How the NITA Act empowers the regional agency to prioritize capital projects based on key goals

In December 2025, Governor JB Pritzker signed the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA) Act, a historic transit funding and reform package that will bring an estimated $1.2 billion in new annual operating funding to the system, marking a historic investment that will protect the essential service of today and allow for future service improvements and expansion.

This blog is one in a series exploring how the NITA Act aims to improve our region’s transit network. While much of the focus on the NITA Act has been on operational improvements, the law also includes important changes to how the region plans and prioritizes capital improvements, including projects that rebuild infrastructure, modernize stations and vehicles, and keep the system in a state of good repair.

In addition to $180 million in new annual capital funding, the legislation strengthens the regional agency’s role in evaluating and prioritizing projects. This builds on the work the RTA has already begun in recent years, setting NITA up for success with a more transparent capital planning process.

How the RTA currently builds the regional capital program

Today, RTA and the Service Boards (CTA, Metra, and Pace) work together to identify capital needs and available funding. Both the Service Boards and RTA are empowered to issue bonds to meet the needs. As projects move from concept to reality, the Service Boards plan the projects, then move them into their capital programs, which are approved by their boards. At that point they move to the regional capital program, where RTA conducts and publishes regional evaluations and then brings the regional capital program to the RTA board for approval.

What changes under the NITA Act

Under the NITA Act, the regional and Service Board partnership continues, but NITA will play a stronger role earlier in the process. NITA will be empowered to issue bonds to meet capital needs, and the Service Boards will not be able to issue bonds for new projects. CTA will have an exemption to continue to issue bonds for the Red Purple Modernization Project and Red Line Extension, two projects for which the agency already holds full-funding grant agreements with the federal government.

As projects move from concept to reality, NITA will be responsible for planning large projects, which the agency will assign to the Service Boards or other regional entities to construct, and the Service Boards will still plan smaller projects. Large projects may include new service infrastructure such as a new rail line or a new bus rapid transit corridor, a large-scale rebuild of existing service infrastructure, new service vehicle or rolling stock purchases, or improvements that will be used by multiple Service Boards.

The Service Boards will continue to propose projects to be included in the capital program, but NITA will have more evaluation and prioritization responsibilities moving forward. NITA will put together the regional capital program based on an evaluation and prioritization process, approved by the NITA board, which will be designed to meet key regional priorities. The proposed program will then be reviewed and approved by the NITA board.

Recent changes to the capital process

In the years leading up to the NITA Act, several changes to the regional capital planning process were already underway.

In 2021, Illinois required state-funded transit projects to be evaluated using seven criteria. These evaluations help ensure limited capital dollars are directed to projects that best support state of good repair as well as safety, reliability, and other key regional priorities.

To implement these evaluations, RTA used the Transit is the Answer strategic plan development process to gain input from the public, Service Boards, and Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). A capital working group was established to focus on project evaluation.

By fall 2022, this effort produced several key outcomes:

1. Maintaining a transparent list of priority projects
The region continues to share major proposed projects through the Priority Project list, first introduced in the Invest in Transit strategic plan. The list presents projects that the Service Boards would advance as funding becomes available. The list is updated annually and helps communicate both key projects and funding needs and shortfalls.

2. Creating a project evaluation procedure
Projects in the five-year capital program are now assessed against 12 themes — the seven state-required criteria plus five additional priorities identified through regional input.
This broader framework helps highlight the different benefits projects provide, from safety and accessibility to economic impact and system reliability.

3. Increasing public visibility into the capital program
Over the past several years, RTA has expanded public information about capital investments, including:

More detailed board presentations on how projects align with regional goals
Expanded data and mapping on RTAMS
Additional information in the annual budget book

These steps improve transparency for riders, policymakers, and partners.

What’s ahead

As the region transitions to NITA, work will continue to refine the capital planning process.

This spring, RTA will update project evaluation criteria to reflect requirements in the NITA Act and present proposed changes to the Board ahead of the 2027 budget development process.

Later in the year, the NITA Board will begin shaping how new capital funds included in the NITA Act are allocated, with the goal of programming 2026 funds by year’s end. NITA will determine goals for the new capital programming process, including the timeline for when projects are evaluated and enter the program and guidance on improving evaluation and implementing prioritization of projects.

Moving into 2027, NITA will need to have a new capital programming process in place for the 2028 budget call. In addition, legislation calls for NITA to prepare the documentation about these prioritization efforts and to publish data on the NITA website as well as share the methodology in a report to the General Assembly.

Throughout these changes, RTA and NITA will continue to stay engaged with all the stakeholders in the process with the goal of meeting all the NITA Act requirements while improving the regional capital programming function.

How to get involved

The transition to NITA will be an ongoing topic at transit agency board meetings throughout the year, which are open to the public and available online (RTA, CTA, Metra, Pace). Subscribe to RTA’s twice-a-month Regional Transit Update to stay on top of the latest developments.