I don't get the " they're holding us back " stuff. It's right out of the Jim Edgar play book of Illinois politics.... " us vs them" Chicago Metro has 3 major oil refineries but none are in the city, is the city self sufficient?, does it rely on other economies to sustain itself?, as do other parts of Illinois rely on the city? That's all i'm saying.

Exactly. The old business model isn't there, but the marketing, advertising, accounting, legal, financial, technical, and other services that are supplied by the city proper both feed off of and drive the economies of rural and suburban areas.

It is in the commodity exchanges getting the money for crops grown and hogs processed downstate. It is in the marketing and advertising services provided to the superstore chains covering the state. It is in the architectural and engineering firms that design the processing plants, roads, and other large scale projects outside the city. It is in the software companies that build the custom software to map field harvests or sell industrial parts online.

All sorts of small and medium sized companies in the city limits sell services to suburban and downstate businesses, and those businesses wouldn't be viable without having access to those services.

Don't be ignorant.

It's time for the City of Chicago to get that casino. If it's going to cost $20 million a year to let seniors ride free, a city owned casino could plug that gap with revenue it takes in. And as you know from reading those articles, riding public transit would be free for seniors state wide. Blago is now thinking of future legislation to make public transit free for the disabled. Hell, if he's going this far, if we do get that casino, fares should be reduced to $1 for everyone else within 5 years of it opening.

Just my thoughts.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...i_tab01_layout

Free rides could raise fares

Cost estimate doubles for senior benefit

By Richard Wronski, Jon Hilkevitch and David Mendell, Tribune staff reporters Tribune staff reporter Jeffrey Meitrodt contributed to this report
6:20 AM CST, January 12, 2008

Transit officials acknowledged Friday that Gov. Rod Blagojevich's plan to give free rides to seniors would probably cost twice as much as originally estimated and require them to raise fares for other riders.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...i_tab01_layout

Metra to keep 10% fare hike

No increases seen for 2009 or 2010

By Richard Wronski | Tribune staff reporter
12:56 PM CST, January 11, 2008

Metra riders will still face a 10 percent fare increase starting Feb. 1, despite Springfield's action to avert a transit "doomsday" by tentative approval of new mass transit legislation.

^ I couldn't disagree with you more. I actually think the exact opposite would happen.

I think making the CTA free is a great idea, if the State were actually willing to pay for it.

But they're clearly not, so I'm not sure why it's even being discussed

Every place (of any size) that free transit has been tried (remember Austin's grand experiment in the 80s?), the regular riders have begged to have fares reinstated, exactly because the buses became rolling homeless shelters and mental wards.

:previous:

I now have visions of older street people living on the El or bus now, esp in winter. You can't kick them of for the are the Blago chosen people.:(

Bad things man, bad things.

I went to the gov's page and wrote the following message in his propaganda "send a message to your legislators":

http://www.illinois.gov/gov/

Dear legislators,

Bagofwind is planning on stealing money from the poor families so that he can please the wealthy seniors. PLEASE call a Constitutional convention so we can get this "republican" out of office and get a decent Democrat in his place.

How dare he make himself not available to the public.

How do you not get it, this is what we are talking about right now, the dumbass SUV whores from the south fucking over OUR transit system because they want to get their greasy little hands on a few more freeways.

I'm not talking economics here, I'm talking how their politicians blatantly screw over Chicago over and over again. Obviously I'm not saying "lets sever economic ties with the downstaters" that's ridiculous, I'm saying lets split the government so those dumbasses can't pull tyranny of the majority on us anymore! Chicago, as a city state, would be sooooo much better off if we didn't have to pay 1.50 in taxes for every dollar we get back while the downstaters pay .75 in taxes for every dollar they get back...

The problems with this are, where do you draw the lines? And the rest of Illinois would shrivel up and die.

ardecila is right. And can you imagine how overcrowded everything would be? In order to cope with increased demand, they'd need to have more trains, and a bigger strain would be put on the system, resulting in even more needed money. we'd be going through this whole underfunded cta mess again in a short time.

