76 Comments - Skeeter - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:23 am: One note about this: For twenty years, the CTA has been threatening to cut the 125 Water Tower Express and the 157 Streeterville. I rode them back in the mid-1980s, and I remember the specific threats to cut the routes then. If after twenty years these routes are still a drag, why are they still being operated in the same manner? It is amazing that in twenty years, the leadership of the CTA remains inept. - Squideshi - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:34 am: Let me reiterate that if legislators do not recognize this situation as a problem, and do not take action to attempt to make the situation less likely to occur again in the future, they are simply not doing their jobs. For example, one thing that could be done is a law automatically putting into effect the previous year’s budget when no budget agreement has been reached by a certain date. Watch your legislators! Which ones will fail to act on this important issue, and how will you hold them accountable for that failure? - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:40 am: There has been a lingering feeling that with Chicago Democrats in charge of the entire state government, a disproportionate amount of public largess is winding up in Chicago. What I mean as disproportionate is exactly that; Chicago has been getting far more than it has in the past. There is fine reasons for this, and Chicago pays more than it gets in return most of the time, however since 2002 there has been a feeling that our elected officials fail to recognize 101 out of our 102 counties. This is a ridiculous weakness among our current elected leaders. There has been a willfull blindness among them to ignor Illinois and cater to their political bases. There is a reason smart politicians based themselves in Springfield and spend half their time in Chicago - it keeps them in touch. Since 2002 with the political lopsidedness of this blue state, and the demographical lopsidedness of this state, there has been a feeling that if you are not Chicagoan, you don’t count anymore. So, due to this feeling, and due to the fact that we are in special sessions giving the Republicans added weight, it doesn’t surprise me that the Chicago Democrats running Illinois discovered that their fannies were exposed and failed to catch this in time. I believe we need diversity in government. Not just lip service the Illinois Democrats give diversity, but real partnerships within this state to bridge differences among us politically. Right now I am LEAD to believe that diversity to Democrats is just different looking people believing the same narrowly focused thing, not real diversity of opinion and ideas. - Mr. W.T.Rush - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:41 am: Let’s watch Vandalia Frank bounce that bright ball out into the street as Blaggo and Co race after it. Great Fun And of course as soon as Vandalia is done then Tom Cross the the Sock Puppets can go to work - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:42 am: So, this entire mass transit fiasco could have been prevented if political diversity was respected and compromise within Illinois was a normal part of our governmental process. Of cource, state transportation should look at the ENTIRE state, not just Chicago’s needs! - Wumpus - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:46 am: Let them ride the Millineum Park Bean. How much money was stolen or wasted on that whole project. - Carfree Chicago - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:50 am: “Realtors are not happy with anything that might make a bad situation even a little worse?” And massive transit cuts in a city that depends on its transit system will make the real estate situation better how? Had they spoken up for transit and proposed alternative funding, I might have understood. But do they really think transit doesn’t affect property values? This makes them sounds totally ignorant. NAHB has found that transit is the second-greatest factor affecting home pricing (after waterfront). - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:55 am: ==Since 2002 with the political lopsidedness of this blue state, and the demographical lopsidedness of this state, there has been a feeling that if you are not Chicagoan, you don’t count anymore.=== That may be the “feeling” but it doesn’t really match up to reality very well, except for maybe with state employee roles. For instance, Exelon provided much of the money for the Ameren rebates. Downstate coal projects have been given lots more attention than ever before. There’s a bunch of money for ethanol plants. Where, exactly, has Downstate been short-changed? Maybe this would be a good QOTD. - Squideshi - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:55 am: “So, this entire mass transit fiasco could have been prevented if political diversity was respected and compromise within Illinois was a normal part of our governmental process.” Bingo! That’s exactly what Greens mean when we say that one of our Ten Key Values is Respect for Diversity, and it is one reason that we believe in things like Proportional Representation and Consensus Based Decision Making. What the Democratic and Republican leadership do not seem to realize is that how a decision is made is often just as important, if not more important, than the actual decision made. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:56 am: Have you been on vacation Squid? Welcome back. - Truthful James - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:57 am: Well, the governor could un-veto and accept the budget. The legislature could then somehow twist an appropriation for the CTA in a supplement. But it is not going to solve the basic public transportation mismanagement problem, just dump more money in and postpone reform to another day in a land far away. Who are the riders going to blame for this? The dems or the Repubs? Will they remember in 2008? O will they merely look at the palm cards and vote as directed? - FED UP - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:57 am: why do we have three seperate transit authoritys. CTA RTA METRA matbe if we only had one set of managment one set of rules one payroll system common vehicles and standard parts the cost savings would be huge. But with all these patronage jobs to hand out that will never happen. So no there should not be any tax increase money is being wasted everyday at these agencys cutting routes isnt whats needed cutting three seperate managment teams is and a slight fare increase. