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Today Gov. Quinn called on the CTA and Metra to not raise fares in exchange for state aid. Meanwhile, with just a little over 24 hours left in the fall session, state legislators are considering a bill that would cut back on those free senior rides that Blago forced the CTA to institute. The new bill would set a threshold that only those seniors who earn below a yearly income of $22,218 would qualify for free rides. As the Trib points out, though, Quinn didn't say if he would refuse to sign this new legislation should the CTA and Metra raise fares anyway.
"We need a commitment, not only from CTA, but Metra and Pace that they are going to have a moratorium on any fare increases for the next year or two," Quinn said. "I think it's important to make that clear. I think the people of northeastern Illinois need to be able to get to work and get to school and get to where they need to go without having to pay more."
Earlier this month, the CTA outlined its 2010 budget which included fare hikes across the board as well as service cuts. Metra, meanwhile, has also said they'll be raising fares starting next year.
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I wish Springfield would leave transit funding to the people who use it. As long as transit is dependent on state or federal funds to operate, it's never going to achieve a business model that reflects ridership in any meaningful way.
The day I stop subsidizing your roads is the day you can stop subsidizing my transit.
Bingo.
And the day Chicago stops subsidizing downstate in a whole host of things is the day I listen to downstaters who want to stop paying for things that benefit us.
And I say this as a native of downstate.
I'm honestly for the sepertion of Illinois into two states. Cut it east west at about Peoria or so. Let the folks in Decatur and Quncy peddle their papers elsewhere. It'll end up like West Virginia down there in a generation or two.
The bold fact of it is this, downstate doesn't like paying for things "the blacks" up in Chicago use. The racism in Chicago is godawful, but south of I80 those folks start to slink back to Jim Crow in their thinking.
On second though, fuck Peoria, cut it at I80, just to be sure.
Interesting point
I'm not, if only because of the agricultural resources of this state. But I certainly see your point.
I admit the racism where I grew up (and which was more Southern than Northern in many ways) was very, very strong, and remains so (though things have improved much since my childhood) but make no mistake about the enduring power of racism--especially white on black--in Cook County. Even as a native of the part of the state that was more sympathetic to the Confederacy than the Union--even with that--some of the racist practices I saw in Chicago upon moving here years ago shocked me.
And it's more than just blacks. Much of it is simply rural and semi-rural vs city values and all that cultural stuff, etc. Believe me or not, but I did spend much of my life downstate, and my family still lives there. It's much more complex than you think.
Yeah, I know, but I was pretty shocked when I spent time in Peoria (which is more central Illinois) and Springfield at just how open people would be in their racist comments. Mind you, I was working for education reform for "the blacks" (which was how more than a couple downstate senators referred to African-Americans) so perhaps I saw more ugliness than is usual.
I think the bigotry of the rural is different int that it is about the unknown more than the experiential. The racism in Chicago is rooted in this profound anger, whereas the bigotry I saw down there came largely from ignorance and fear.
It's all ugly and awful, nonetheless.
The whole city/rural values thing is dicey ground. That treads too close to "Real America" thinking for my taste. Folks in Quincy like Calzones and bokbind just like those fancy people up in Lincoln Park.
"The whole city/rural values thing is dicey ground. That treads too close to "Real America" thinking for my taste."
Good point. I hate the real America crap. But the issue is important, of course.
Springfield has a very interesting racial history, as do many major towns downstate.
What made it interesting for me growing up is that I grew up in a very urban area (yes, there is at least one more pretty urban area in Illinois, as many people in Chicago do not know.), yet farms and rural folk--party of my family came from this area--were always close by. So we had an interesting mix of culture, etc.--and that's not even accounting for the various migration patterns in Illinois since the post-Revolutionary period, which is one reason this state, while so maddening, is also fascinating in a way that Iowa or Wisconsin are not.
Peoria has a pretty large south-east Asian population. A good friend of mine grew up there and about half her high school graduating class (2000) were Indian.
But there are some long stretches that feel way more like the blasted wastelands of Iowa or Wisconsin. Brrr.
Do you know if there were any "Sundown Towns" in southern Illinois? I know Roger Ebert talked about their being some ugly housing "covenants" to keep out black families when he was a kid in Springfield.
"Sundown towns"
Yes, I remember hearing some stories about it somewhere. Can't remember the source unfortunately.
Oops, yes Loewen, that was the guy.
Yes, there were Sundown Towns. Supposedly, the town where my dad grew up was one, but I not sure how rigidly that doctrine was followed (certainly, blacks were not welcome there until very, very recently). Further south of where I grew up--down where even my slight twang would be regarded as Yankee--there were all but certainly de-facto Sundown Towns, at least unofficially, within my lifetime. I cannot speak for Central, Eastern or Western Illinois with any authority on this issue, though, only Southern Illinois.
