In regards to widening the Ike, I agree it needs to be done. I do believe they can get extra lanes squeezed in through OP without cutting into anything other than the existing CTA right-of-way. Right now the blue line functions just fine with its existing clearance between Addison and OHare. Why not use the same specs on the Forest Park branch? It would certainly free up needed space for the Ike.


In a separate topic, what a disaster 90/94 has become near their merger at Montrose. Coming back from Itasca to Lakeview today (non-rush hour) took me an hour. That's 22 expressway miles.

That garden train concept thingy made me laugh.

Is that a serious proposal?

I can imagine it evolving into a mobile litter box, with rats, feces, empty beer cans, and cigarette butts being carted from station to station.

According to the website: "CTA says, 'If you think that it is possible to raise funds to cover the costs associated with running the charter, having additional staff, and the liner, I will not tell you we can not do it. I am happy to come up with some figures for you.'"

The Circle Line LPA sucks, and really should not move forward. What we have is a tird sandwich, it will cost $1.1 Billion to build the half-assed alternative, and it will cost far too much to ever complete the remainder in the foreseeable future ($3.5-4.5 Billion). NIMBYism is too strong to allow for a cheaper elevated option, rather than expensive tunneling; but a elevated structure would probably fail the EIS anyway for noise pollution. Just shelve the Circle Line and concentrate on the Clinton-Larabee Subway which will also address many of the same goals: reducing Elevated Loop congestion, serving downtown, better connections of Metra Lines to the CTA system (easily done at the two busiest commuter stations, no?) and servicing the expanded area of downtown.


The only good thing that came out of the continuing study was taking a extensive look at the mid-city transitway with a Brown Line extension. The Brown Line extension by the way scored very high on expected ridership. Both of these concepts are being recommended for the CTA's long term expansion goals.

This garden train idea is one of the most retarded ideas I have ever seen. Is this idea supposed to be about sustainability? If so, I would like to know how much extra carbon is being produced to create the electricity the additional flat car will use.

Yes, but this will not remove a bottleneck; just move it further east, where the traffic will slam into already over-congested Circle Interchange. Remember all the praise over the removal of the Hillside Strangler? The project did very little to actually reduce congestion on the Ike. So what we have is Option A, spend $1+ billion to do very little at actually tackling the congestion; or we could do Option B, looked by the Cook-DuPage Corridor Study which is to build an extension of the Blue Line with an integration of park n' rides and PACE feeder routes that will expand the capacity of the corridor without adding pavement. The majority of the traffic is going to or through downtown, or the opposite direction to the employment centers of the west suburbs, hence the problem. The Blue extension would also open up job access in the suburbs for poor residents of the west side.

I know I am at odds with most people on this one, and it doesn't matter anyway because the Ike is going to be widened by IDOT, one way or another.

That mobile garden! Is that a joke? I mean really:jester:

anyway you look at it, there is a certain segment of society that will always be driving, and its not just moron suburbanites that dont want to part with their minivans. Its truckers, salesmen, repairmen, deliverymen, people driving up from nearby cities, etc.

Chicago has fewer lanes of interstate per capita than almost every other metro in the country, and this costs us money in lost business and commerce. All the expressways entering the city really need to be expanded to atleast 4 lanes... this goes for 55, the Edens, and JFK north of the junction. Im not pro new highway construction, but we really should invest in the existing expressway infrastructure.

I don't think there would be much in the way of new capacity; it's just that capacity wouldn't drop from four to three lanes through the avenues. Right now it's very odd because it's four at Hillside and four east of Harlem, but three in between. That causes a great deal of merging friction.

I am not denying that, but my point is that even after this $1 Billion is spent, we will still have congestion. This project will add very little new capacity and it will just move the bottleneck. One major solution is giving people who can use an alternative mode choice an option besides driving. This provides extra capacity in corridor for others who must drive.

