minutes. I waited, shivering in the cold. Alone on the empty platform. 

Ten minutes to arrival counted down to five. Then to one. And then, my eager eyes saw “DUE” written next to my train on the beautiful CTA standard issue display board.

I was ready to go home.

I looked left. I looked right. No train. 

I kept waiting, thinking maybe it was just a bit late. Two minutes later the display board declared the train had departed. The train that never existed.

Between having to wait over 20 minutes AFTER that for the next train, and then being unceremoniously dumped off at the Howard station to await a transfer to a Purple Line, it took me over an hour to get back. A grand distance of little over 2 miles.

It would’ve been faster if I had walked.

This is an experience many Chicagoans have had over the last few years. Between this, the many downtown office workers that no longer go into the office five days a week, and safety concerns - ridership on the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) “L” train and bus systems have struggled to come back to even close to pre-pandemic levels. 

This, alongside Federal funding for regional transit agencies expected to dry up in 2025, is setting CTA up for a dangerous financial future. 

During the initial round of the Chicago Mayoral Election in February 2023, candidates cast blame for this ridership deficit on  decreased service by CTA trains and buses, a rise in crime, and the otherwise lackluster return to downtown corporate offices.

If CTA responds by cutting services, this will only produce a positive feedback loop that will doom CTA. Declining ridership causes CTA to cut services due to budgetary issues. Reduced services cause further ridership decline, causing further service cuts. 

Speaking from my own ghosting experience, I default to walking or taking Divvy bikes when the weather is nice over taking the L or a CTA bus. 

Am I that quirky friend who will walk 3 miles just for the fun of it? Yes. But am I also just one of many Chicagoans who actively want to take the L or CTA buses, but who worry about being fooled thrice? Also yes.

If a long term solution to CTA’s budget woes is not found it could spell doom for a piece of Chicago that is integral to what this city is. But to find that solution, we need to understand how CTA is funded, and what the heck has happened since the pandemic hit.

Pre-pandemic CTA funding relied on just two primary sources: “System Generated Revenue” (including fares, passes, on-train advertisements) and “Public Funding” (including sales tax revenues, voluntary and mandated funding from localities and the state of Illinois). 

CTA funding source designations for 2019 - 2022 are outlined below in Table 1: CTA Funding Sources 2019 - 2022.

In 2019, “System Generated Revenue” accounted for $697M of CTA’s total $1.5B in expenses, or roughly ~46%. The additional $818M were covered from Public Funding.

In 2022, “System Generated Revenue” only accounted for $375M or 23.5% of CTA’s total $1.6B in funding, with “Public Funding” accounting for $1.0B or 64.2%, and Federal Relief funds accounting for $197M or 12.3%.

Even as 2022 system generated revenue grew above 2020 and 2019 levels, the system’s solvency continues to rely on Federal Relief funds. Unless ridership can return to ~82% of its 2019 levels before Federal Relief funds dry up, the system will have difficult decisions to make to keep services running.

CTA Ridership in 2022 was down roughly 45.5% versus pre-pandemic (2019)

CTA ridership declined substantially across the board. According to publicly available data from the Chicago Data Portal, overall CTA ridership for 2022 was down -45.9% versus 2019, with bus ridership down -41.2% and train ridership down -51.2%.

Ridership had been steadily improving throughout the year. Namely ridership sharply improved over the summer months and started plateauing in the fall of 2022.

At the beginning of 2022 monthly bus ridership was less than half (50%) of 2019 levels. As of October 2022 bus ridership was ~65% of 2019 levels, or ~35% below 2019 levels, albeit this declined to closer to ~60% of 2019 levels in December. CTA monthly train ridership also began the year well below 2019 levels, at barely above 33% of 2019 levels (or down by over 65%). By October monthly train ridership had recovered to ~55% of 2019 levels, albeit approached ~50% of 2019 levels again by December. 

This gradually increasing ridership relative to 2019 levels throughout the year makes sense considering the context of declining COVID cases following the early 2022 Omicron surge, and a moderate push by some businesses to get back to the office. Whilst this is a good sign for ridership levels heading into 2023, it is still not at the levels needed to maintain CTA services.

But can we assume that, if we can just get workers back into offices, the ridership issue will be solved?

Most of the improvement in monthly ridership for both buses and trains in the later part of 2022 relative to 2019 levels has come on the weekends. Apparently people are able to party and eat out on weekends but unable to commute to the office on Mondays.

Weekday ridership for trains has plateaued at under 50% of 2019 levels and around 60% pre-pandemic level for buses. 

This indicates that the growth in ridership in 2022 relative to 2019 in later months was not being generated by workers returning to offices. Whether this is due to companies continuing to let workers work remote, or workers choosing to come into the office utilizing other means is difficult to discern.

