One Region, One Network: The Next Era of Chicago Transit
Key Highlights
- NITA will coordinate fares, service planning and capital investments across Chicago's three transit operators to improve regional connectivity.
- NITA is tasked with establishing systemwide standards for frequency, safety, cleanliness and accessibility to enhance rider experience.
- Fare simplification and systemwide fare capping will make transit more affordable and easier to understand for riders.
- Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace Suburban Bus will continue to oversee their day-to-day operations, focusing on providing quality service.
Before the sun comes up, a nurse in the south suburbs of Chicago heads to her shift without building an extra hour into the trip. Her Pace bus is scheduled to meet the Metra train, but if she misses her connection, another train is not far behind. When she reaches downtown, the same ticket takes her onto the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) ‘L’ for her final leg.
In the afternoon, a college student travels from class in the city to a part-time job in the suburbs. The buses and trains he takes are clean, the arrival information is accurate and one university pass carries him across operators seamlessly. Near midnight, a restaurant worker begins her trip home. The elevator status at the station is available to her on her phone, the platform is well lit and feels safe, and she knows her wait time will be just a few minutes. If she encounters someone smoking, a person in crisis or another problem, she can tell a transit ambassador working at the station or report it from her phone, and the right team will quickly respond.
Together, these trips describe the future the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) was created to deliver: one system that works for everyone and connects the entire Chicago region. It is a rare opportunity to get to jumpstart the second largest transit authority of the nation (based on unlinked passenger trips) from scratch with a mandate to transform the rider experience and actually have the resources to make it happen.
NITA Act supplies needed funding to transform Chicago region’s transit
On Sept. 1, NITA formally began just as Chicago prepares to welcome transit professionals from across the country for the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) TRANSform Conference and Expo. The timing offers our region an opportunity to demonstrate what a truly coordinated regional transit network will look like.
Illinois lawmakers gave us the tools to get there through the NITA Act, which paired more than $1.2 billion in estimated new annual operating funding and roughly $180 million in new annual capital funding with meaningful regional authority. Among our large transit agency peers, the state of Illinois has provided a blueprint to not only solve the post-pandemic transit funding crisis, but also doubled down on the promise of expanding transit access regionwide. NITA will coordinate fares, plan service and make capital investments blurring agency lines, establish enforceable standards and hold the transit operators accountable for meeting them. Success will be measured in riders’ everyday experiences: more frequent service, dependable connections, simpler fares, safer and more accessible trips and a system they can trust.
The combination of transformational investment, authority to act and a commitment to riders is what makes Chicago’s transit future significant beyond our region. Illinois did not treat the fiscal cliff that our transit ecosystem was facing in the wake of the pandemic as simply a budget hole to fill. It used the moment to transform how the system works going forward.
While the governance changes will take a few years to implement to their full promise, the immediate positive impacts are already showing on the system. Since Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed the NITA Act in December 2025, we launched pre-transition efforts and coordinated early changes to deliver for riders. In May, we infused $132 million into the regional system to fund near-term investments that riders are feeling. Those investments include expanded and more reliable service on CTA, Metra and Pace; improvements targeting rail slow zones and chronic bus delays; new safety and security resources; and expanded access to affordable fares.
The Access Program, which provides reduced fares for riders experiencing low incomes, is expanding from a pilot only available to Metra riders to include eligible CTA and Pace riders this fall. Digital signage, multilingual information and real-time accessibility updates are becoming more consistent across the system. These investments are just the start.
Establishing standards will streamline regional service and investments
The biggest shifts ahead will transform how regional trips actually feel. NITA will establish transparent, systemwide standards for frequency, span of service, travel time, on-time performance, crowding, cleanliness, safety and connectivity across a six-county region with more than eight million residents. Those standards will recognize that a dense city neighborhood, a suburban job corridor and a lower-density community all deserve great transit service but require different types of service. Coordinated network planning will mean key regional connections served by NITA’s three operators get the service and technology they need to make transfers as seamless as possible.