They already have an alternative mode choice - two of Metra'a highest-capacity lines (BNSF and UP-West). These lines are already very popular, so I imagine that almost anybody making a traditional commute during peak periods is using these lines. The remaining traffic is either reverse commute, heading to a non-downtown destination in the city, and/or cannot use transit for various reasons.

New transit service in the Cook-DuPage Corridor should be targeted at reverse-commuters, not reducing congestion for traditional commuters (who are already served well). This is why I think the rail line in the I-88 corridor is a good idea, although the suburbs will need to commit to significant restructuring to make a station->office park journey feasible (see Tysons Corner, VA). For some reason, I actually have more faith in Oakbrook Terrace and Lombard to make smart choices about this than I do in Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates et al to restructure around the STAR Line.

It won't "move the bottleneck" to people heading outbound though. Inbound I can see but even then it is a question of when not if the Circle needs to be reconstructed. It is falling apart and starting to look quite dangerous IMO.

Listen, Chicago has more alternatives to driving than any metro area in the country besides New York. It still doesn't make it any easier for me, a northside city dweller, to head out to Ikea to go shopping or to head out to Bolingbrook to visit a friend.

Either way, Chicago is in last place with highways in the country, and in 2nd place for transit, so we already have more alternative solutions to driving than just about everyone. But driving is the only multimodal solution for the vast majority of trips. I'm not saying we should pave over everything, but a metropolitan area which owes its very existence to being an efficient transportation hub should not have bottlenecks on either the railway or the highway system. I really believe having lived here long enough that it is possible for Chicago to have much less congestion than it does now because all of its congestion seems to stem from outdated bottlenecks like the Eisenhower and the Edens/Kennedy junction. I think the only highway that needs a frank widening across the entire distance is the Kennedy from Montrose to O'Hare. Otherwise there needs to be intelligent solutions to outdated design, such as the ridiculous express lanes on the Kennedy where every single afternoon you have just as many people going inbound as outbound, yet the express lanes cause a massive inbound backup. We could get rid of these lanes altogether and use the four shoulders on them to lessen the inbound bottleneck for instance, creating a true 5-6 lanes per side. But the first order of business no doubt is the Ike. That thing is just a true embarassment.

:previous: As times goes on I am only increasingly think high-occupancy toll lanes should and will be part of our highway infrastructure future. Realistically that is not going to happen if you don't have at least four lanes per direction highways.

The problem seems more easier to rectify then the problems with the Kennedy. Expanding the Kennedy to four lanes northwest of the junction which is highly problematic and potentially cost billions? Would it just be relatively easier to throw billions at reconstructing the Blue line to continue running he Blue Line below Milwaukee Avenue after Logan Square and then I presume under Higgins to the airport? Then rip out the the blue line rail/stations west of the junction. An end result would be a better Kennedy and a better Blue Line even if it is a somewhat more expensive solution then adding a fourth a Kennedy Lane.

Click on the link.

Articles about the Illiana Expressway have probably been posted before, but:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...,2942620.story

Not sure how I feel about this one. I like the idea of truck only lanes, but perhaps the CREATE program would be money better spent. I also like the idea of diverting through traffic around the area, but I'm not sure if this would effective in doing that.

I wish we could just put an 8 lane extension, with 4 of those lanes for trucks only, by continuing I-80 in a straight line before it curves northeast near Moris, then keep it going over to I-80/90/94 near LaPorte, Indiana.

It would be a ton of money, but at least you could basically take all I-80, I-90, I-94 and I-294 through-traffic off those roads and just zip people past Chicago without coming within 10 miles of the urban area. The new road would have to have very FEW interchanges so it doesn't turn into another sprawl inducing mess.

I-80, I-55, I-57, Highway 41, I-65, Highway 30, Highway 6 and then I-80/90 with a connection to I-94 a few miles up north.

