Chicagoist Wayback Machine: The CTA Budget Crisis

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 16, 2007 2:40PM

Today we take you back to Friday, April 18th, 1980. The anchors on our evening newscasts were giants like Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson at Channel 2, John Drury at Channel 9, and the bow-tied Fahey Flynn at Channel 7, where the above clip comes from (big thanks to Fuzzy Memories for this clip).

In the clip, anchor Diane Allen reports on the top stories of the day, including a proposed CTA rate hike necessitated by a budget crisis at the RTA. See, it isn't just unique to our day and age.

The cost of the proposed rate hike twenty-seven years ago was a shiny dime, which, if you adjust for inflation and add the political intrigue of a state legislative leadership that can't agree on what to eat for lunch, translates into what we're facing today with the "Doomsday scenario."

A note: today Diane Allen is a GOP-affiliated state senator in New Jersey, where Wikipedia says she's considering a run for Congress next year. She also owns an award-winning video production company.