Metra is the regional rail system serving the six-county Chicago area. Metra provides service to and from downtown Chicago with 243 stations over 11 routes totaling nearly 500 route miles. We remain one of the largest and most complex rail systems in North America, with a service area encompassing more than 3,700 square miles.
See our Fact Book for more facts, history and statistics about Metra.
Metra's Mission
Metra provides safe, reliable, efficient, and affordable commuter rail service that enhances the economic and environmental health of Northeast Illinois.
Metra's Vision
To proactively address evolving transportation needs, Metra will provide regional rail service that supports sustainable connected communities.
Strategic Goals
- Enhance service to grow ridership and provide mobility choices
- Ensure the Metra experience is safe, easy, and enjoyable for all customers
- Attract a diverse workforce and invest in our employees
- Innovate to become more efficient and effective
- Be a socially responsible organization committed to equity and sustainability
Strategic Plan
On February 15, 2023, the Metra Board adopted My Metra Our Future (pdf) as the next strategic plan for Metra. The new plan builds on Metra’s first-ever strategic plan, On Track to Excellence, which covered the 2018-22 time period. This new plan will guide the agency’s decision-making for the next five years, 2023-27.
My Metra, Our Future is a culmination of feedback we received from key stakeholders, and positions Metra to thrive in a post-pandemic environment. Through a new Mission, Vision, and set of five Strategic Goals, this plan proactively responds to the evolving priorities and needs of our agency, our customers, and our region, and asserts our evolution toward a ‘regional rail’ service model.
To track implementation of the plan and measure our success, a Strategic Plan Report Card will be published quarterly below.
- Report Card First Quarter 2023
- Report Card Second Quarter 2023
- Report Card Third Quarter 2023
- Report Card, Fourth Quarter 2023
To learn more about Metra’s previous strategic planning efforts, please view the following documents:
- On Track to Excellence Strategic Plan, November 2017: Metra’s first-ever strategic plan acknowledged the agency’s need for more funding and includes five goals that drove the agency’s activities between 2018-2022.
- Systemwide Cost Benefit Analysis of Major Capital Improvements, January 2019 This study presents a high-level comparison of 38 potential projects to improve and expand Metra’s system that grew out of Metra’s On Track to Excellence strategic planning process.
Our History
What is Metra? You may think there’s an easy answer to that question, and in one sense, there is. Metra is the service mark used for commuter rail service in northeast Illinois since 1985. But behind that simple name lies a convoluted history and a complex, multi-layered system. To understand how Metra operates, it helps to know how Metra came about.
Chicago has always been the railroad center of the nation, and it has had commuter rail service almost as long as it has had trains. Rail service peaked in the 1930s when Chicago had the largest public transportation system in the world.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s the system was failing, with the CTA, private suburban bus companies, and commuter railroad companies experiencing big financial losses. To keep the system running, the General Assembly created the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) in 1974.
At first the RTA was purely an oversight and funding agency. It did not directly operate commuter rail services, but instead paid private railroad companies through purchase-of-service agreements to do so. It also began to reverse decades of disinvestment in the overall commuter rail system.
In 1980, the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Rail Corporation (NIRCRC) was created as a separate operating unit to run commuter rail service on behalf of the RTA. In 1982, after the Rock Island and the Milwaukee Road railroads went bankrupt, NIRCRC was directly operating commuter service on those lines (Rock Island, Milwaukee District West and Milwaukee District North).
In 1983, the General Assembly reorganized the structure and funding of the RTA, and also placed the operating responsibilities on three separate service boards: the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the Suburban Bus Division (PACE), and the Commuter Rail Division (CRD). The CRD was now responsible for supervising all commuter rail transportation in northeast Illinois through purchase of service agreements with various railroad companies, including NIRCRC, which continued to operate as a separate public corporation.
Due to the complicated and patchwork nature of commuter rail at the time, the CRD in 1985 came up with the name “Metra” as a service mark for the system as a whole (short for “Metropolitan Rail”). The idea was to bring a unifying identity to all the various components, no matter who owned or operated them. Therefore, CRD and the entities it contracts with to operate the rail services in the northeast Illinois region, including NIRCRC, all use the “Metra” service mark.
That system still is in place, although the ownership and/or operators of several lines have changed.
Today, NIRCRC operates commuter service on the Metra Electric, Rock Island, Southwest Service, Heritage Corridor, North Central Service and the two Milwaukee lines. The three UP lines are operated by Union Pacific, and the BNSF line is run by BNSF Railway.
See the special 40th anniversary edition of our My Metra magazine for more Metra history.