If you go to a show and they're charging $7 bucks for a pint of miller lite, you reflexively complain about how much shitty beer costs, but imagine if the beer was priced at market value (or even grocery store value) and there were 4,000 people at the venue. Not only would there not be enough beer, everybody involved would lose (long lines, rowdiness, etc)

Prices are not for payment alone, but for containment as well

This is my biggest issue with free transit, too. The existing system is already at capacity coming in from the north side, so making transit free would not only mean making up for the portion of operations currently covered by fares (about $500 million per year) but also would require additional capital and operational funds to expand the system to meet that demand. I mean, I would love it if it happened, but we're probably talking something on the order of a $1.5bn+ tax increase. Feasible to us, perhaps, but politically impossible in this climate. Now, if the funds came through the federal government as part of an ultra-super-mega pollution and greenhouse gas mitigation program....

in re: it being a mobile homeless shelter, in theory you could use some of the resources formerly devoted to fare controls as security and enforce a policy of no "loitering" and no "sleeping" in transit vehicles and facilities, thus having the pretext to throw the bums off. The ACLU might go nuts, but we're getting ahead of ourselves in such discussions anyway...

^ I almost exclusively ride on the last car of the el when I ride, and more than a couple times I've gotten on the blue line after midnight and stepped into a car that reeked of pot smoke and booze, and homeless are sleeping interstitially. I mean, I didn't mind too terribly, but its a little depressing sitting in there with that happenin. I'd say devoting some money to train security for night hours would be a good application of funds. They can at least get the potsmokers off the train :rolleyes:

I think i get it, Illinois is a representative governed state. When the majority of people in Illinois live in Chicago I thing you'll ger your wish but the majority lives outside city limits and you just have to deal with the political consequences.

Illinois may be a representative government, but our national philosophy is based on the belief that the majority has no right to do things to a minority group that harm the rights of a minority group. Also, we believe, that if a minority group is being oppressed they have the right to rebel against this oppression and do something about it, and honestly I'm starting to think the only rational solution to this problem is separation of the opposing parties.

Clearly holding our crucial transit funding hostage is clearly harmful to all of Chicagoland. Thus we, as a minority group within Illinois, have the right to take action to alleviate our situation.

Yeah, free transit is great in principal, bad in reality. It's the same reason insurance companies have a doctor visit copay. It's to keep hypochondriacs from clogging the office, so that the doctor is available for those who really need her.
Can you immagine what the freeways would look like if the state was handing out free gasoline and free parking? It'd be mass gridlock.

If Blago wants to spend more money, he should leave the fares where they are, and fix and expand the system. The city needs the Circle Line and new stations more than it needs free rides.

I just don't understand why our politicians are so short-sighted. Nobody seems to understand that if you invest a lot in the cta in one chunk to make it better, faster, cleaner, etc... then more money can be made in the long run by attracting more businesses to the city, more tourists, more riders who already live here, and the domino effect can take place. The cta is so clearly what's holding our city back from being even more incredible than it already is. I mean, we have so much debt as it is already, so why not issue more bonds, borrow more and work with the feds to get some money for this. I don't think people outside of chicago realize how important this is to all people living and traveling in and around the chicago area. The relief of congestion is beneficial to everyone involved and the environment. Blago will be gone soon thank God, and hopefully someone like Obama can step in and use his influence in some way to set these fools in springfield straight.

Hidden, unexpected genius is Blago's "free ride for the elderly" plan?
 

I know that a lot of you here are really pissed off about Blago tampering with this legislation that has finally made it to his desk, and with plenty of good reason. But I've got to wonder if, unintentionally (I'm guessing), there might be a great blessing in disguise for Chicago area transit's future if Blago's amendment passes.

By providing free rides for the elderly, and with the elderly making up a huge voting block, transit may be seen more and more as a real public good, instead of some system for the inner city that needs bailing out every 3 years. Perhaps more and more elderly, in light of a lifetime of free rides, will use the CTA and rely on it than ever before, and thus will be a strong force behind maintaining high levels of service and, thus, push for adequate funding. Lets not forget that there has also been a huge boom of baby boomers moving back into the city as well as into those suburban TOD developments, all of who are getting close to that age 65 cutoff, and we've potentially got a good formula of conditions that may bode well for Chicago area transit for years to come.

^interesting point. We'll see I suppose.