Front-page coverage of our growing, unrealistic commute times once again reflects our reliance on mass transit in our region for our quality of life ("The pay’s fine, but how's the drive?" Page 1, June 11). To the region's detriment, transit has relied on a 24-year-old funding formula, which has not grown with population, at a time when federal operating dollars were eliminated. Our quality of life will further diminish if an adequate and fair transit-funding package does not emerge from Springfield at the end of this month.

The good news is that negotiations in Springfield revise the transit funding formula to reflect the region's needs today, restoring fiscal health and setting it on a course for improvements and growth. Only two hurdles remain: the governor's signature and a resolution to funding the CTA pensions.

It's time for Governor Blagojevich to sign the new legislation into law - regardless of his no-new-tax pledge. This is a good deal for the region and the state; it can relieve congestion in the region and facilitate the movement of goods to other parts of Illinois and the country. Our legislators worked all session to identify adequate funding sources, specifically relatively small increases in the sales and real estate transfer taxes, all viable options contained in the act governing the RTA. No other revenue proposal was offered. Finally RTA's new powers under the legislation will offer greater coordination among transit services, new resources to relieve congestion by making road improvements and funding available to improve suburb-to-suburb commuting.

Inadequate funding for transit over the last 25 years has not only diminished travel, but has led to unfortunate decisions regarding the CTA employee pension fund which is now only 39.4 percent funded. In particular, pension resources were consistently used to support operating costs, pension contribution holiday was taken and cost of retiree health care was passed from the CTA's operating budget onto the pension plan. Data show that the inadequate payments are unarguably the sources of the problem since pension benefits are modest, averaging just $1,920 a month.

Both CTA and the unions have made proposals to address the funding crisis. CTA's "solution" switching to a defined contribution pension would solve nothing because CTA would have to run two systems, a costly process: CTA would legally have to fulfill its existing obligations and could only place new employees into the defined contribution system. Furthermore, a study by the Illinois Retirement Security Initiative shows that defined contribution systems have twice the administrative cost of defined benefit systems and produce less than 60 percent of the benefit levels of a defined benefit system.

Without delay, the CTA and its unions must identify a solution that adequately addresses the pension shortfall, preserves the modest benefits of its current and future retirees and is in line with the new transit-funding package. Once that action has been taken, we can only hope that the governor will sign the bill. Only our quality of life is at stake.

Dia Cirillo

Policy Director

Workforce, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability

Jourlande Gabriel

Director

Illinois Retirement Security Initiative

Chicago