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Chicago's Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which oversees the Windy City's public transit agencies, recently announced it has revised revenue estimates — and not for the better.

Due to "dramatically reduced" sales tax and real estate transfer tax collections, the authority projects revenue has dropped $61 million. RTA will begin working with the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace to identify solutions to address the revenue shortfall. The authority also will seek to reduce its $36.7 million internal operating budget by 12 percent.

In April, RTA announced that revenue had dropped 9.8 percent from initial projections used to set the 2009 budget, which was adopted in December 2008. At that time, the agency worked with the various service boards to shift funds from existing programs, reduce administrative expenses, provide working cash to the transit agencies, and facilitate state and federal assistance that helped to close the gap. Revenue projections now have fallen 7 percent below April figures, RTA said.