JEFF McMURRAY.

The Chicago area is facing the prospect of bleak service cuts to public transit if Illinois legislators adjourn this weekend without plugging a $770 million hole in the transportation budget. Transit agencies across the country have been grappling with a fiscal cliff spurred by a post-pandemic decline in ridership and the sunset of federal COVID-19 relief funding. Four of the city’s eight L train lines and more than half its bus lines could close. The impact could be even more severe in the suburb of Harvey, where 1 in 4 residents live in poverty. Harvey won federal and state funding for a major new transit hub, but service cuts could send it reeling in the opposite direction.