Good news for the growing legion of Chicago-area mass transit advocates. U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner has reportedly walked back a House version of the surface transportation bill that would drastically cut money for Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority.

Metra and CTA rely on federal cash for rehabilitation and new construction projects: this money is tied into the federal gas tax. But the House bill would have stopped gas tax money toward public transit, with the money earmarked strictly for highway and road projects instead.

A Boehner spokesman told the The Hill, a Washington newspaper, that Republicans were considering a "revamped approach" to the transportation bill.