More on the governor’s “senior moment”
Friday, Jan 11, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Tribune explains the costs and benefits of the governor’s first in the nation plan to allow seniors to take free rides on mass transit throughout Illinois 24/7…
Those 65 and older who make two round trips a week on the CTA could save $176 a year if lawmakers give the legislation final approval next week.
Similarly, seniors who ride Metra trains twice a week could save about $405 a year and those riding Pace buses could save $156 a year, according to the estimates.
t was also unclear Thursday how much the free rides would cost transit agencies. RTA Executive Director Steve Schlickman said the governor told transit officials the revenue loss would be $15 million. But a spokeswoman for the governor put the loss at $19 million. Rebecca Rausch said this figure was “being conservative” and that the lower figure might be more accurate in the final calculation.
Pace estimated it would lose $3 million a year, and Metra said it would lose about $8 million. The CTA would not release an estimate.
Remember, however, that they’re getting a whole lot more money out of this bailout bill, so the impact is minimal.
* The Sun-Times points out that the Champaign-Urbana mass transit district already provides free rides…
Tom Costello, assistant managing director of the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District, said the district started offering free rides to seniors six years ago as a way to cut costs on special service transit, vehicle trips for one or two people that are “incredibly expensive” to operate.
“It really created some level of mobility for seniors in town,” he said.
* I posted this yesterday, but I’ll do it again because it was buried under a whole lot of stuff. Here’s the explanation from the governor’s office on how much this plan will cost Downstate transit districts…
The bill that passed includes $50 million for downstate transit systems. The Governor’s amendatory veto will allow seniors anywhere in the state to ride for free. The total statewide cost of this change is approximately $20 million. The approximate cost for downstate transit (collectively) is about $1 million. So, $50 minus $1 million the cost of the program means downstate transit is still getting $49 million.
There are some slightly higher estimates out there, but these transit systems are getting free money from Chicago-area taxpayers, so they can hardly complain.
* The SJ-R had some senior reaction…
“Paying the 50-cent fare, that’s not a big deal with me,” she said as she stood on Fifth Street, waiting to board a bus. “But for some people, it is. I think the free fares for seniors is a great idea.” […]
“My 89-year-old aunt just moved in with me from up in the Chicago area,” she said. “We are looking forward to nice weather. The bus stop is only half a block from my house. My aunt’s in a wheelchair, and we can use the bus. That will be great.”
* And the Tribune had this…
Sen. Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) called the idea of giving seniors free rides ridiculous without establishing some income limits or other minimum qualifications. She suggested the plan would allow a 66-year-old partner in a prestigious law firm to ride free but require a fare from a “poor working mother struggling to get to work.”
- Johnny USA - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:16 am:
What’s the big deal? In northern Illinois, we already have para transit, where (if you are in proper class of people) all you have to do is pick up the phone, dial a number, and a public ‘para-transit’ vehicle will pick you up at your front door and take you to your destination.
Is the gov’s plan really such a stretch?
Besides, this gets even more people addicted to the drug of public transportation and dependent on the government, is that such a bad thing?
- CTA Rider - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:16 am:
I think the Governor’s action was brilliant. It heals ease any financial hardships the sales tax would have on senios in Cok and the collar counties, while at the same time providing subsidies to seniors statewide. It is important that those downstate dont feel like they are footing the bill for Chicago area mass transit.
I hope the speaker will back off of his negative remarks about the governor’s action. If he doesnt, I hope the media calls him on it. The governor did what every major editorial board was asking him to do — fix the system by allowing the GA to pass this tax hike. The Speaker should move on.
- Spending money we don't have - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:23 am:
But what’s the price-tag of Blagojevich’s unending generosity with the Illinois taxpayer’s money?
- VanillaMan - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:24 am:
Anything that gets seniors out of their Buicks and Toyotas is a good idea. It isn’t just the idea of how much money would be saved, it is the idea that seniors can stay mobile without the costs of an automobile.
Rodogno is complaining, just to complain. We live in an age where seniors get freebies all over the place, while the rest of us pay full fare and their costs on top of it. This situation will not change and anyone opposing it will look mean.
