Frank Kruesi out as CTA Boss, Huberman Takes Over

By Laura Oppenheimer in News on Apr 19, 2007 3:50PM

Mister C, you win! Your guess of May 1 for the end of Frank Kruesi's career in our Frank Kruesi Dead Pool has won you a lovely Chicagoist T-shirt. Email Rachelle@chicago.com to claim your prize. For the rest of you — well, you can rejoice as well because the glory days of CTA President Frank Kruesi are over. Mayor Daley announced at this morning's press conference that Kruesi is retiring. Ron Huberman, the Mayor’s chief of staff, will take over the ailing CTA. Kruesi was appointed by Daley ten years ago to help turn around the agency.

Though Daley denied Kruesi would get the ax after his landslide victory in February, the signs were there. The Sun-Times reports that people in Springfield — specifically House Speaker Michael Madigan — were so pissed off at Kruesi that they refused to help out the CTA until Daley appointed someone new.

The laundry list of problems facing the CTA right now is a long one. In addition to the fires and slow zones, CTA employee retirement funds may run out this year. Oh yeah, and there may be more service cuts and fare hikes coming this year.

The new CTA boss, Ron Huberman, is a Chicago Police Department veteran with a masters in Business and Social Service Administration from the U of C. He is also the former director of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

While we think new blood can only help the CTA (aka "a third world transit system" according to a couple of Aldermen), we have no idea how much influence a new boss will have on fixing the myriad of problems facing the system. All we know is that whatever Kruesi was doing, it wasn't working.

Image via the CTA.