Fares are getting simpler, too. Regional fares are not going up, but better alignment will help riders understand what to pay and when. For example, changes to student fares starting this academic year will make every bus ride for students on CTA and Pace 75 cents while expanding the hours and days when they can ride, so that fare will make more sense with their lives and travel patterns. Within two years, systemwide fare capping will ensure that a rider paying trip by trip never pays more than someone who purchased a pass. By 2030, a next-generation fare system will provide a single, unified mobile ticketing application across CTA, Metra and Pace.
Reliable information must also be available in whatever way a rider needs to receive it. Whether someone checks a station display, listens to an announcement, asks an employee or looks at a phone, the arrival times, accessibility updates and disruption alerts should be accurate and consistent across the systems. NITA will centralize digital trip planning and vehicle arrival information while establishing regional customer information standards. Those standards will be developed alongside the new Office of Disability Policy and Planning, ADA Advisory Council and Riders Advisory Council, so the system is designed with riders from the beginning.
Riders will also see safety improvements that began this summer. Nearly $60 million in new funding is supporting additional sworn officers on transit vehicles and at stations, expanded K-9 patrols, crisis-intervention and outreach efforts, additional health and human-services support and the early development of a regional transit ambassador program.
Over time, NITA will connect the public safety work of CTA, Metra and Pace through a coordinated regional structure. A new Office of Transit Safety and Experience, led by a chief transit safety officer, will work with a multi-jurisdictional law-enforcement task force, the Coordinated Safety Response Council, transit ambassadors, social service providers and the three transit operators. That structure will help ensure that different situations—from smoking and other quality-of-life concerns to a person in crisis or a serious safety threat—reach the people best equipped to respond. It will also strengthen operator protections, improve the sharing of incident data, identify recurring problems and help deploy resources where they are needed most.
The physical system will continue to improve as well. A coordinated five-year capital program will rebuild aging infrastructure and prioritize projects based on service needs, equity, environmental benefits and clear performance criteria. Regionally significant projects will be managed as one connected portfolio instead of a collection of agency-by-agency projects. That investment reaches beyond the station door. NITA’s role in transit-supportive development—paired with investments in sidewalks, crossings and bicycle connections—will help more neighborhoods connect safely and conveniently to the regional network.
None of this means the region’s operators, CTA, Metra and Pace, disappear into NITA. Riders will continue to see the same agencies operating their trains and buses each day because that operational expertise remains essential. What changes is how decisions are coordinated across the region. The new governance structure is designed to make that coordination real. A majority of directors on each transit agency board will also serve on the NITA Board. Those overlapping memberships will create a direct link between regional decisions and day-to-day operations. NITA will provide the foundation: setting regional direction, aligning funding and policy, coordinating decisions across agency lines and holding the network accountable while CTA, Metra and Pace will keep doing what they do best.
Chicago’s experience offers a useful lesson for other regions: sustainable funding and system reform are strongest when pursued together. A coalition that includes riders, labor, business, civic organizations, transit agencies and elected leaders can build support for both investment and change. The Chicago region is only beginning this transformation, and continued engagement will be essential as NITA turns the law’s requirements into improvements riders can see and feel. NITA will work to earn trust through clear milestones, public reporting and continued rider input as we build toward a common goal: one network, one region.
About the Author
Maulik Vaishnav
Chief Transition Officer, NITA
Maulik became chief transition officer in June 2026 to guide the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) through its transition to the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA), ensuring strategic leadership and compliance with the NITA Act. His role coordinates with the service boards, government entities, transition consultants and civic partners to align priorities, develop agreements and oversee transition-related tasks. Maulik joined the RTA as senior deputy executive director of planning and capital programming in October 2023.
Maulik has 15 years of experience in sustainable urban transportation, large-agency transit management and data-driven policy and program implementation. He comes to the RTA from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), where he served as vice president of innovation for the past 11 years. Notably, Maulik was responsible for creating CTA’s first rider-focused customer experience and marketing strategy and leading the implementation of the “Meeting the Moment” action plan to realign the agency toward post-pandemic customer success.
Before the CTA, Maulik was a transportation planner for Arup in San Fransisco. He is a graduate of Lake Forest College and earned a master's from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.