Toni Preckwinkle Wants to Cut Cook County's CTA Funding

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is unhappy with the city of Chicago and the CTA, so she is taking matters into her own hands. Preckwinkle wants to slash the amount of financial support Cook County gives to the CTA (we're looking at going from $1.3 million to just $675,000 per year) and have the city make up for the difference.

Of course, this probably won't sit well with Mayor Rahm Emanuel or CTA president Forrest Claypool. However, Preckwinkle remains vigilant and believes the burden is upon the city, not the whole county:

“I think there’s a possibility for the city to up its commitment,” Preckwinkle, a former Chicago alderman, told the Sun-Times on Friday. “When I was a member of the City Council, I consistently argued that the city needed to contribute more to CTA on an annual basis — and city riders are the principal users of CTA.”

For Preckwinkle, one point she pushes is that CTA riders are mostly from the city, not the suburbs. Because the source of CTA ridership is concentrated in the city, Preckwinkle believes that Cook County devotes too much of its budget to the needs of the city. Amidst talks of an impending fare hike, Preckwinkle's reprimand comes at a pretty rough time for the CTA. Preckwinkle and other Cook County board members say that the board is not required to financially support the CTA by law, but there is no doubt that such a decrease in funding would hurt the CTA, as the CTA would also have to face decreased funding from the Regional Transportation Agency.

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By Soyoung Kwak in News on November 13, 2011 1:00 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

tomdarch

Try this thought experiment: The CTA goes on strike for a week. Would non-Chicago Cook county notice? Would they have problems?

F-yeah they would notice and have problems. Without the CTA transporting a large percentage of the county's residents every day, the county area would grind to a halt. (Actually, if the CTA went on strike, they would notice it in SE Wisconsin and NW Indiana, for that matter.)

Among people who deal with transportation in the Chicago area, many (probably most) would prefer that CTA took over a good deal of Pace's bus operations, at least throughout non-Chicago Cook county. The folks at Pace are good people, but running a suburban bus system is tough. If it weren't for the geographical boundaries written into the CTA authorizing legislation at the state level, the Blue line would probably go out to Woodfield mall. And don't forget Yellow line north extension.... (Given carte blanche, we should probably re-write all that legislation. Instead of having 3 distinct service boards (CTA, Pace and Metra) we should have one unified transit system. That would be able to coordinate schedules so buses meet Metra trains at the stations, and we could have one unified fare card! Amazing, I know! Plus they would be one unified taxing body, so this city vs. suburb "we don't want to pay for you" problem could be dealt with differently.)

I think Preckwinkle is generally fantastic. (I still ask myself why any sane/smart person would want to get in the middle of all that crap.) But on this point, she's very much missing a lot of important points about how dependent the rest of the county is on Chicago, and how much the CTA "lubricates" the economic machine that ranges from the City itself all the way out across the central US. No one in Minneapolis, Grand Rapids or St. Louis like to admit it, but Chicago is the heart of the region's economy. And Toni also may not like to admit it, but the CTA is vital to that economic functioning.

But it's a good thing we're only talking about $600k out of the $1.3 billion projected 2012 operating budget. (Capital expenses like buying new trains and building new stations are a separate budget.)

twocee

So I guess CTA no longer needs to run the Purple line to Evanston, or the Yellow line to Skokie. And doesn't the Blue line go out to Forest Park?

ChicagoD

The Green terminates in Oak Park as well.

ChicagoD

With regard to trains, what's done is done. With regard to buses, the CTA should just cancel lines that serve areas outside the city. Done and done.

BlueFairlane

Let me ask Mimihaha's question a different way: What do the people of Chicago need a county government for, anyway? If Cook County wants to stop contributing to the city without which it wouldn't exist, then I say the city should stop contributing the the county. Some little suburb was talking about seceding a couple of years ago. I say screw that. Chicago should secede.

Mimihaha

How many of those people live in unincorporated areas? Practically everyone who doesn't live in the city lives in some municipality.

Joseph

Cook County population: 5.194 million

Chicago population: 2.695 milion

Over half the population of the county. Seems like complaining about county budget money being devoted to the city is non-sensical.

ChicagoD

Actually, your calculation is slightly off. Let me try to highlight the issue a different way.

Cook County population: 5.194 millionChicago population: 2.695 milion

Percentage of Chicagoans paying Cook County taxes: 100%.

So, as a Chicagoan, Preckwinkle is taking (in part) my tax money from me. In other words, she is severing another tie I have to the county, leaving me pretty much with jury duty and the Forest Preserves.