Blagojevich can pretend that he invented free senior transportation and we can start telling our grandparents to take a bus instead of running over the cat. We all win.
- TheFray - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:25 am:
Why do seniors deserve subsidies any more than the rest of us? This is an arbitrary classification. Again, Blago throws around pseudo-populist rhetoric without thinking of the consequences.
- Chicago Drummer - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:32 am:
The “brilliance” of the Governor’s end-game strategy nothwithstanding (get ready for the TV spots during his re-election campaign touting how he ‘protected Illinois seniors and ensured their mobility in their twilight years’), here are a couple of issues that I’ll bet we’ll be reading about after the dust settles:
1) Aside from the many low-income/fixed-income seniors who will benefit from this transit freebie, there are many other seniors in more affluent areas who don’t need this help. Look for stories about wealthy retirees from Kenilworth, Lake Forest, etc. who will now ride METRA for free to go downtown for the day.
2) This provision will end up costing much more than is projected…in part because offering free rides to all seniors will encourage more of them to use public transit services (maybe this is a good thing, but in any event the cost estimates are way too conservative).
3) Assuming that we’re not going to have METRA, PACE and CTA personnel checking IDs every time someone wants to ride free as a senior, that means that folks will probably have to apply for a free “senior ride pass” of some kind. And, just as we’ve seen with handicapped parking permits, this means that the new benefit may be abused by non-seniors who “borrow” these passes from Grandma.
- Jaded - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:42 am:
Radogno must be giving up on the AARP vote for her next statewide run. Calling free rides for seniors “ridiculous” was not very smart. It doesn’t matter what her reasoning was because the quote “Radogno says free rides for seniors is ridiculous” will probably be mailed to seniors about a hundred times between now and the time she decides to retire from politics.
I don’t have a problem with free rides for seniors, but I hit on the single mom angle yesterday in my comments. More to the point, why not free rides for mentally and physically disabled. Especially the mentally disabled. How many of those people are on fixed or limited incomes?
Once again, it is not about good public policy for Blago, it is about good politics, and quite frankly, they are pretty good at the politics, so I don’t blame them for sticking to it.
- For Real - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:44 am:
Possibly no one is thinking about the longer term, ahem, but remember the demographics. The ratio of working people to retirees is going to keep going down. The generation entering the work force now is already looking forward to a huge bill for social security for the boom that refuses to die, now they’re going to give us a free ride too.
- A Citizen - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 10:46 am:
This is also good for the senior Homeless. It will give them a warm place to be during the cold winter days and nights and a cool place in the hot summers. Ridership numbers will skyrocket. Mobile Homeless Shelters, wow guv is indeed a forward thinker! Brilliant absolutely brilliant.
- Snidely Whiplash - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 11:14 am:
Elvis believes that by doing so he can win the support and votes (yes, he’s delusional enough to believe he will again be elected) of seniors, who probably actually show up to the polls more than any other voting block.
But, this is really getting unfair. If you work and ride the CTA, you must pay a fare hike, a tax increase, AND for seniors’ rides. This even applies to someone trying to support a family on $30k a year … someone who HIMSELF should get a free pass, if anybody.
But, they won’t (and can’t) do a means based free fare test, because if they did, the system would be bankrupt again.
Now, in addition to having the highest gasoline prices in the nation, we now have tax and fare hikes for mass transit. Either way, it’s getting harder and harder for people to keep their heads above water in this state.
Oh, well, maybe I am being mean. Afterall, we ARE providing Elvis with free jet fare, aren’t we?
- plutocrat03 - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 12:25 pm:
Just a page of the Democratic playbook to get another constituency on the dole.
While there may be seniors who can use the help, it is irrational to do so without a means test. There are numerous members of the working poor who deserve free public transport more than the pensioners who are collecting pensions in to the six figures. It is particularly ironic with the seniors who are collecting their generous pensions from the state general fund.
Has anyone clarified why the collar counties who get far less benefit from mass transportation than Cook county have an increase twice the size of Cook County?