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 9:58 am: ===Well, the governor could un-veto and accept the budget. === Impossible. - VanillaMan - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:01 am: That is why I am calling it a feeling. There is little to back it up, but then again, most political feelings are like that anyway. How many times have we been seeing feelings turn into votes and crystalizing into political impact? - Squideshi - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:03 am: “Have you been on vacation Squid? Welcome back.” I was actually in Amarillo, Texas on business; and outside of that, I have been keeping pretty busy with petitioning and precinct organizing. Add to that the fact that Chicago has been chosen to host the Green Party’s national nominating convention and our annual statewide membership meeting is next month, and that should give you some idea. One thing is for sure–I can’t stay away from CapitolFax for very long! - so-called "Austin Mayor" - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:15 am: I’m not suggesting that folks who depend on public transportation should engage in civil disobedience that would slow automobile traffic, e.g. Critical Mass, but I’m suggesting that such a thing might be an effective PR stunt. – SCAM - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:28 am: SCAM- That might work, but then again, the folks on the Ike might not even notice the difference:-) - Levois - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:29 am: I wonder why Emil Jones as President of the Senate couldn’t just find a way to squeeze the CTA bailout onto the schedule instead of asking the CTA to holdout on the fare increases and service cuts? - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:32 am: How many of the folks on here sniping the CTA as mismanaged actually depend on riding it to get around the city? Just curious. For those of us who do ride the L, there’s been some improvement since Huberman was installed — for instance the slow zone reduction project was a wise choice that is yielding immediate results. Yeah, there will always be some boondoggles like the Block 37 project, but let’s not punish the average CTA rider for the CTA’s role within the scheming that is urban development in Chicago. Some people are just anathema to any publicly subsidized “utility” such as the CTA on principles. I suppose the state should also stay out of building and maintaining public roads and funding public safety and education as well, on the same argument that there’s some bureaucracy and patronage involved. Perhaps we should just abolish the entire state government and we can all go it alone — it’ll be like the good ol’ days of the 19th Century all over again. Give me a break. Mass transit is an essential part of what makes Chicago a world-class city and not just another Detroit or Minneapolis. At a time when the state should be investing money in rehabilitating and expanding the system, they are choking it to death. State leaders need to stop patching the leak every year with a last-minute bailout and devise a way fund transit (within and without Chicago) on a long-term basis. If there’s a silver lining to this doomsday scenario it’s that some long-term thinking actually might happen. - Captain America - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:36 am: I don’t think you can blame the RTA-CTA-PACE for proceeding with the “doomsday plan” sa scheduled. It’s already been postponed. Fiscal reality trumps the political surrealism that has characterized the 2007 executive-legislative political gridlock. Too bad Governor Blagojevich and Senate President Jones could not get anything done for 9 months. By intentionally pushing the session into overtime,despite the absence of any fiscal crisis, they created our current dilemma. The Hamos plan coould have passed easily on its own merits before May 31 if the Governor had not promised to veto it because of his philosophical opposition to a modest sales tax increases that would have benefited the working people he claims to represent. Blago and Jones still have no viable plan despite the impending mass transit meltdown. Now would be the time for the Governor to call for a weekend special session. But it’s a classic case of the Governor calling wolf too often. His empty rhetoric and political posturing would be exposed for the entire world too see/understand. The real estate industry mindlessly opposes real estate transfer tax intiatives,whether times are good or bad. The opposed a modest ioncreas in Evanston to support affordable housing when times were still relatively good. Althouugh I was honestly expecting that reason and common sense would prevail among our political movers and shakers,now,I won’t mind very brief “doomsday” service cuts. Senate President Emil Jones will be dumped by his caucus next January for his many lkeadership failures this session, including the mass transit mess, and the Governor eventually will be held accountable for his irresponsible intransigence. Senator John Cullerton got it right at the mass transit rally that the mass transit funding was far more important to his lakefront constituents than the State budget. All “heck” is going to break out when people experience the consequences of political dysfunction at the highest levels of illinois government. I can’t really see that Republicans can gain from this because Tom Cross has intentionally obstructed the Hamos bill for his own parochial political reasons. I am not opposed to the capital project bill. but a bipartisan political consensus has been achieved on the mass transit bill. Unfortunately, there is no similar cosensus on funding a major capital program. