It's that time of year

[BigSqwert]

WORST.PUBLIC.TRANSIT.EVER

 

Is there anything run more incompetently?

 

CTA plan: $3 for train, 25-cent bus fare hike, job losses

October 12, 2009 11:31 AM

 

CTA service would run less frequently and the basic fare would be raised to as much as $3 next year under a dire 2010 budget proposal unveiled today.

 

The CTA workforce would be hit hard as well to ease a projected $300 million budget shortfall.

 

Up to 1,100 union jobs and 100 administrative position are slated for elimination if new public funding and employee concessions fail to occur, transit officials said.

 

"Union employees have been relatively untouched by layoffs [in recent years]," said CTA President Richard Rodriguez. "We are asking the unions to step up and be a part of the solution."

 

Some 110 of the CTA's 150 bus routes would provide less frequent service under the belt-tightening plan. Average waiting times could double.

 

Rail customers, who would pay the highest fares, could also face more crowded trains, Rodriguez said.

 

"Customers may have a longer wait and they are less likely to have a seat," he said during a news conference at CTA headquarters downtown.

 

CTA officials last week identified $122 million in internal cuts, leaving a $178 million shortfall in next year's budget.

 

Rodriguez blamed the budget crisis on a projected 30 percent decline in anticipated tax revenue in 2010.

 

The outlines of the fare hikes as well as proposed service reductions are contained in a legal notice the agency placed in the Chicago Tribune this morning (see below).

 

The major changes would include:

 

• Basic train fares to $3 from $2.25.

 

• Basic bus fares to $2.50 from $2.25.

 

• Express bus fares to $3 from as little as $2.25 now.

 

• Full fare 30-day passes to $110 from $86.

 

• Seven-day passes to $30 from $23.

 

In addition, express bus service would no longer be available on nine routes: X3, X4, X9, X20, X49, X54, X55, X80 and 53 AL.

 

Hours of operation also would be reduced on 41 other bus routes, generally in the early morning and late night. Each would lose between 25 minutes and about three hours of service a day, with a few routes even more.

 

In addition, buses and trains would run less frequently. Effective Feb. 7, the CTA is proposing to eliminate 827,000 hours of bus service (or 13.7 percent), and 57,803 hours of rail service (or 9.8 percent) across all bus routes and rail lines. These reductions would be spread across the day to affect the least number of customers, the CTA said.

 

LINK

[BigSqwert]

Perhaps I can take out an insurance policy on the CTA since I have a financial interest in them. They're poised to die within the decade.

[lostfan]

At least you won't have Blagojevich to make a big f***ing unnecessary scene over it this year. How much money do the totally unnecessary free rides for seniors cost?

[FlaSoxxJim]

How much money do the tot.lly unnecessary free rides for seniors cost?

 

None. . . they're free.

[Rex Kickass]

WORST.PUBLIC.TRANSIT.EVER

 

Is there anything run more incompetently?

 

 

 

LINK

 

The CTA has tons of systemic funding issues. If I recall correctly, they have a very old system that they haven't had the budget to maintain because funding from Springfield had been disproportionately gone to PACE and METRA from the RTA instead of the CTA, despite the fact that by and large PACE and METRA operate as feeders for the CTA system.

 

If you really wanted to know the best reason for Chicago to have gotten the olympics - it would have been Chicago and Illinois would have basically been forced to fix the CTA.

[CanOfCorn]

I love it...Daley wants less auto traffic in the CBD/Loop yet the CTA keeps raising prices. I know one doesn't have anything to do with the other directly, but indirectly...ugh!

[NorthSideSox72]

The CTA has tons of systemic funding issues. If I recall correctly, they have a very old system that they haven't had the budget to maintain because funding from Springfield had been disproportionately gone to PACE and METRA from the RTA instead of the CTA, despite the fact that by and large PACE and METRA operate as feeders for the CTA system.

 

If you really wanted to know the best reason for Chicago to have gotten the olympics - it would have been Chicago and Illinois would have basically been forced to fix the CTA.

All the above are true.

 

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the CTA has inefficiencies, but the CTA is actually funded less per track mile than most systems in other cities, and its an older system with higher maintenance needs. The CTA is only partially to blame here. The larger problem is the completely bizarre mentality about transportation funding, where a state will spend billions on roads without any revenue expectations, but balk at spending $100M on mass transit which asks its users to pay fares. Its idiotic in the extreme, and other countries with mass transit systems do it in a more sane way.

 

I am OK with the CTA raising fares, but I would like to see the state and federal government take a broader look at transportation funding, and try to level the playing field a bit. This is part of the reason this country has such an oil use problem - the addiction to cars. There is so much externalized cost to driving our cars around that are not being charged to the driver, and instead are being paid by all of us by way of immense taxation and indirect costs due to pollution and higher gas prices. This is consistently one of the most frustrating things about modern politics, for me. The whole philosophy is absurd.

 

[Balta1701]

Props.

[Rex Kickass]

All the above are true.

 

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the CTA has inefficiencies, but the CTA is actually funded less per track mile than most systems in other cities, and its an older system with higher maintenance needs. The CTA is only partially to blame here. The larger problem is the completely bizarre mentality about transportation funding, where a state will spend billions on roads without any revenue expectations, but balk at spending $100M on mass transit which asks its users to pay fares. Its idiotic in the extreme, and other countries with mass transit systems do it in a more sane way.

 

I am OK with the CTA raising fares, but I would like to see the state and federal government take a broader look at transportation funding, and try to level the playing field a bit. This is part of the reason this country has such an oil use problem - the addiction to cars. There is so much externalized cost to driving our cars around that are not being charged to the driver, and instead are being paid by all of us by way of immense taxation and indirect costs due to pollution and higher gas prices. This is consistently one of the most frustrating things about modern politics, for me. The whole philosophy is absurd.

 

The situation in Chicago has a similarity with the mess New York has with the MTA. Both are hamstrung by systemic funding issues that they have no control over. In the case of Chicago, its underfunded in comparison to funding for transit development in collar counties, despite a much larger ridership base and a much higher maintenance need and hamstrung with an RTA created IIRC to handle commuter railroads which were threatening to shut down throughout the 70s and 80s.

 

In New York, the MTA has to issue bonds for capital improvement. Unlike any other public infrastructure bond issue, funds used to run and maintain the system it funds has to be diverted to interest repayment. When the CTA or any other transit authority issues a bond, the city or the state does the repayment. It does not have to repay the bond out of its own budget.

 

As a result, both systems require users to pay a much greater share of the cost per mile than the average transit system, both in the US or the rest of the world.