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 12:28 pm:
===Has anyone clarified why the collar counties who get far less benefit from mass transportation than Cook county have an increase twice the size of Cook County?===
Capital dollars for roads, bridges, safety, etc.
- Oppressed By The Boomers - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 12:35 pm:
This is yet another example of how the baby boom generation’s bizarre sense of entitlement strikes again. Because the Baby Boomers (including Blago) are content to pass on all manner of insane spending plans to those of us in younger generations, Blago faces little but political gain from this. Unfortunately, the tax burden to pay for the generation constantly stuck in the 1960s is rising. Among their obsessively self-interested and responsibility-eschewing actions, they failed to reproduce themselves, which means that my generation won’t get any social security but is forced to pay for theirs. Now I will have to pay more for my public transit passes so that those Baby Boomer leeches can ride for free. This is on top of the ridiculous deficit Baby Boomer Bush has spent us into. Grr…
- Fan of the Game - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 1:28 pm:
So Illinois is all about age discrimination?
- Sir Reel - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 2:26 pm:
Excuse me, Oppressed, but as a boomer, I didn’t AV the bill, I don’t support freebies for seniors, so please quit lumping me in with the Governor! I don’t recall any boomers asking for this. I don’t think anyone anticipated this, with the exception of the man who came up with it.
- plutocrat03 - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 2:56 pm:
Rich, I looked again and I do not I don’t see a specific dollar amount allocated to the infrastructure needs of the collar counties. I do however see that the RTA can levy a tax to enhance safety. That is not capital as I see it.
The bill is described as a regional mass transportation bail out bill with 50 million going to downstate Illinois. Is that 50 million coming from the increased taxes in Cook and collar counties?
Based on the newspaper articles I see, this is not a capital bill. The collar county infrastructure will languish while we continue to have big empty buses traveling to nowhere.
I guess we have to wait for the casino assault on the taxpayer in order for our infrastructure needs to be met.
- The Mad Hatter - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 3:29 pm:
I’m a Boomer. That said, I must have missed all the clamoring from senior citizens demanding free rides on public transit. Once again Governor Elvis is playing to the grandstand without taking into account how much it will cost everyone, including us Boomers who will be paying more in sales taxes. He also must have missed the news that the Boomer generation has reached Social Security age and will constitute 30% of the population within the next 10 years. If all 30% decide to take advantage of his short-sightedness and ride transit free, the system will be right back in the hole it’s now in. Nice work (Unindicted Official) A-Rod!
- Angry Chicagoan - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 3:37 pm:
I think the senior pass thing is bad policy. OK, so Chambana Transit has had success with it. But their drivers have time to check passes and so on. I don’t see how you roll it out in Chicago in the chaos of our rush hour without massive fraud. Of course, if they just want to make all transit free . . . (and talking of college towns this is basically the Iowa City model, where the free-at-all-times UI Cambus towers over the fare-based IC Transit and Coralville Transit in terms of ridership, and has far lower per rider costs) . . . but who decides what the geographical service area is? I can see Metra and Pace getting hosed by the senior provision alone even without fraud, serving an older population that’s more spread out than the CTA, which as I say will have its hands full with controlling fraud.
Besides, it doesn’t exactly focus assistance on people where the need is. Doesn’t matter whether you’re destitute on Damen or a CEO in Kenilworth, you get the free pass. I think before we go rolling out universal benefits, we should maybe think of a few more ways we can help people in need in this state.
But unfortunately, as so often with this governor, I think he’ll get political credit for it. The reason why is that universal benefits tend to build political constituencies very fast, and become very entrenched. If they’re based on good policy, like Social Security, that’s just fine. Unfortunately, when they’re based on bad policy, we’re stuck with them (and with the politicians who propose them).
- Little Egypt - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 3:53 pm:
Jaded, Elvis Himselvis heard your cry. SJ-R.com reports in part, “A day after including free rides for senior citizens in the mass-transit bailout, the governor said Friday he’ll propose in his next budget that disabled people also ride without charge. Blagojevich said he considered including that in the latest mass-transit bill but didn’t want to give lawmakers an excuse to hold up the bailout.”