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:37 am: How come, if the Governor holds the budget process “hostage” to advance his health care plan, he’s an obstructionist worthy of impeachment, but if Watson and Cross hold up the mass transit bill for a capital bill, they’re just shrewdly negotiating? - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:46 am: Anon, who said that? - GA Watcher - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:49 am: Anonymous: Because he is. - Anon - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:51 am: Carefree, you overestimate the people running the lobbying operation for the Realtors. They are ignorant. There could be a proposal that would guarantee the elimination of cancer in return for $1 fee increase in the transfer tax and the Realtor lobby would stil oppose it. It’s called greed. - lake county democrat - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:53 am: So who are the downstate Dems who are on record that they wouldn’t vote for the Guv’s plan and be done with it? - True Comparison - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:56 am: “The real estate industry mindlessly opposes real estate transfer tax intiatives,whether times are good or bad.” Capt., you must have forgotten that the Realtors supported a fee on filing real estate transfers to support affordable housing and rent subsidies and it passed 2 years ago. Unfortunately, the administration has yet to implement the program to any degree. Real estate has basically propped up the economy for the past 10 years. Where do you think our economy would be without real estate development. It might be considered to be “mindless” to support every tax and spend idea that comes along. For sure the needs are plenty, but we can’t simply tax and spend our way out of every problem. - Truthful James - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:02 am: Anon: “Greed”? Don’t understand. The realtors don’t get the the money, the sellers and buyers depending on the relationship pay the transfer taxes at closing. It just changes the final costs/distributions on the closing statement. Real estate commissions are different line item. It is, rather, a matter of principle. Why soak these people for the failings of the politicians to fund the pension system directly? Out of sight, out of mind. The transfer tax has gone way beyond the amount of money necessary for counties to affix stamps and file. It has become a form of sales tax. Here they propose to increae the pseudo sales tax by one percent ($10 per $1,000.) - Team Sleep - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:05 am: What does it cost to ride the L and the Metra? I’m curious because MetroLink in StL was forced to raise rates. They had to because Missouri was not going to merely “bail them out”. They still get assistance, but not nearly as much assistance as the board would like. Maybe passengers should just eat the extra cost. After all, is it more plausible to ride the trains in than one’s car? I would think so. And yes, I realize this is an overly-simplified suggestion. But rather than merely hand them over a Brinks truck full of cash, allow for the possibility of across-the-board round-trip, daily and monthly passes. I’m also sure someone will remind me of how much rates have gone up. But if the CTA were a business, they would be gone by now. - Just Observing - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:14 am: It’s not the realtors that pay the transfer tax so I don’t really know how its greed on their part. I don’t think we need to increase the transfer tax on homeowners who are already taxed enough. I didn’t even know what a transfer tax was until I purchased a condo… it was like a kick in the stomach.. a lot of money I had to pay. Now the government wants taxpayers to foot the bill for incompetent, corrupt, patronage-ridden transit agencies. - Taylor Street - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:28 am: To make sure this is framed accurately - the Illinois General Assembly will be giving the City of Chicago - with one vote - the ability to raise $3 billion in taxes over the next thirty years. The annual net will be almost $100 million a year over the next thirty of the bond hence $ 3 billion. It will bypass existing law mandating that if you want to increase a transfer tax you must get approval from the voters. While this may not seem excessive to those who are trying to “save mass transit” - the real point is that folks who are trying to get into the average home in Chicago - priced at about $280,000 will end up paying more. That’s your cop, fireman, union laborer, nurse and teacher. So much for politicians who talk about housing affordability and do nothing about it. So who’s greedy? Furthermore, I dont ever remember voting for a member of any transit authority. So once again - should this $3billion tax increase pass - we’ll send millions of dollars a year to a government agency and have no control over it. Who’s ignorant now? - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:29 am: TS- CTA is generally $1.75 a ride, Metra is around $5 a ride to go from end of the line to downtown on weekdays. CTA already has a monthly unlimited fare card for $75, and it’s one of the great bargains in Chicagoland transit. Under “Doomsday” it will go up to $84. Still a great bargain. The single ticket cash customers will be socked with the greatest increase, with rail going up to $3 a ride during rush hour and $2.50 during off-peak. Like the ISTHA revised toll charges and the effort to get everyone on the I-Pass, maybe “Doomsday” isn’t all bad news if it motivates more people to get the 30 day pass. - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:35 am: I have the feeling the extra $9 is not going to motivate too many regular CTA customers to drive their car downtown instead of ride the train, when downtown parking can cost as much as $30 a day. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:40 am: Taylor, the Chicago City Council, which voters do elect, will have to approve it after the elected General Assembly does. The CTA is controlled by an elected leader, the mayor. So, your argument is pretty flawed. - Team Sleep - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:44 am: Six, thanks for the info. $84 a month is cheap when you consider the wear-and-tear your car would suffer if you drove into the city from Naperville or Joliet or wherever. D.C.’s Metro is the same type of scenario. Nice transport system and much, much cheaper and convenient than hitting the Beltway in the morning and at night. Single tickets are a good deal if you only make it into the city every once in a while. I used to take the MetroLink in from East St. Louis when I would go to a concert or ballgame and it was always well worth the $3 or $4. It was also a great deal and service around times like the Final Four, Mardi Gras and the World Series when parking was expensive and sparse. So I would have to say that maybe people should just admit that the “doomsday scenario” is inevitable and pony up the extra cash for a month’s worth of transporation. One reason why I am not sympathetic is due to living in an area where people often times must commute 30 or 40 miles one way to work where there is no public transportation. And when gas is $3 a gallon, that is not an easy pill to swallow. Sometimes, the trip is an inevitability, and people cannot expect a family to take up its roots and move so the worker(s) in the family can be closer to the office(s) or plant(s). - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:48 am: People, it’s not just the money. If your mass transit commute time was about to increase by 50 percent or even double because of the cutbacks, or if the new schedules didn’t synch up at all with your work schedules, you would seriously consider driving. If you have no experience riding mass transit, it’s best that you not make predictions from your safe, car-enabled environment. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:49 am: I’m the long-winded poster from above. Two things: 1) The cash fare increase hits the people living hand-to-mouth the hardest. Us Yuppies can afford the monthly card but a lot of people cannot. That extra $10, $15, $20 or more paid over the course of the month is big money to someone who earns low wages. 2) The “doomsday” isn’t paying more, it’s severe service cuts. The comments about the low cost of the CTA demonstrate a profound ignorance of the mass transit funding crisis. If they just wanted to jack fares up to cover operating costs I actually wouldn’t mind that, but it is the long-term costs — pensions and capital spending — that are posing the dilemma here. For instance, the system is antiquated and breaks down regularly. But the CTA cannot possibly budget money to fix it if it is already dipping into capital funds just to keep the system operating through the end of the year. Thus, because the CTA is denied the funding needed just keep operations let alone spend appropriately on the capital infrastructure, the infrastructure deteriorates further rather than improving. I think those who deny that we need to spend money on critical public infrastructures (in Chicago, the CTA and Metra qualify as such, far more so than in most cities) would also say that the average Joe who doesn’t have health insurance is fine because he can always just go to the ER if he gets sick. By being short-sighted and tight-fisted in spending to maintain the system now we are just delaying the inevitable and undermining the transit system. There are many public agencies that do not have elected officials on their administrative boards. Bottom line is some people are so greedy that their response to any government spending of any kind on something that doesn’t help them directly is us try to “tax and spend” our way out of a problem and something that hurts the little guy. I can assure you that the little guy in Chicago will be a lot more hurt by not being able to get to work on time, or worse still, ultimately losing his or her job because the state decided to fiddled while the transit system continued to fall apart. Chicago can be more like New York, London, and Paris, or it can be more like Detroit and St Louis, and unfortunately the folks down in Springfield have a large say in which direction the city moves. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:52 am: One other thing — many CTA customers don’t have a car or don’t want to use it on a daily basis. For instance, the better-to-do on the North Side like living in a city because they can basically take the train where they need to go and only use their cars (if they own them) when it is really necessary. They don’t have to pay for parking or gas on those days they take the train. These folks can admittedly afford higher fares but can’t afford the system cuts, and will take cabs or buy a car or move to a city that has these features. To the degree that Chicago’s economy is driven by its finance, legal, and other white-collar professions, its fortunes are certainly influenced by the availability of mass transit. As to the poor and working-class folks who take the CTA, a lot of them just can’t afford anything else. But hey, at least they’ll save money on their real estate transfer taxes, right? - Garp - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:53 am: Is the Governor still planning on vetoing the mass transit bill? If so, is one of the reasons he is negotiating about a capitol bill with the minority leader with casinos so that the Republican’s will be willing to override his mass transit veto? Does he want to be overwridden so mass transit gets funding and he can say he tried to stop the tax increase? - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:54 am: Rich - I do understand your point, especially about the affected bus routes. Still, the 30 day pass is a bargain at $75 or $84, and no rail service is proposed to be cut with “Doomsday”. TS - Please keep in mind there is no fare transferability between CTA and Metra, so you have to pay a separate fare on each. And finding a parking space at a Metra station is not always an easy task, and it will usually cost you an extra $1.50 if you can find one. - Taylor Street - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:54 am: Rich - You