CTA: "Confusing Times Ahead"

By Andrew Peerless in News on Feb 8, 2005 3:54PM

For the love of Frank Kruesi, Chicagoist just cannot take it anymore! We’ve been trying to wrap our melons around the CTA’s financial crises ever since they began whining about underwhelming state funding and threatening service cuts last year, but two pieces of news this week leave us scratching our heads extra hard, and wondering if they’ve placed their financial operations under the control of people that lack the economic wherewithal to operate a “My First Adding Machine.”

Okay, let’s begin with some pathetic whimpering about (gasp!) budget issues, courtesy of big complainer, eternal victim-of-Springfield and CTA President Frank Kruesi. Poor Frank has been sooooo shortchanged by the state’s transit funding formula that he’s decided to renege on $3 million in planned raises for CTA employees. The $3 million in question will be used to eliminate the need for additions to the already scheduled Brown Line service cuts, and while Chicagoist is sure it’s little consolation to the shortchanged conductors and switchmen of our fair city, Frank claims to feel really terrible about the whole thing.

Chicagoist was almost feeling for the CTA on this one, until we read about this: since 2003, the CTA has been working on an $11.2 million project to wire the Red and Blue Line routes for aboveground and underground cellular phone use. This pointless addition to the city's transit system was supposed to be operational by the end of 2004, but has apparently fallen well behind schedule. That doesn't actually matter, though, since the CTA doesn't even have confirmation from cellular service providers that they'll be interested in providing service on the new lines. Keep that $11.2 million in mind the next time big Frank is complaining about "crumbling infrastructures." Blah blah blah.

While this whole shenanigan is still underway, Chicagoist would like the remind the powers that be of one thing: there is nothing more annoying in the universe than in-transit cell phone use, especially as it tends to entail Lincoln Park Trixies complaining to Sarah and Laura about how Antonio was totally supposed to call but didn’t and how they don’t know if they should call because it’s totally his turn but he’s totally hot and so she'll probably call anyway. Really, the cell phone-less tunnels were a good thing. Feh.

Let's recap: CTA employees can’t get paid because their employer is spending too much money on inoperable cell phone lines. And we thought the ever-present excrement smell on the Red Line was worth complaining about…