CTA Budget Eliminates Overnight L Service

By Margaret Lyons in News on Oct 1, 2004 5:39PM

The CTA is nine kinds of fucked right now. They have apparently put together two budgets, one that includes additional state subsidies and one that doesn't. Aldermen got advance warning yesterday of what the no-subsidy plan looks like, and it's pretty terrible. The plan would eliminate all-night L service completely—eliminating Red and Blue Line service from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. and Brown and Orange Line service from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. We know that traffic on the L is really light overnight, but 10 p.m.?

In addition to scaled back L runs, the budget calls for eliminating 30 bus routes and reducing service on 64 others. The plan also eliminates 1,000 union jobs. Both budgets keep the base fare at $1.75 but raise the cost of "paratransit and taxi access program for the disabled from $1.75 to $3.50; [boost] parking fees by 25 cents to $3; [and raise] U-Pass rates by a dime to 70 cents." Gah.

So we're going to take the extremely controversial "don't cut CTA routes" position because we like to be scrappy like that. The worse the CTA gets, the fewer people take it; the fewer people using the CTA, the less money flowing in. That's a complex economic system we just described right there, so we'll boil it down for those of you who want to play along at home: money good, waiting for busses bad. We know the CTA has a history of crying wolf a bit, so this could all calm down a bit but…no all-night L service? How are we supposed to get places?