are correct in that the Chicago City Council will have to approve it and that the accountability lies with the Mayor. If there was an alternative to him - your argument mayn hold more weight - but there is no one to replace him anytime soon. Perhaps I should have finished by indicating that once the City Council gets their hands on it - Aldermen will likely vote transit over the transfer tax. Regardless - Daley won’t lose his job over the tax increase - likely no Aldermen will either. Then perhaps the next way the transfer tax can be utilized - once this precendent is set - is to bail someone else out. Your guess is as good as mine - but we can all agree there are some big pensions to pay. Otherwise - it remains a $3 billion dollar tax; over thirty years; paid for by homesellers who will be stripped of their equity in a downmarket to pay for transit when other taxes should have been considered. I think, at least on that point - I am factually correct. - Truthful James - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:57 am: I see no mention of this: When it comes to keeping workers, the employer is likely to increase wages to cover that additional cost of transit. Yes it affects ever so slightly his profit margin, but he will do it. The additional cost of public transit is less than if he were to subsidize parking. In fact, expect to see an increase in monhly passes and after a return to reality (after the first shock wave passes through) routes will be reestablished and there will have been a revenue neutral solution. One thing the CTA can do is release its monopoly situation on the routes and express routes it is giving up. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 11:57 am: This thirty year thing is weird. Why use that number? And other taxes are in the mix - the sales tax. You might want to identify who you’re posting for, by the way. Also, for others, I should have added to my comment above that if weekend service is eliminated by PACE, then a whole lot of service employees won’t be able to get to work at all. - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:00 pm: And, Truthful, I’ll believe that when I see it. I doubt you’ll have more than a small handful of employers increasing wages. Plus, as I pointed out, it’s not just the money. It’s the schedules. A few extra bucks a month from a rare employer won’t make up for an extra half hour or hour per day in a commute - if service is available at all. - Truthful James - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:09 pm: Goodness, Rich, you do have a POV, but as you say, it is your Blog. We shall see - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:12 pm: Truthful, wishful thinking is not a plan, nor an excuse to avoid doing something. Try to be a bit more realistic. - Skeeter - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:12 pm: I still just don’t view this as “doomsday.” From my neighborhood (Streeterville): Two bus lines will be cut — the 157 and the 151. I used to ride the 157 but found it unreliable. That was interesting, since it was rarely crowded. The CTA just can’t operate it well. Moreover, there are a bunch of other lines that go to the same general area (notably the 151 and the 124). Yet the 157 continues to be on the chopping block, as it has been for, literally, 20 years. Similarly, with the 125 — service is duplicated by a number of other routes (again, the 151 and I believe there are others). The 125 has been on the chopping block for 20 years also. How do you give an agency more money when it has proven that it cannot efficiently use the money that it has? For 20 years it failed to efficiently operate those two lines or cut them if they cannot be run efficiently. When the CTA starts making the tough decisions (which should include more union concessions — bad drivers are not disciplined and they remain far overpaid) — then the CTA can ask for more money. Until the CTA moves forward to reform, I don’t want to see more tax dollars tossed at it. - Skeeter - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:13 pm: Typo in my post above — the 125 and not the 151 will be cut. My bad. - Taylor Street - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:15 pm: Rich - The weird thirty year thing is this - While the city council is required to act within 6 months the legislation subjects and ties the city to an intergovernmental agreement with the CTA THAT WILL BE IN PLACE FOR THE TERM EXPIRING NO EARLIER THAN THE FINAL MATURITY OF THE PENSION BONDS – STATED TO BE THE YEAR 2039. The legislation mandates the intergovernmental agreement to be entered into no less than 60 days prior to the issuance of bonds or notes to pay for CTA retiree benefits. Any yes - at your request, I am proud to work with and for REALTORS. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:20 pm: Someone tossed out the notion of privatizing express buses up there. That worked so well in NYC that they had to go through an expensive and complicated process of de-privatizing the express bus lines, which were subsidized and losing money. The history of the Metra and the El lines is somewhat instructive on my point, which is that privatization sounds great on paper but is much easier said than done. You gotta face facts. The CTA, like Amtrak, like the police, like CPS, like Cook County Hospitals, will never be ‘revenue neutral.’ We can aspire to efficiency and cut patronage where possible, but starving the CTA into efficiency doesn’t do right by the people who live in Chicago and use the CTA nor does it help the people who live/drive through Chicago and don’t use the CTA (because a crappy CTA equals more cars on the road, not more bikes). The rate increase is just to cover operating costs. Not a single poster here has addressed how the state should address capital spending on transit. Even the people who don’t ride the CTA benefit indirectly; it is a common good and we pay for the common good through taxes. Rich makes the right point, but I think beyond that, you have to consider that some people who work in the most lucrative Chicago industries — which are increasingly white-collar, not blue — are attracted to Chicago’s lifestyle in part because it has one of the nation’s largest, most comprehensive transit systems. We should be working to make it better, which means providing the CTA and RTA with a public revenue stream. It’s an investment in the business infrastructure of the city and attracts talented people to live here. - Greg - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:24 pm: Realtors oppose the transfer tax because it will cause downward pressure on sales volumes, which continue to fall. As total friction costs rise, transactions fall, for all goods. Incidently, almost all of the friction costs association with real estate selling goes to realtors. In fact, their national group tries to enforce the percentage floor, despite DOJ warnings. I love it when middlemen decry friction costs. - tom73 - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:34 pm: For the love of God, will the people who don’t really rely on mass transit or know much about it quit pretending this is about relatively minor fare increases? The fare increases under the doomsday plan are not that bad. In fact, I say raise cash fares even more. And even at $90 to $100, the 30-day passes likely will remain a bargain for most, especially with paycheck deductions. The issue here is not fares but service cuts; future rounds of service cuts; ongoing delay of capital needs; and the apparently real possibility that within a year or so the CTA and its sister agencies will be bad enough to make many of us reconsider our decisions to remain in Chicago and the Chicago area–and, by extension, Illinois. Finally, remember this is about more than the CTA–Pace and Metra are about to suffer as well. Yes, fares need to be raised. Yes, all the agencies–most notably the CTA–need to cut lazy workers and hack managers. All agencies need better planning. But the key issue here is regular sources of funding. We’ve gotten by too long on the cheap, and now we are facing the choice of continuing to do so and take the risk of cutting mass transit, or ponying up and improving all three agencies. If you want to take the risk, I double dare you. See what happens. See if a region already plagued by ingrained civic corruption and aging infrastructure and rising taxes and the tangle of regulations that threatens to drown any business person can become more competive globally in the 21st Century with less mass transit. It should be an interesting experiment in economic development, one that urban planning scholars likely will talk about for decades to come. I will have the luxury of watching from afar, as I have the skills to easily find jobs in other major cities/regions. At least a few of these areas understand how important mass transit is to quality of life and the willingness of certain members of the middle class to live, work and spend/invest their money in high-cost urban areas. - BigDog - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:52 pm: The solution to this mess has to be a two-pronged approach. As one comment stated, there must be a long term financial mechanism put into place that will alter the current situation in which the transit agencies must wait for budget authorizations to operate. Even if this current crisis is averted at the last second, how much money has been wasted just on putting contingency plans together?? Secondly, the agencies themselves must be overhauled. And by “agencies”, I mean specifically the CTA. Some industrious reporter with lots of time to do research should make it their priority to gather data on how much money has been siphoned from that agency by high ranking public officials from other state, county, or City agencies taking early retirement deals, and then hitching on to a high paying, cushy CTA position where they will latch onto a second pension after doing little of importance in yet another high-paying job. With those types of political arrangements being made continuously, the agency will never be able to make a respectable showing! - Ralph Kramden - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 12:57 pm: Remember Tip o’Neil’s “all politics is local”. You can’t get more local than disrupting mass transit in the Chicago metro area. Every Chicago-area senator is going to get a hotfoot from their constituents about this, and they can only point to two guys, Blago and Jones as the holdup. This isn’t any good for Daley either: trying to impress an Olympics comittee, as well as following his father’s plan. His dad got away with murder because the simple, understandable city services voters expected were dependable. The whole foundation of the machine came from the bottom-up: you talked to your ward guy, you got trash cans, you got sidewalks, plowing, etc. The ward guys take the local voters’ support up the chain to the next level, and so on. When you bollux up transit, you are destroying the very base of that political food chain. Once undone at the bottom, like a zipper, the changes run all the way up to the top. Daley should see this. Jones should see this. There are certain things you better not mess up if you want joe and jane voter on your side. When the full impact of the service cuts and price increase hit the public consciousness… something the media is anxious to provide… you are going to see that zipper undo itself all the way to the office of Senate President. And no amount of clout or donated campaign money is going to make up for it. The doomsday is not so much for the CTA and RTA, but for Emil Jones. - Anon - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 1:03 pm: 1. If you are a family just making it in or near Chicago, a fare hike on every ride to and from work has impact. If the service cuts do not allow the parents to commute, and they drive to (and park near) the Loop, good luck, the family budget just crashed. It’s real. 2. The Democratic reaction to this has been interesting, to say the least. Now that His Majesty King Emil has finally woken up to the fact that a major black eye in in the offing, does he act decisively to make a deal? Nah, he just dials up the CTA to instruct them to put things off. I have to figure that Huberman’s hardball rejection of the