The Chicago Tribune’s Monique Garcia and Dan Simmons report that the state of Illinois will sort of bail out the Regional Transit Authority, which runs the Chicago Transit Authority, which run’s Chicago’s subway/elevated trains and buses. The state’s intervention would avert a proposed CTA fare hike from $2.25 to $3.00.

Here’s how the agreement is supposed to work: The RTA would borrow $166 million the next two years and funnel it to the CTA to keep buses and trains running. The state will make the loan payments for two years at a total cost of $15.3 million. After that, it’s likely the RTA would be responsible for paying about $10 million a year for 28 years.

The agreement is part of a pattern: each year CTA unveils a proposed annual budget that warns of unbelievable fare hikes. And each year the state comes to a rescue, deferring costs down the road. But inevitably CTA is weakened: sometimes there are small fare hikes or layoffs. Often, probably including this year, there are cuts in where buses run and how often they run.

It might be interesting if one of these times the state called the CTA’s bluff. Or vice versa — the transit authority insists on enacting its proposed budget unless the state guarantees stable, long-term funding instead of this emergency loan stuff. This would be a flawed protest: $1-a-ride increase could be devastating for low-income workers who need public transit. But Chicago’s mass transit problems coming to a head seems preferable to the continued weakening of CTA.

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