Illinois lawmakers work on $1.5B bill to bail out CTA, Metra and Pace

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinois lawmakers are trying to push through a big bill to save the region’s mass transit systems.

On Wednesday, lawmakers began crafting the political sausage of a bill that would bail out the Chicago Transit Authority , Pace, and Metra from needing to cut services and further hike fares due to the loss of pandemic-era federal funding.

What we know:

Several public transit interest groups spoke before lawmakers in Springfield on why they believe the state should find more than $1.5 billion for all the transit systems, to not only fix them, but also make them better.

"The reason that it's important for us to talk about the numbers, is because the numbers have to be solid so that we make sure that we're solving the problem, that we are not creating a hole," s