delay is coming from (or approved by) the Mayor - who has been pretty quiet over the last few days, or am I wrong on that? 3. Somebody goosed the Tribune recently to do an editorial blaming Tom Cross (of all people!) for the mess, since he is not meekly rolling over for the proposals of the Evil Empire. He isn’t the one that created this mess, not by a long shot. It is interesting to speculate on who dropped that dime on the Editorial Board. - Independent - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 1:23 pm: Anon: Daley has been quiet on transit for the last few years. Daley had very little personal involvement in lobbying for transit funding even after the first proposed “doomsday”. He either has little interest in the CTA or he views it as a political liability to distance himself from. I wish he took the CTA even half as seriously as his anti-gun crusade. - Legaleagle - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 1:24 pm: Realtors: How much “downward pressure on sales volumes” will there be if Chicago-area transit collapses, and jobs leave, corporate transfers here cease, and the local economy tanks? The last several real estate purchases I have made all featured the seller’s broker lauding the availability of good transit. Are you claiming that someone will not sell his property because the transfer tax goes up $100? Realtors should support the bill. You are being penny-wise and pound-foolish! - zatoichi - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 1:39 pm: Doomsday? Mean the day when the years of putting off paying actual cost of services finally catches up? Mean the day when expenses finally are large enough that the solutions will actually make voters mad? Mean the day when a simple phone call to put off a change is rejected because it can no longer be afforded without some real longterm financial action by the caller? Mean the day when the politicians finally realized there are 4-5 very large financial obligations coming together and there ain’t enough cash to go around except a cheap bandaid to put the issue off one more year at higher cost? Mean the day when political appointees, who have little idea of what they are doing, feel the teeth at their butt and can’t think of/or find a way to blame someone else? Mean the doomsday that was/is avoidable if the players got together and were actually required to get a real solution, raise taxes, work within real obligations, and stop posturing while actually doing something beside worryng about their legacy or next dream position? That Doomsday? - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 1:39 pm: Kramden- Two words - “Michael Bilandic” - ought to give Daley, Jones, Blago, & Co. enough food for thought on this one. Although, like Skeeter, I think the “Doomsday” is being a bit oversold. As far as the working poor are concerned, I am concerned if they lost their bus route and there is no nearby alternative. Again, no trains are being cut. I am in favor of transit relief for the working poor, in the form of reduced-rate cards for qualified users. - Team Sleep - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 1:46 pm: I will never try and comment on things for which I have no knowledge. Rich, I completely agree with the timing and schedules. That is paramount, but that’s also why any “bail out” should also come with the nominal rate increase and perhaps even benchmarks the CTA must meet by, say, 2012. The CTA (and possibly the RTA) cannot simply keep demanding money and never come out of the doomsday way of thinking. Please also don’t forget the impact that increasing gas prices have on people in central and southern Illinois. Maybe it’s time to seriously look into drastically cutting the gas tax in Illinois to help out people who live below I-72. - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 2:07 pm: Tom73- I have posted extensively elsewhere on the CTA’s capital needs and the need to streamline and restructure the area’s system to be more efficient. It’s all about the “service” and the need to modernize an aging system and make it play better with the other parts. This being IL, any “crisis” is what is on your plate today. and what is being put on people’s plates today is a looming “Doomsday” that, as you correctly point out, is a relatively modest fare increase for monthly riders…along with no cut in rail service, and a cutting of some marginally performing (if needed by some) bus routes. The system is *not* going to come to a screeching halt next week. It might just smell a little worse. I, like most other readers here, am waiting to see what the real short-term effect will be. - 47th Ward - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 2:36 pm: Ouch. This isn’t going to help advance the debate… http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ntsb_websep12,1,4223151.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout - Team Sleep - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 2:52 pm: Interesting read, 47th. I have a friend who works for USDOT. She spent her summer in Chicago analyzing the CTA. I caught up with her at a wedding and she told me all about the CTA. I can’t remember all of what she told me, but it was pretty bad. I guess the USDOT looks at CTA as more of a problem than anything. - tom73 - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 2:59 pm: Six: I realize the systems will not come to a screeching halt. What I worry about is this is the first step toward a system that will be basically a shell of what it is now. I don’t see how again delaying capital needs, and letting the agencies hobble along, will result in anything good 3-5 years from now. - Chris - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 3:30 pm: Ronen should be less concerned about the very noble efforts of Rep. Hamos in the house and more concerned about her constituents asking why someone who has been a mouth piece for this Governor and is a member a chamber with a veto proof majority have done absolutely nothing to help mass transit. That letter was nothing more than her symbolic raised fist and pointing fingers, but Ronen is more and more perceived as a hack who can’t