Transit you can see
MetroTrack is an independent, public accountability tracker for Chicagoland transit. It answers two plain questions with sourced data: where does the money go, and who does the service reach.
Why it exists
Chicagoland transit is being restructured — the RTA is being reorganized into the NITA — with a large funding reallocation across CTA, Pace, and Metra. Public and political interest in where the money goes and who it serves is high, and there is no single accessible place to see it. This is that place.
Neutral by construction
The stance is just-the-data. MetroTrack takes no position on how transitshould be funded or run — it reports what the public record shows. Three habits keep it honest:
- Every figure shows its source and as-of date.Nothing is published without a traceable row in the data-sources ledger.
- Missing data stays missing. When a number isn’t sourced yet, the page says so — it never fabricates one to fill a gap.
- Methods are public. Every metric’s formula and caveats live on the methodologypage, and the code is open source.
What it tracks
Funding
Mapping
Hiring
Job-access score
Who it’s for
Residents & riders
Policy & agency staff
Journalists & advocates
How it’s built
MetroTrack runs entirely on free and open data — GTFS feeds from CTA, Pace, and Metra; the U.S. Census (LODES jobs, population); the Chicago Data Portal; and OpenStreetMap. It updates automatically on a nightly schedule. Read the full method on the methodologypage, or browse the source and data ledger on GitHub.