This pisses me off. Even when studies point it out, people won't believe it. And this doesn't even touch on the issue of who is subsidizing roads throughout the state.

Chicago gets the shaft and nobody believes it.

Taft

Actually both positions agree that someone is subsidizing Chicago.

^ Correct, the people getting shafted the worst are suburban Cook. That statement is misleading though; Chicago gets approximately the services it pays for (depends how you count Metra's in-city services like the Electric, since Chicago taxes don't go to Metra but the Electric obviously serves in-city neighborhoods like Hyde Park and South Shore with service to downtown), but it's basically indisputable that the collar counties get waaaaay more than they pay in. I think a reasonable fix would be to raise the collar county rate from .25% to .5%, and the in-city rate to 1.25%, and suburban cook stays at 1%.

Does anyone have any wild calculations for what the state's economy would be like without Cook County or the City of Chicago?

^No one would care.http://images.skyscraperpage.com/ima...ies/tongue.gif

^ This is great news. Without a doubt, this would be mutually beneficial for both communities. Madison taps into Chicago's big city amenities, corporate services, and talent pool, while Chicago taps into Madison's uniquely vibrant high-tech community and UW-Madison.

Screw a psuedotax, how about a very real 1$ a day per space to be passed on the the parkee? Anyone know how many parking spaces are available for use downtown?

SSDD

I'd like to see that number as well. I already know my reaction to that number, though: too many.

Taft

Chicago area Laidlaw (and Greyhound) is acquired by British Co.
 

It will be interesting to see what happens to Greyhound, especially since radio experts are saying that they will most likely spin Greyhound off after the sale.

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv...48774820070209


FirstGroup to buy Greyhound bus firm
Fri Feb 09 17:12:38 UTC 2007

By Pete Harrison

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest bus company, FirstGroup Plc (FGP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), has agreed to buy Laidlaw International Inc. (LI.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the U.S. company that runs Greyhound buses, for $2.8 billion, the companies said on Friday.

FirstGroup will pay $35.25 for each Laidlaw share in a deal that will make it the largest operator of yellow school buses in the United States. The price represents an 11 percent premium over the closing price of Laidlaw shares on Thursday.

"FirstGroup's acquisition of Laidlaw will considerably enhance the group's existing activities in North America, which themselves have grown strongly since we first invested in the U.S. in 1999," FirstGroup Chief Executive Moir Lockhead said.

Shares of FirstGroup jumped more that 6.5 percent to 600 pence on the London Stock Exchange before dropping back to 591 pence, up 5.35 percent, making it the biggest gainer among midcap companies.

Laidlaw shares were up $2.83, or nearly 9 percent, at $34.55 in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange after rising as high as $34.75 earlier in the session.

Analyst Damian Brewer of JP Morgan said the deal looked good value but added, "A flag-waving political reaction to foreigners buying iconic Greyhound remains a risk."

Founded in 1914, Greyhound serves more than 3,100 destinations, with 16,000 daily departures across North America.

FirstGroup runs more than one in every five local bus services in Britain and carries 2.8 million passengers a day.

GOOD VALUE

FirstGroup will pay $2.8 billion for Laidlaw's shares and assume $800 million of Laidlaw debt. It will partly pay for the deal via a 221 million pounds ($430.4 million) placing of 10 percent of its shares at 260 pence a piece.

Dealing in the new shares will begin on February 14.

Brewer said the valuation of 7.7 times core profit looked good when set against Doughty Hanson's acquisition of Spanish bus business Avanza last December at over 12 times core profit.

FirstGroup became one of the biggest operators of school buses in the United States when it bought Ryder Public Transportation Services in 1999 for $940 million. Newspapers said the latest deal could create competition issues.

But Lockhead said, "It's a massive market, and it's massively competitive." He said that after the deal, the group would operate 63,000 school buses out of about 450,000 in the United States.

The Financial Times said the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents school bus drivers, had vowed to oppose the deal.

"We get on very well with the trade unions here and in the United States, and I don't expect any problems," said Lockhead.

FirstGroup said it expects the acquisition to generate about $70 million of annual pretax cost savings and to boost earnings, both in the first full year of ownership.

"I don't see any job reductions out in the field, and we'll probably need more as we aim to expand," Lockhead said.

Half of the savings will come from taking Laidlaw off the New York Stock Exchange, with further savings from administration cuts and from using FirstGroup's added weight to drive down prices for new buses, he added.

In morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange, Laidlaw shares were up $2.83 or 8.9 percent at $34.55, after reaching a high of $34.75.

(Additional reporting by Mark Potter and Marc Jones in London, Jonathan Stempel in New York and Nick Carey in Chicago)

^ sigh, another major Chicago company is bought by an outside mega-conglomerate.