It seems that the easier solution would be to double deck a part of the Kennedy to allow for HOV or express vehicles. Most large cities, including others with high mass transit ridership, have doubledecked some of their highways throughout the 80s and 90s. Lack of capacity isn't as much of an issue as the reverse commute bottleneck reducing six lanes to four and backing up both the Kennedy and the Edens for 20+ miles. As mentioned earlier, we're not talking about simply adding lanes, but rather reducing ill conceived bottlenecks that should not exist in a major metropolitan area regardless of form of transit.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=35701

Create freight rail fix makes headway
By: Paul Merrion Oct. 05, 2009

Another project to reduce rail congestion broke ground Monday, this time to add a third main line of track in the far south suburbs of Alsip and Blue Island.

The $26-million project, funded by the federal government and the rail industry, was launched by the Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency group, known as Create. In addition to adding track to reduce freight rail bottlenecks, it will also update signals and bridges in the vicinity of 127th Street.

The problem with building a road with very few interchanges is that you have still put the road there. Not that I disagree with your idea (I'll admit that I've never been to Chicago, I'm just watching this thread to see what I can learn about a great city, so I won't vote either way on whether or not a bypass is a good idea), but you can't count on more interchanges not getting built later. I don't know how much you follow some of the other threads like the CAHSR thread where they talk about airports some, but one of the things that is consistently brought up to help reduce airport congestion is to lift artificial caps on air traffic at some of the smaller airports like Long Beach or John Wayne.

This is coming from a bunch of people who are interested in better urban planning and know perfectly well that those airports would never have been built in the first place if artificial caps on air traffic weren't promised.

Anyway, my point is that no matter how you build a road, there is nothing that we can do today to prevent it from creating sprawl. No matter how the road is built today, the developers know perfectly well that they can build up that area however they like because once the surface streets nearby are completely f'd up they can point to the limited access bypass nearby and say "hey, the road's already built, let's just spend a couple dollars on another interchange."

Ok, but the Ike will still be congested after this project happens, just watch. The I-88 corridor has a high employment density that is creating some of that outbound traffic which could be moved to a train complimented with a coordination of PACE circulating through the office parks. Metra, as great as it is does not go to reverse commute employment centers, as the vast majority of those are along expressways and tollways. I am aware that the Ike bottleneck will be removed (btw, don't expect that to happen for another 6 years minimum as it is not IDOTS's capitol spending plan); but my point is that we really need to look at alternatives for these corridors; because trying to build our way out of congestion is just not going to work, and we don't have oodles of money to spend on it either.


On the Illiana,
50% of the traffic on the Borman right now is heavy trucks. If the Illiana was built primarily as a tolled truck road with additional tolled lanes for general traffic, its probably worth it; especially if Peotone Airport ever becomes a reality. And as the article mentioned, there is the possibility of building it as a public-private partnership. Will County's share of intermodal industry is only going to increase for the foreseeable future.

If it can be built as a self-funding toll road, it's fine by me. Any road that doesn't require significant demolition of existing structures and can self-fund is fine by me. But at that point, it should probably just be built as a private road, with the only public involvement being assistence with the legal aspects of land aquisition.

I'm in favor of the Illiana. Most widening projects are a waste of money though. You can't build yourself out of congestion with wider roads.That has been an established fact. Transit is first and foremost. These transit proposals have been stagnant for too long. I want to see some action, not just talk.

..

Hmmmmm.

Why is the CTA falling so far behind the rest of the country?

I visited Chicago back in '88 primarily because of their excellent transit system. I wanted to see it first hand. They had buses and trains running 24/7 as often as every five minutes. Something you couldn't find here in Southern California.

Now it seems L.A. is passing up Chicago's transit system. We built the Red/Purple line subway, plus four other light rail systems and a regional rail system (Metrolink), all built since my visit. High speed rail is just arround the corner. What has Chicago built in the last 20 years?

What went wrong? Why has the CTA abandoned their transit dreams?

Most of L.A.'s projects were built with a .5% sales tax increase. Can Chicago do the same?

^ LA is doing what Chicago did in the early-mid 20th century.

I'm not sure that qualifies as Chicago "slipping behind". If anything, LA is playing catch up with the rest of the civilized world right now--about time, don't you think?