What a guy. Look for more press releases as we get closer to 5 p.m. After all, it’s Friday.
- Dooley Dudright - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 4:01 pm:
Well, whaddaya know………heretofore undiscovered crumbs at the bottom of the cookie jar!
I’m okay with free public transit for the elderly and the disabled. But Radogno is right with respect to seniors: it requires some sort of abridged or truncated application and means test, patterned loosely after the circuit breaker rules for pharmaceutical and property tax relief. (Not nearly as rigorous as circuit breaker.)
And while we’re at it — (if it’s not already!) — transit cards should be part of the package for recipients of public aid and general assistance. Job training programs, too. (Seriously!)
Transit cards would be additional bennies — or, perhaps more correctly, additional non-cash, in-kind services — for helping people in need. Anybody got a problem with that?
Actually, if I had my way, public transit would be absolutely free, as an inducement to get people out of their cars and………and………aw, but shucks, folks, that’s a whole other post and an entirely different rationale.
(Oooooooh, there I go, giving the guv more “populist” ideas to snatch up and bray about and make his own!)
- NoGiftsPlease - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 8:11 pm:
If Blago had been asking anyone about this problem, he would have heard that northeastern Illinois is a patchwork of dial-a-ride service, nonexistant in much of the region with different rules, fares, and hours of service. Don’t make transit free, make it complete coverage which it is NOT now. Many seniors live in places without transit.
The RTA gets a reduced fare subsidy for providing reduced fare cards. Will this subsidy a) increase because there is more of a gap between the fare amount and fares paid by riders or b) decrease because free-riders are not paying “reduced fares”.
Finally, the RTA has a (admittedly nominal) 50% farebox recovery ratio. So, they theoretically have to collect another $1 in fares for each dollar in increased operating funds they get. Even without the senior rides, how would they do it? It won’t be any easier when a whole market segment is riding free.
- Disgusted - Friday, Jan 11, 08 @ 8:58 pm:
Funny, isn’t it. Two days after Neil Steinberg of the Sun-Times wrote his assinine column about downstaters, blaming us because we don’t want to pay to fund Chicago’s bus service, here we sit, with no added taxes and public transport that is clean and works. We also have breathable air, cheaper prices for goods and services, a little cheaper gas and fairly decent schools. Guess it pays sometimes to lives in Hicksville.
- Former Transit Guy - Saturday, Jan 12, 08 @ 1:05 am:
Mr. Rich Miller: As someone who used to work in downstate transit and checks this blog from time to time and even reads the bill/amendments once in a while, I feel the need to correct you. Downstate transit is NOT getting any money as you indicated. There is a state law that provides for a mandatory downstate public transit funding that the Governor has chosen to ignore in order to shore up the state budget. The bill that the General Assembly recently passed put some teeth into that current law as well as increase their reimbursement percentage from GRF. DOWNSTATE TRANSIT DISTRICTS ARE NOT GOING TO SUDDENLY START RECEIVING MONEY FROM CHICAGO. Just to let you know for future colums and/or stories that you might write…..Best regards.
- Trebor - Saturday, Jan 12, 08 @ 10:26 am:
With the economy leaning toward recession why does both the State of Illinois and Cook County seek tax increases? I never take public transportation so why should I pay for it? No free rides! I agree it is time for change. If they are in office their part of the problem. Join me, vote for the new guy. After all Springfield could not get any worse.
- ji_john - Saturday, Jan 12, 08 @ 10:35 pm:
I ride CTA and Metra at reduced fares (disability), and while free rides sound good, the Governor didn’t tell the legislature about his plan for seniors for months–while a previous DoomsDay scenario came and went. Our Governor is not fit to be re-elected, and the only thing that I can come up with about this supposed change in behavior is to embarrass the state legislative branch for not balancing the CTA and RTA crisis on money that would come from three proposed new casinos. I wish the Governor, and Emil Jones, the Senate president, would not gamble on transportation or education with gambling money.