Noting the graphs below, while the Pink L Line has many stations whose ridership declined only 30-35% vs pre-pandemic, the only other areas that can boast this are in Uptown (where the Lawrence and Berwyn stations have reduced service and thus commuters have utilized other nearby stations) and the O’Hare Blue Line station. 

L Stations in the Loop however have had some of the worst declines in ridership, alongside the western suburban Blue Line stations, and the Yellow Line.

Bus routes that primarily service the Loop and nearby the city center have had the largest declines in ridership, whereas north-south and east-west routes, particularly in areas underserved by the L, have best been able to maintain their ridership levels.

This is obviously easier said than done. The nature of work has changed, and where the future natural homeostasis will be is uncertain. But there are a few ways CTA can enable and encourage an increase in weekday ridership.

1. Ensure ample transit availability to avoid negative customer perceptions

To be blunt - most office workers have gotten used to working remote during the pandemic and not having to carve out time for a commute. Without employers issuing mandates for return to offices, any level of additional friction employees face when going into offices will cause workers to reconsider or limit when they go in.

There are many parts of this CTA cannot control - namely how individual companies manage return to office. CTA can control that they do not ghost commuters or cause otherwise frustrating or unpleasant experiences during the return. 

This means not only having an excess of transit during rush hours; it means having an excess of transit throughout the workday. Given the rise of hybrid work, employees who do go to work in offices may go to and leave work outside normal rush hours to flex which tasks/meetings they accomplish at home versus in the office. CTA being seen to help enable these workers’ flexibility will aid in commuter confidence and usage of the system.

It may seem fiscally imprudent to produce supply before demand returns, but if when commuters do try and return the system cannot accommodate them, these commuters may minimize their returns or their usage of CTA.

2. Form partnerships with companies to offer reduced cost monthly passes during early return to office

According to the latest available full audited CTA financial statements - revenue from per-ride fares rose between 2020-2021 but monthly pass revenues fell (Chicago Transit Authority 2022).

Unfortunately the report does not breakdown which type of passes comprise the revenue (day vs. monthly); but even assuming there was no shift in revenue from monthly to day passes, the fact that CTA pass revenue fell more dramatically than fare revenue tells a simple truth.

Commuters are not using CTA enough to find value in paying for unlimited monthly usage.

At the current full cost of $75 per month, it would require 30 train rides to full pay off the pass. That is the equivalent of commuting to work and back 15 days a month, or roughly 3-4 days a week. Given most office workers are only going in 2 days a week it does not make sense to get a monthly pass.

Monthly pass revenue is consistent, subscription-like revenue that is more predictable and encourages those users to use the system even more, increasing their value from it and locking them in as consumers.

If CTA were to approach large employers and offer them limited time 12 month deals to give their employees CTA monthly passes for $50/month (equivalent of going into the office 2-3 days a week), this may encourage workers to switch back to buying monthly passes from paying per ride. This will then encourage them to use the system more, and when the deal runs out they may be more likely to maintain their monthly passes as they’ve grown used to using CTA enough to warrant a pass even at the $75/month rate.

Regardless of what CTA chooses to do, they are at the mercy of office workers choosing to return to their offices and feel comfortable utilizing CTA. Should this fail to happen, CTA may be forced to take short-sighted actions like raising fares, which will only continue to perpetuate a death spiral. 

Great transit systems make great cities. The CTA is one of the defining parts of Chicago’s identity and one of its greatest assets and strengths.

It is in CTA’s best interest to adapt and incentivize this action to occur - or else risk demoting Chicago from first class city status to tertiary or quaternary status.

Oh - you wanted some piffy ending tied back to the story of me being ghosted?

I guess the happy ending version is I saw her again, and I still see her sometimes.

The unhappy truth is it’s only as an awkward interaction when we accidentally run into each other at a turtle racing bar.

That is modern dating I guess; albeit that should not be a major city’s public transit system.

Chicago Transit Authority. 2022. “Financial Statements and Supplementary Information Years Ended December 31, 2021 and 2020.” Transit Chicago. https://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/6/Financial_statements_2021.pdf.

Chicago Transit Authority Board. 2023. “President’s 2023 Budget Recommendations.” https://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/6/FY23_Budget_Book_Final_Draft_(For_Website).pdf.

City of Chicago. 2022. “City of Chicago Data Portal.” City of Chicago | Data Portal. https://data.cityofchicago.org/. 

Freishtat, Sarah. 2022. “A budget cliff is looming for CTA and Metra, and fare hikes and service cuts might not be able to fill it.” Chicago Tribune, December 12, 2022. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-cta-metra-riders-return-budget-cliff-20221212-pukbsavbevf5thfdlih7644osu-story.html.

Woelfel, Mariah, and Tessa Weinberg. 2023. “CTA problems: Proposed fixes from mayoral candidates.” WBEZ, February 16, 2023. https://www.wbez.org/stories/cta-problems-proposed-fixes-from-mayoral-candidates/4fc9f274-932f-4076-bcd8-bff5a1092862.