Chicago and LA are simply in different stages of their city's development.

All due respect, you should do a bit of research. Chicago has a number of new transit lines/extensions in various stages of planning--nothing u/c right now, but I anticipate there will be a lot more action in the next decade.

It sounds like you just need to read a bit more, no offense. Since your visit the entire Orange line to Midway has been constructed and pretty much all the stations have been redone on almost every line. Buses and trains still run every 5 minutes or so on the entire system, and now with electronic ticketing things are much more efficient. CTA and Metra are still MUCH more extensive than the LA system. I don't believe anything on the CTA has taken a step backwards since '88 at all. The CTA is also proposing Orange, Yellow, and Red Line extensions right now, in addition to a completely new Circle line. As for high speed rail have you read about this at all? The Chicago high speed rail hub network is one of the official HSR corridors in the new bill, with not one but three high speed rail lines starting and ending in Chicago.

I'm glad to see things aren't as bad as I had thought. It's just that I had been reading various forums over the years and kept reading about various proposals to extend the subway and El that kept getting voted down.

The subway is still only 12 miles long, right? Are there any plans to extend it, or add new lines in the foreseeable future?

^ Plenty of plans:

1. Create a new subway line in the west loop
2. Create 2 subterrannean BRT's downtown
3. Create a new circumferential line, the "Circle Line"
4. Extend the Red, Orange, and Yellow Lines
5. Create new stops on a couple of lines
6. New Metra Lines/Metra extensions.
7. Express service to/from the airports

The only proposal that has run into significant community opposition is the Yellow Line extension. Regarding the length of the subway, you'll have to asks somebody else. Chicago's rail system is quite big, by 12 miles you must only be referring to the underground portion.

What do subways have to do with anything? Yeah, the subway is 12 miles, but there is no functional difference between a subway and our elevated lines. All of the new lines or extensions currently being spec'd are elevated or grade-separated surface lines because they function the same and cost far less than subways do. In addition to the new orange line, in 1984, just four years before your visit, Chicago finished the extension to O'Hare, a number of stations that were part-time stations when you visited are now full-time. And the Green Line and Pink Line have been completely renovated since your visit. The Brown Line has had all its stations expanded to accomodate longer trains so that it can handle its growth. There are extensions recently approved, but not yet funded, for the south branch of the Red Line, for the Orange Line and the Yellow Line. There has also been a routing selected for the second piece of the new routes for the Circle Line, which will improve access to our Medical District, and the City is tentatively planning a new subway through the West Loop to provide better access to two of the commuter rail stations - this would be called the Clinton Street subway, and would also involve expanding Union Station's high-speed rail capabilities, and underground bus connections to aid in running mostly-grade-seperated bus services to the Michigan Avenue corridor from the West Loop commuter rail stations and office district. That's long-term, but it is a plan that will probably find legs once this recession starts to lift and/or the Feds get serious about funding more than just starter routes of high-speed rail.

Chicago has 8 lines and 144 stations on over 100 miles of rail serving about 620,000 people on a typical weekday, all running the same train cars as the subway, all capable of sending trains into the subways for the purposes of emergency reroutes or transferring equipment between train yards and lines, and rail serves both airports.

Despite the improvments, L.A., which is about 40% bigger than Chicago, has 5 lines with 62 stations (including light rail stations) on 73 miles (including light rail) serving 275,000/day, and your subway and light rails lines run incompatible equipment, with rail serving no area airports.

You also seem to be unaware of the extent of our commuter rail, which constitutes 11 lines with 237 stations covering 495 miles of track in Illinois and into Wisconsin. That doesn't include the seperate inter-city South Shore line, which functions as a commuter rail into Indiana, all the way to South Bend (home of Notre Dame), which has 20 stations over 90 miles of track. On the South Side inparticular, the commuter rail system also provides a lot of service within the city, not just for suburban commuters.

Some additional food for thought on the subject.

