Jay-Z Announces 2010 Tour Dates. Chicago Not On List.
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Health Care Bill Heads To U.S. House Floor For Debate, Vote
Alleged Lottery Ticket Con Artists Charged
Last Thursday, the Regional Transportation Authori-tay (RTA) told Metra, Pace and CTA to start preparing emergency budgets to take effect July 1 due to a $226 million deficit in the big picture of the RTA. Springfield needs to help out or the Chicagoland area is getting some more salt in the public transportation wounds that have been inflicted with deteriorating infrastructures, higher fares and delays caused by massive renovations.
The Daily Southtown article quoted RTA executive director Steve Schlickman on the situation. He was was pretty effin' blunt. He said "riders should start to expect more expensive trips on buses and trains that are prone to breaking down and run less frequently." And he notes that if more commuters drive, the expressways will be even more clogged and will cause more pollution. Global warming, anyone? Then, Schlickman lays on a guilt trip better than our mother ever could with this one -- "We have to look at ourselves and ask, 'Are we world-class?' " he said. "Maybe we don't deserve the Olympics." Ooooooh. That's a hell of a one-two-three punch.
The RTA has warned lawmakers for over a year that 2007 was going to be the tipping point for budget crunch fuckdom. They want an increase of $400 million in annual operating expenses and $10 billion to expand service over the next five years. However, Gov. Blah Blah wants his plan to increase business taxes to boost health care to come first. You know, that would be all well and good if we thought we were getting free health care out of the deal. Since we're not thinking that's the case, we want to make sure we can still get around the city.
Secondarily, our compatriots in the RTA, the suburbanites who use Metra and Pace, don't really seem to give a shit. They think this money thing is all about bailing out CTA. They don't think they're going to get dicked if the money doesn't come through. They don't realize that Metra has used maintenance money to operate the place for the last three years. "Metra chief Phil Pagano said the crisis is reminiscent of the early 1980s, when transit was so underfunded, passengers could see the tracks below rickety floorboards."
The last time the state's formula to fund transit in the Chicago area was changed came in 1983. Let's do an update! We don't know about you, but we can't afford another fare hike. And service cuts? Uh, no. Sigh. Maybe we really will get a-crackin' on the bike.
"cta -- three track" by geekgrrl++
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So if the CTA told you they have no money, you would believe them?
I have a bridge on E 95th St or sale.
Have you ever noticed that the women who write for Chicagoist swear an awful lot?
Good report, btw, but we need the feds to start supporting mass transit, too.
Ferdy, google Safetea-Lu. The president signed the largest Federal surface transportation act in history for highways, highway safety, and transit. They can get the money, but the RTA spends money like 18 year old teenagers at the mall.
From today's Sneed column in the Sun-Times:
Sneed hears new CTA boss Ron Huberman is this/close to going snip snip.
Translation: Watch for Huberman to eliminate office jobs in the upper levels of management and administration as early as this week. Cut. Cut. Cut. Snip. Snip. Snip. Isn't belt-tightening slimming.
Just raise the fares. If you want any sort of good public transportation, you gotta ante up a little bit. Would a $2.50 fare and $.50 transfer be that bad? That's $25 round trip to work for a whole week, $30 if you transfer. Try topping that in a car at $3.50 a gallon!
Sales taxes are too high as it is. It is a huge burden for small business owners here who face major challenges gaining and retaining customers as is. More tax = More People Buying Online
Totally different meaning of "snip snip" went through my head and caused me to wonder just why anyone needed to know that Huberman was getting a vasectomy.
OK, NSH, I Googled it and read the summary, which was glowing about what this bill would do. Actually, it's almost all earmarked for highways. How exactly is that going to help public transportation systems like the RTA/CTA?
okay, $30 a week X 4 = $120. then if three times a week i make other outings during the week (round trip), that's $18 X 4 = $72. and, if i make two round trips each day during the weekend ($12 each day), that's $24 X 4 = $96. total for the month? $288. i'm thinking someone with a car is getting off better than i am. remember, not everyone just takes the el to work.