deliver on the progressive agenda that her district demands. What a joke this session and these folks have become. - FED UP - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 3:55 pm: lets come back in a month nd see if this was much ado about nothing like the cta service disruptions for fixing the red line this past summer and ongoing. the cta predicted hour delays and they never appeared. every year after the election its we need to raise taxs for the schools the pensions transit and so on and so on. Maybe we can try living within our means for a while.Daley Blago Jones even madigan know there will be an upraor about new taxes if they dont make it seem like the end of the world. NO NEW TAXES LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. - Captain America - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 4:16 pm: I agree completely with those CF bloggers who suggest that service cuts and not fare increases are the real issue. However, low income and fixed income people really will suffer from the fare increases too. Persoanlly, I think fare increases should occur annually in small increments. I read a Sept10 article by the Tribune transportation reporter,indicating that many people should be able to cope in the short run -alternative routes are available. Nonetheless, people are really going to get angry. Most of the PACE cuts won’t be occuring until mid-October or so. Significant mass transit service cuts are not an appropriate public policy option in a major metropolitan area. - True Comparison - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 4:26 pm: “Are you claiming that someone will not sell his property because the transfer tax goes up $100? Realtors should support the bill. You are being penny-wise and pound-foolish!” The average price for a home in Chicago would pay almost $1,000 per transaction in new transfer tax. How is that only $100? Legal, please count all the pennies before you spout off numbers. - Team Sleep - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 4:32 pm: Captain, the CTA should have been doing that all along. That is how businesses and services keep afloat. You cannot merely keep your price or service charge the same and expect everything to be okay. - PJ - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 5:03 pm: Not sure where to post this but the SJ-R has an article about the latest lawsuit from Blagojevich against the Speaker of the House… http://www.sj-r.com/extras/breaking/index.asp#3470 - Rich Miller - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 5:07 pm: PJ, I posted the story a few minutes before you posted your comment. - PJ - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 5:11 pm: ooops…need to refresh more often. Thanks! - Anon - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 5:37 pm: Rich- Thanks for recognizing the Realtors strong opposition to this issue. - Cat - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 6:08 pm: ‘The Chicago Transit Authority’s track-inspection process is “a case study in organizational accidents,” marked by a management culture that allows falsification of records, deferred maintenance of bad rails and poor safety oversight, a federal report said Tuesday.’ The Trib article quote indicates that there is a consequence for patronage and inept management. In the case of the CTA accident, 100 people were injured. With IDOT being devastated by fleeing engineers, incompetent management and suspect contracts, Illinois could be suffering from road or bridge failure sooner rather than later. - jerry 101 - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 6:16 pm: The other big problem with “doomsday” cuts is they will also start a downward spiral. We lose a few routes here and there, CTA continues to delay routine capital maintenance, and then we get to next year. Lower projected ridership due to this year’s doomsday cuts means even more cuts, which means more lower ridership, and more cuts. Plus, capital spending has been ignored for years, as the CTA has dipped into those funds to pay for operating costs. The rail system is rapidly degrading (would we need a slow zone elimination project if capital funds had been available? I think not - the maintenance would not have been ignored for years). Right now, its primarily the blue line, but look at the red line, especially way up north. Those overpasses are falling apart. And the tracks are probably nearly as bad as the tracks on the blue line. The trains are all using cars that are way past the end of their useful lives and desperately need to be replaced. Upkeep on ancient cars costs a lot of money, but is still cheaper than buying new cars. So the CTA keeps holding off on replacing its train car fleet, even while maintenance costs continue to rise to keep them in service. And the vast majority of the bus fleet is also way past its useful life, so those buses are pushed way past their life, and need to be continuously repaired just to run. How often do you hear (if you live in Chicago, that is) about buses breaking down in the middle of a run? That’s becoming more and more frequent. The doomsday cuts are just the first round. The entire system is in crisis mode right now, and needs the help. And the political cost will be high. I don’t care if they voted for SB 572 or not, I will be voting against my Rep and Senator in the next election. And I will never, ever cast another vote for Blagovich again. And, just for good measure, I won’t vote for Mike Madigan’s kid, either. - Six Degrees of Separation - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 6:22 pm: A Citizen - Show me the money, and I’ll be swingin’ that hammer and totin’ that bale, come on Six, spike that rail! Old RR chant learned on the job a long time ago. - IDOT Engineer - Tuesday, Sep 11, 07 @ 10:10 pm: To Cat: Amen to that. As one of the engineers who has not yet fled, I can say from personal experience that it is a miracle there hasn’t yet been a catastrophic and very public failure of one of our facilities directly attributable to the gross mismanagement and general malfeasance of the governor’ team. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.