Agency service area population (pop. density in p/sqmi)
LAMTA 8,493,281 (6,939)
CTA 3,763,791 (11,510)

Annual trips taken per service area resident
LAMTA 58
CTA 133

Fleet buses per 1,000 service area residents
LAMTA 0.32
CTA 0.59

Annual Bus Service Hours per service area resident
LAMTA 0.90
CTA 1.84

Annual Railcar Service Hours per service area resident
LAMTA 0.075
CTA 0.98

Annual Local Transit Tax Funds raised per service area resident (excludes Fare revenue, Federal grants, and monies from State budgets/programs)
LAMTA $87.44
CTA $185.90**


I would second urban politician's broader point about LA playing catch up with building up its system, whereas Chicago is playing catch up with modernizing its system. Once LA's rail lines are 30+ years old, expansion will grind to a crawl when the enormous cost of maintenance, modernization, and capacity expansion becomes apparent. Also, as LA MTA becomes a more mature organization with more years of good times and bad times under its belt, it will begin to acquire the same "legacy costs" of having a large multi-generational union labor force, similar to those that weight down CTA, New York's MTA, the Big 2.5 automakers, etc.

** my impression is that this is largely thanks to the high Cook County share of transit funding despite CTA service not extending into the NW panhandle of Schaumburg or the far southwest region.

Did I miss something in the 10/9 article, or has the CTA actually not included a Madison station in the LCA? That station is, from a purely big picture perspective, the most obvious service expansion opportunity in the city, in my opinion.

Why does Chicago insist on providing no HRT access to so many of its sporting venues and tourist attractions? This one is so easy!

EDIT: by "big picture" I mean that they must have ridership estimates and such that I don't have... but the station makes sense on the surface.

Yea, I'm pissed about it too. I submitted a question about it, so I expect to have it answered in a few weeks when they publish the Comment Responses. My argument is that it makes more sense to build at Madison than Roosevelt, and if CTA wants to increase access to the IMD, then they should expand capacity at the Polk station with skyways or pedways and bigger platforms. The IMD has also shown itself to be a crappy land-use planner, so I don't see why the suburban office parks they've built along Roosevelt should be supplemented by an expensive transit station that few will use.

I was just thinking about this before reading Bootsrap Bill's post. There's a disparity between the perception and reality of Chicago's transportation infrastructure. What's especially disconcerting is the attitude of many in the local population whose opinions I'm sure inform non-residents. If you were to read only the comments sections of, say, the Tribune website or Chicagoist, you'd get the impression that the entire system is bound to collapse at any minute and that the CTA is the worst operator of all major U.S. cities.

Well it looks like the CTA is really taking a massive blow on fare increases, shutting down express routes, reduction of hours of operations on dozens of bus routes, as well as a 10% reduction of service frequency on all rail lines, and 14% on all bus routes.

• Basic train fares to $3.00 from $2.25.

• Basic bus fares to $2.50 from $2.00.

• Express bus fares to $3.00.

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

Following routes eliminated:

X3
X4
X9
X20
X49
X54
X55
X80
53 AL.

The hours of operation on 41 bus routes will be shortened, from 25-30 minutes on routes such as Iriving Park and Fullerton, to well over 3 and 4 hours on routes such as Halsted and Milwaukee.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2...fare-hike.html


I think this is going to cause a LOT of headaches and make people quite angry. I know there's a reason behind it, but raising everyones taxes, getting bailouts, doubling fares in only 5-6 years time, shutting down routes, shortening hours of operation, and reducing frequency on all bus and train routes just makes the system look horribly embarassing.

Not to mention this all comes after pushing almost $100 million of planned preventative maintenance and capital funding for 2010 is going to operations. It all seems very detrimental to the agency - although that's kinda how they've lived for decades now.

My only hope is that if our country can pick back up speed and get more people spending - the increased money in future years can reverse the frequency/hours of operation/express bus situation. I really wish they'd mentioned that in the press release - because it would obviously seem hopeful that this is only temporary while the economy is in shock. I fear the price hike is permenant though - which is going to reduce overall ridership by a degree.