No problem Ferdy, I would include a alink but I can't
search
Safetea-lu Federal Transit Administration
This will give you the breakout of the projects earmarked with the 52.6 billion budget. Then click on the V on the map to find out how it is being used in the great lakes. The cta isn't getting much of this pie because they can't be trusted apparently without adult supervision.
jocelyn, ever hear of the Chicago Card? $75 a month gets you unlimited trips on CTA, Pace and the el. Even if they raise the price it will still be cheaper than using a car, gas, insurance, maintenance...
They need to just raise the damn fairs. I currently buy a monthly pass from trhough my work and I only pay 75.00 pre tax a month and can use it as much as I want to. By the way Jocelyn you can't own and operate much of a car for $288 in City. By the time you pay a car payment, gas, maintainence, insurance and pay to park. And pay parking tickets which you will end up getting one or two a year. Daily parking downtown is at least 125 a month and probably a lot more if convenient.
I won't mind paying more for better service but I also want them to kick the pan handlers off the L so I don't have to deal with them and they need to keep the cars cleaner. #1 get us where we are going. People need to get in the damn cars ASAP. Also they need to stream line the bus routes. In some blocks they so many damn stops. They would be better not to have so many stops with in the same long block.
The cta isn't getting much of this pie because they can't be trusted apparently without adult supervision.
Gimme a break. So the solution to mismanagement of a struggling transit system is to choke it even further?? You can slap all the lipstick you want on that pig...it's just another shitty and worthless bill that only encourages more oil consumption...
$288 a month?
Anyone who pays more than $75 a month for CTA has only themselves to blame. AN UNLIMITED MONTHLY PASS IS AVAILABLE FOR $75 A MONTH! Raise this to $100 or even $125 and it's still a deal, especially with all those trips.
You want quality, pay for it.
And yes, I would be willing to pay more for transit service, but not for the same shitty service we're getting now. Give us trains that run on time and don't smell like urine after the weekends, and stations that aren't shoddily constructed of corrugated sheet metal and rotting wood held together my layers and layers of paint, and then we'll talk...
i have a chicago card and i use it with reckless abandon. but let's face it. for whatever reason, i see people every day that have 7 day passes or seem to be putting money on their cards and stuff. why do people eat fast food when they could buy groceries and eat at home? it's a weird paradox, but the poor often have to piecemeal things together because they can't pony up things in lump sums, even though it's more cost effective. and then they end up paying more.
i was just doing the math based on the figures that i was given above. i do use my unlimited $75 pass. but there might be people who don't have the $100 or $125 or $150 at a crack to purchase that, and would end up doing money here and there and getting screwed.
and i know it's hard to believe, but i've had a couple of cars in the city, and i owned the beaters outright, had shit eagle insurance for $200 every six months, had a $75 city sticker that lasted all year, paid $100 (approx?) for the registration, and if you're careful, you can really not get any tickets. if you get two, that's about $100 a year. that's still doing pretty well, in my book.
The suburbanites will have to care. Word from the RTA is that the CTA's made cuts while Metra has not. Specifically, I heard suggestioins that the STAR line and SES will be put on ice, service frequencies might be cut by a third, and fares could be *doubled*.
Meanwhile: Anyone seen the ISTHA (state toll highway) HQ building? TAJ MAHAL. They are rolling in the cash. Why in the name of all that is holy are they allowed to spend all that cash on luxuries? If they have cash left, it should go straight to transit. Aren't tolls supposed to encourage transit use in addition to paying for the roads?
I live in the city and use both systems, and it appears to me at least that Metra is far more skilfully (and honestly) managed than the CTA is. Metra, for example, is prepared to defer certain capital expenditures to maintain service levels; at the CTA, in contrast, capital budgets (which tend to benefit the mayor's buddies) are sancrosanct, and service can (and does) go to hell if it preserves the ability to carry out frequently useless capital projects.
Likewise, on Metra, the trains are relatively clean, they run more or less on time, and the employees are reasonably industrious and civil. The CTA is squalid, the schedules are a polite fiction, and, with the exception of a few very pleasant bus driver, CTA are as a group the most thoroughly unpleasant, shiftless group of public employees that exist outside of Todd Stroger's office.