Convenents were used widely in Chicago and the 'burbs as well, as I am sure you know.
Drove to Memphis a few weeks back and was trying to figure out the point on the highway where the Southern drawl first started to appear. We didn't make enough stops to get an idea though.
Oops, found it. James Loewen wrote a whole book on them! Goodness, to the LIBRARY!
Apparently Anna, Illinois was a less than welcoming acronym.
Problem is that Illinois as a unified state makes no sense. Chicago is up in the very top in this Great Lakes Northern and urban area, while a good portion of the rest of the state is culturally and physically closer to Dixie. I mean down at the bottom you are just a stones throw from Memphis and the affairs of Chicago would seem mysterious and a million miles away.
You are right about that. Migration patterns and all that, plus some differences in soil fertility and some minor differences in geography, all play into this.
In some ways I can't blame them. Wait I've got to pay for some subway thing way up in that Chicago-town?
Yet we pay for welfare and related benefits for a decent percentage of people in the downstate counties, too. And not just in St Clair, Madison and Sangamon counties, either. And those roads, none of which are tolls, at least at my last count, are likely more heavily subsidized by us due to the lower population densities down there. Please do correct me if I am wrong, though. It's been a while since I've looked at the numbers.
Oh I completely agree. They all are benefitting from the public good. I'm saying that they may not realize it, and that transit issues seem as far away to them as funding a highway drainage project outside Carbondale would seem to us.
Even my parents, who realize I rely in the CTA, et al for jobs, etc. and who love the CTA when they visit because they don't have to deal with evil Chicago drivers or evil parking fees, don't make the connection. And they are not particularly dumb folks.
Depends on how you define "drawl." There is strong twang among my friends in Springfield, and down by Carbondale you can swear you are in Kentucky. Missouri, too, has the twang. Put a few beers in me with my family back home and I will revert to my old very mild twang (not that I mind; I'm just saying), and I'm a good 100 miles north of the Ohio River.
Yeah, I get antsy as I head south. I'm citified on a cellular level. If I don't have a grid to go by I feel at a loss. All that clean air, sunshine and good simple folk...bleh.
I worked in East St. Louis for a summer and the accents there were pretty thick on folks. Mind you, that's not even as far down as places like Metropolis and Carbondale either. Though the folks in Misery are an influence.
"Yeah, I get antsy as I head south. I'm citified on a cellular level. If I don't have a grid to go by I feel at a loss. All that clean air, sunshine and good simple folk...bleh."
I understand, though as a person who can tell soybeans from wheat and all that, such things amuse me about Chicago natives (I assume you are one), especially as agricultural pretty much built this city and still accounts for much of its economic health. But man, I love that grid (then again, most of the Midwest follows a grid pattern of some sort, if you consider the land laws of the immediate post-Revolutionary period). That said, I am no farmer--far from it.
I helped pay my way through college with 4-5 years of summer and holiday work in East St Louis. Interesting times. I actually have some pretty strong ties to that city. It's so sad what that city, and so many formerly industrial cities, have become. It's even sadder when many whites blame the blacks for a decline that has more to do with historical patterns and economic change than anything else.
Man, I have actual work to do, and you people go and have an interesting discussion. Figures.
"If I don't have a grid to go by I feel at a loss."
I, too, find this funny about Chicago people. Personally, I find the grid boring as hell. I figured it out in about a month and have been wishing for something like terrain ever since. I also chuckle at a Chicagoan's distorted view of distance, thanks to the amount of time it takes to move between places that are relatively close together, by my standards. Life-long city minds perceive five miles the way I perceive 20.
I'd say the drawl line roughly follows I-74 and I-72.
As far as racism, I find Chicago far more racist than the places I've lived down south ... though I would never say Southern racism has vanished by a long shot. I do think, though, that Southerners were forced to confront their racism in a way Chicagoans were not, as the northern cities lived under the myth that since they didn't have Jim Crow, they already were open and integrated. They didn't see the compelling need for change because they compared favorably to Mississippi, so they stayed closer to a status quo that continues to this day.
Hascat, are you saying transit should be completely unsubsidized? If so, can you point to a single major unsubsidized transit system in the world? And by major, I mean a system that provides transit options to hundreds of thousands like CTA and Metra do daily. I know for a fact that there isn't one in North America and I am pretty sure a major unsubsidized system doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. I'm always curious where people get the idea that a Chicago system should ever be completely unsubsidized and funded through fares only, considering there isn't a working example of something like that anywhere else.
"free rides" was a horrendous idea that shouldn't have happened. i'm glad they're re-examining it.
"free rides" was a horrendous idea that shouldn't have happened. i'm glad they're re-examining it.
in the scheme of things, compared to the freeride Madigan and Daley have been giving to their cronies, this pales. I still say old people( not rich) and poor working poor people should get free rides.