I think one obvious reaction of all this (at least by me) is that most of my friends don't have a monthly pass. Where we would always take the train somewhere before - I assume now we'll just jump in a cab for most trips. 4 people is $12 on the train. That's quite a bit when a cab can get you most places for less than $15 in a fraction of the time.

LOL so it looks like Bootstrap Bill was actually right, only he was two days ahead of himself. Yowzers.

I keep hearing from some people on this forum that gas prices will go so high that it will push more and more people towards transit, but in reality quite the opposite appears to be happening. Those prices would officially put transit as "expensive" in my book and I would think twice about taking it.

To a degree? It will flat out kill ridership for non-commuters. If my wife and I want to get from Lakeview to downtown, it's a $7 cab ride and takes about 15 minutes. If we ride the train, it takes a half hour and costs $4.50 (right now). I'm pretty sure we'll be willing to splurge and spend the extra dollar for a commute that's twice as fast and gets us EXACTLY where we want to go.

I think your off-base here. The CTA is funded by sales taxes and real estate transfer taxes which have plummeted. Tax revenues everywhere have plummeted. Practically every state in the US is having a budget crisis and most nations running tremendous budget deficits.

The 'problem' with the CTA is a problem any agency supported by taxes is having. I don't think you should mistake the worse economic crisis in over 70 years with the quality of how the CTA operates itself.

But I'm not pretending this isn't bad. Some of these cost saving methods are going to hurt ridership and therefore fare box revenue. I hope this doesn't trigger a downward spiral in ridership.

I know this, but the bottom line is this city will now have the highest sales tax in the country, the most expensive street parking, and now the most expensive transit services. And Daley just promised a 10% wage increase to the Unions. Listen, if this is put into place the CTA will be significantly more expensive than the NYC MTA. Something is definitely wrong here.

I am most definitely not going to be paying $110 for the monthly pass and get significantly reduced rail/bus frequency in the dead of winter. For $10 more per month I can rent a heated garage space in my office building.

I will note that the CTA unions, which account for 90% of the annual labor expenditure (labor being 68% of the total budget), are getting a 3.5% raise in 2010 after getting 3% in 2009.

Right off the bat, forgoing the 2010 raise would save somewhere on the order of $30 million, to say nothing of any other potential concessions.

Now, I swear I'm not trying to be an apologist, but...
Highest merchandise-only sales tax in the country. Part of why the tax rate has gotten so high is that it's not broad-based (i.e. doesn't cover services), like sales tax frequently does in other states. Think about how much a 10% tax means when you're talking about $800 in labor for a car repair, a $1000 in labor for fixing some plumbing/electric issue at home, etc. In terms of total sales tax paid per capita I don't think we look nearly as bad.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/1388.html (Illinois ranks 11th)

Besides, the Tax-cap-induced Stroger Sales Tax looks to be imminently reduced from 1% to 0.5%.

Then, one might consider individual income tax collections as well.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/282.html (Illinois ranks 33rd)

Not quite as friendly on the corporate income tax side, though, which of course is passed through to employees and consumers to a large extent.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/281.html (Illinois ranks 11th)

Preliminary 2010 budget posted here:
http://www.transitchicago.com/assets...budgetbook.pdf

Recovery Ratio in 2009 will be 63%. In 2010, the proposed system revenue recovery ratio is 67-70%, depending on exactly which costs are included.

Of course, in past years, this ratio has been more in the 50-53% range.

LA is in the 20-25% range most years.

These Unions piss me off so much. Here everyone is getting laid off and universal salary freezes - and they're getting a 3-3.5% raise for two years now!!!

I work a nice corporate job downtown, and we were just told we aren't getting raises for the 2nd year in a row. No one even said anything - who would expect to get a raise when the economy is crumbling?


Screw this city with transit fares at $3.00.....after they were only $1.50 a few years ago! I do the monthly pass right now, but going from $75 not too long ago to $110 is a huge increase. I'll probably switch to pay as I go, and then take more cabs and finally get hitched up to carpool with friends that already gave up on the CTA.