Already $2 a day:

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2...kingtaxam4.png

Besides being yet another nuisance for downtown residents (Manhattan residents get an exemption for that reason), a parking tax may not have the results you want:
http://www.vtpi.org/parking_tax.pdf

Roughly 100,000.

Whatever. :rolleyes:

Maybe something will get done once the suburbs pull their feet from their mouth, and their mouth from their ass.

Roosevelt Road Station
 

"Gone will be the shabby wooden Roosevelt Road station and pedestrian walkway serving the Metra Electric and South Shore Lines. The structures are believed to be about 100 years old."

What's sad about this is that all those wooden stations along the IC tracks were meant to be temporary when they were built 100 years ago... It only took them a century to finally complete what they started... And people wonder when South-siders bitch about being neglected by development...?

** Deleted for copyright infringement **

- Dylan Leblanc

** Deleted for copyright infringement **

- Dylan Leblanc

I was looking over the CTA's 2007 budget summary and found this information. It compares the CTA's performance against a few other agencies. These numbers seem to differ from those you posted earlier. Thoughts?


Bus numbers:

                                           CTA       WMATA       MBTA       LACMTA       NYCT       SEPTA

Service Efficiency

  Operating Exp./Vehicle Rev. Mile         $10.06    $10.17      $10.22     $8.67        $16.19     $9.98

  Operating Exp./Vehicle Rev. Hour         $98.74    $114.42     $110.82    $108.06      $128.10    $103.49

  Maint. Employees/Mil Veh. Rev. Miles     16.78     20.78       19.41      16.84        28.26      20.93

Cost Effectiveness

  Operating Exp./Passenger Mile            $0.85     $0.91       $0.88      $0.56        $1.07      $0.74

  Operating Exp./Unlinked Trip             $2.28     $2.71       $2.15      $2.17        $1.88      $2.14

  Administrative Exp./Veh. Rev. Hour       $10.71    $14.02      $17.54     $22.45       $14.82     $18.47

Service Effectiveness

  Unlinked Trips/Vehicle Rev. Mile         4.42      3.75        4.76       4.00         8.62       4.67

  Unlinked Trips/Vehicle Rev. Hour         43.35     42.22       51.63      49.81        68.17      48.44

Rail numbers:

                                           CTA       WMATA       MBTA       LACMTA       NYCT       SEPTA

Service Efficiency

  Operating Exp./Vehicle Rev. Mile         $6.22     $9.03       $10.15     $12.19       $7.47      $7.65

  Operating Exp./Vehicle Rev. Hour         $115.96   $227.25     $223.28    $276.11      $136.42    $149.66

  Maint. Employees/Mil Veh Rev. Mile       9.88      17.62       17.20      22.90        15.22      21.92

Cost Effectiveness

  Operating Exp./Passenger Mile            $0.37     $0.35       $0.37      $0.43        $0.30      $0.32

  Operating Exp./Unlinked Trip             $2.24     $2.10       $1.36      $2.13        $1.44      $1.42

  Administrative Exp./Veh. Rev. Hour       $18.44    $29.54      $49.31     $65.30       $16.77     $19.77

Service Effectiveness

  Unlinked Trips/Vehicle Rev. Mile         2.78      4.31        7.46       5.72         5.18       5.37

  Unlinked Trips/Vehicle Rev. Hour         51.83     108.39      164.14     129.48       94.66      105.14

Get the pdf of the summary here: http://transitchicago.com/downloads/budget/2007sum.pdf

Taft

^ Thanks, I'll pour through the numbers some more. There's clearly some difference in the stats provided, since I did "per ride" and these budget figures are mostly per revenue hour and per passenger mile, which I think can be deceptive. I mean, passenger miles gives a huge advantage to long distance trips which could simply result from a sparsely-built environment, and revenue hour gives an advantage to long haul trips that aren't hard on equipment like commuter rail or an express bus on a highway.

My original stats were simply taking the budget figures for operating expenditures, operating subsidy, and total ridership, to make a bunch of ratios (i.e. simple stuff).

Three F*CKING years of 3 track operation!?!?!? This sucks! Why the HELL did I spend lots of extra money for an apartment near the brown line when I'm gonna have to put up with this sh*t for the next several years??? I just moved here and I guess this is my "welcome to Chicago" present. I'm pissed. :hell:

And I just wanted to add that yes I do understand this contruction phase will greatly improve the brown line for decades to come. I'm just frustrated with the unlucky timing I have. I moved to Houston just as they were kicking off the major reconstruction of I-10 and now I move to Chicago just as they're kicking off major reconstruction of the brown line. I can't seem to catch a break on the timing of these things. If only everything had been started 5 years earlier (or I was 5 years younger... I'd be happy to go back to 20 and relive my life on a better reconstruction time schedule, lol). *sigh*

It's going to be even nastier when they have to tear up all the Red Line track and stations on the northside. Does the CTA even have an estimate of when this will happen?