Who F*%$ed Up Our Federal Transportation Funds Grant?

By Karl Klockars in News on Jan 8, 2009 8:15PM

Pop quiz: There's a certain amount of time to put together a grant proposal for matching Federal funds for transportation projects we've been promised going back months. It doesn't go through. Do we blame:

A) Mayor Daley & his administration.
B) Chief Lobbyist (and former CTA head) Frank Kruesi
C) The outgoing Bush administration
D) The City Council
E) Rod Blagojevich

Crain's makes the case for almost all of the above today (G-Rod isn't really in the running for blame but what the hell, we can blame him for just about anything shy of the Hoffa disappearance and the Lindbergh kidnapping and not feel weird about it) and certainly a lot of shared shame should be going around to the tune of $153 million. Chicago was up for a huge amount of federal anti-congestion cash, which would have paid for those express bus lanes and new longer buses we were told about, as well as informational signage, which we'll get to later.

The city asked for a two-week extension so the ordinance could be approved at the Jan. 13 City Council meeting. But outgoing U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters late last week phoned Mr. Daley to tell him the request had been rejected - meaning that the city, at least for now, is out $153 million.

Frank Kruesi, the city's chief Washington lobbyist, termed the decision "astonishing, not to give us the courtesy" of another two weeks. Such short-term waivers are granted often, he said.

But that may not have occurred because Ms. Peters and other Bush appointees are in their last days in office. Ms. Peters herself was not immediately available for comment.

This kinda reminds us of when the teacher said, "Homework is due on X date," and then when you handed it in a day late, you got zero credit. It's a perfect storm of red tape and dumbassery, and once again the citizenry gets the shaft. Good thing we're all going to vote out every incumbent en masse next time an election comes around, right? Daley, of course, denied anything was his fault, saying City Hall "did everything we could...They're inflexible, the federal government. You have to be flexible. They're flexible for the banks. They're flexible for bailing everyone out. But when it comes to us in regards to this, we told them, 'We need another month on this.' They said, 'No, the next administration will handle it, Obama's administration.' So that was it."

Oh, and as long as we're talking about the CTA, some of those informational signs have already shown up, via the CTA Tattler: digital signage at the Red Line's 47th St. station shows incoming train times, taking the CTA right into the present day. Sharing the info with advertising should bring in $100 Million over the next ten years or so. How far back the rest of the signage has been pushed isn't known yet.

Photo of Mayor Daley appealing to a power higher than himself by Marcus Gilmer