Looks like the 2010 shows estimated ridership to drop by around 50,000,000 because of the changes. Down to around 465M, the lowest number in quite a few years.

We need to demand action by our city and state on this. This is the kind of moment where concerned transit users need to rise up and put pressure on our elected officials. Let's face it: the majority is against us transit riders here. Downstaters overwhelmingly oppose subsidization of Chicagoland transit. And too many otherwise moderate and sensible people have been put off by the constant drag of corruption and waste to make an informed opinion on the matter.

So let's see if the state can come up with a solution outside of a capital funding bill (maybe they can solve the union problem). Let's see if Daley can bring together private donors for something less--ahem--aspirational than the Olympics.

If this problem isn't fixed, there are going to be serious problems.

The budget is well-prepared. Fewest typos I've seen in a CTA document in a while.

A few comments and questions:

1) LA's bus costs are the best in the nation, by a wide margin - why is that?

2) Looking at the CTA's rail costs, we have the lowest per-car and per-mile costs, but among the highest per-passenger costs. This tell me two things:

a) The CTA would greatly benefit from distance or zone-based fares. This only makes sense considering how long our lines are (and getting longer) compared to most cities.
b) The City REALLY needs to bolster TOD-friendly zoning. When your per-miles costs are low and your per-rider costs are high, it's because you're moving a lot fewer people - the best way to move more people, is to put more people by the train, which is what TOD-friendly zoning will do.
c) A bonus third thing as a comment: If zone-based fares were implemented, I bet the focus of new rail would shift overnight from extending outer lines to building inner lines, which is really the most sensible thing for the city to be doing anyway. Win-win - more revenue and better, more rational focus.

3) Unions at many other companies have chosen to freeze their salary, or even cut their salary, so that fewer jobs are elimintated. This budget makes a pretty stark case that over 10% of CTA union jobs will be cut, partly due to the drop in sales tax revenue, but also due in part to those who keep their jobs getting pay bumps that are well above average wage increases, well above inflation, and well above cost of living increases. Seems to me spinning a revote on the contract as a way to save their brothers' jobs should be a part of CTA management's strategy.

I'm sorry, but screw the union's contract. So many other people in both the public and private sector are forced to take furlough days, unpaid holidays, pay freezes, pay cuts or reduced hours and declining benefits; or they are losing their job outright. And yet these people get a 6.5% pay increase over the span of two years in the worst recession since the Great Depression? Screw them, what the hell makes them so special. I know $30 million is drop in the bucket in terms of needed funds, but this really pisses me off, and this is comming from a generally pro-union guy.

This is also clear example of why being so over reliant on sales tax revenue is unsustainable. We really need a dedicated source of funds that is not so volatile. This also should be a rallying cry for better land use strategies, we can no longer afford to undermine our transit system with crap planning and oversight, like building strip malls next to stations. Any community that refuses to increase density near stations or bus routes should be the first locations on the chopping block for service cuts.

From the CTA report:

Total projected CTA ridership in 2009 includes approximately 73 million free rides for
seniors, active military personnel, disabled veterans and individuals under Illinois’ lowincome
Circuit Breaker Program. This is an increase of 22.6 million (98.7%) over 2008
free rides for these groups. In 2008, free rides account for over $30 million in lost revenue; in 2009, due to the significant projected increase in free rides, lost revenue will be considerably higher.


Thanks, Blago! So, combine this with the union pay increases and we have $60+ million in additional opperational funds that could have gone to plugging the opperating deficit.

Yes, because DC has focused their rail growth in the inner-city in recent years...

Distance-based fares aren't a bad idea, but what rate do you keep them at? It discourages support for transit in outlying areas of the city (despite the huge rail system, the lines stay largely within city borders, serving only 6 suburbs). Without that support, politicians will be more reluctant to push for transit expansion.

There's also a substantial capital cost in implementing distance-based fares, since you have to install readers at all exits as well as entrances.