RTA warns of service cuts if they don't receive the $400 million owed them by Springfield by next month. That's news to Metra and CTA. more ›

Last week we linked to reports on the $3 million and counting Metra spent on investigating the finances of former chairman Phil Pagano. today Crain's Greg Hinz takes a look at the territorial pissings happening as various Metra board members and their sponsors try to position themselves to succeed outgoing chairwoman Carole Doris. It's a doozy of a read that makes one wonder how Metra's board manages to take the time to make sure trains are on the tracks and running, they're so busy protecting their turf and blocking each other. more ›

The Gordian Knot that is Illinois' budget deficit continues to grow to the point where not even bold moves can solves it. The latest addition to the woes is the $289.3 million in delinquent finding from Springfield to the Regional Transportation Authority for this year. That's in addition to $124 million the state owes RTA for next year. more ›

A bankruptcy filing by the widow of former Metra Chief Phil Pagano paints a portrait of a man with enormous debt in need of immediate access to cash, and raises questions about how that all came to be. more ›

According to a recent investigation conducted by the Better Government Association and Fox Chicago News, a government audit found rampant abuse of the Regional Transportation Authority's "Seniors Ride Free" program--which lets senior citizens ride for free on the CTA, Pace, and Metra--with a number of senior free-ride passes being used after the registered cardholders had died. The RTA, who conducted the audit, is placing the blame on friends and relatives of deceased cardholders who are using the free-ride passes illegally, since there is no mechanism to automatically deactivate cards once a cardholder passes away. more ›

The transit crisis has been averted--and let's raise our lunchtime glasses to toast that miracle, shall we? --but it brought out some of the weirdest and worst in our local politicians. These are some of our favorite lines from the entire, oh, what should we call it, bill-capade? more ›

Well, it wouldn't be a real week if we didn't have a least one troubling post about the state of the CTA, so here goes: One-fourth of the buses are 16 years old, and one-fifth of the tracks are "slow-zones." And it would cost $6 billion to fix this. Recall that the CTA budget has two sections: Capital and Operating. Most of the Doomsday talk is about operating costs, which means we've all been... more ›

The US House subcommittee on highways and transit will conduct a hearing here on October 29 to determine what kinds of transit improvements Chicago would need before we could host the Olympics. Why yes, October 29 is a mere 6 days before our public transit system starts collapsing into itself like a dying star! "Mayor Richard Daley, Blagojevich, officials from the Regional Transportation Authority, the three transit agencies and the U.S. Olympic Committee will... more ›

The big news yesterday was Rod Blagojevich's tax proposals. Coming as part of his combined State of the State and budget address to the General Assembly yesterday, Blago is proposing the largest tax hike in state history. Along with raising taxes (which he said he wouldn't do during his re-election campaign), he is also planning to increase spending by 9.5%, to a record $60.1 billion; $7 billion of that would come from the new gross... more ›

The good news: Metra posted a single-year ridership record with approximately 80 million passengers. This was partly due to construction on the Dan Ryan, expanded rail service, and high gas prices. Amtrak also rang in with a 69 percent increase on expanded routes between Chicago and St. Louis, Carbondale and Quincy. The Chicago-to-St. Louis line showed a 95 percent increase in riders for last quarter over the same period last year. The news: The Regional... more ›

Who is Ogilvie? more ›

While we were busy obsessing over Ward politics and aldermanic races, all kinds of newsworthy events happened in the spectator sport of local Chicago politics. Lets take a look back at the week so far: Todd Stroger is asking Cook County's elected officials for budget cuts, in an attempt to trim the deficit. Facing a nearly $500 million shortfall, Stroger is asking Sheriff Tom Dart, State's Attorney Dick Devine, and Clerk of the Court Dorothy... more ›

Drive Less. Live More. The new slogan and website from the Regional Transportation Authority is mostly aimed at providing details and tools for using public transportation. The tools are not necessarily new, some have been around for year, but it is great that the RTA has finally put all of these together in a central site. The site contains commuter calculators, which estimated for us that if we drove to work we would be spending... more ›