^^^Yes, that is the bridge.



Perhaps a President Obama could drum up some support for it? It would be a very mutual break away from the majority of the state population. I have family in rural Illinois and the Chicago hatred is strong among the rural folks, most of which is totally unjustified, but nonetheless.

Check me up as another supporter for the State of Chicago, I think we should ask NW Indiana to join us as well, seeing we are well interlinked and Indianapolis could give two shits about them.

Our gross regional product is what, like $450 billion? We'd be the 18th largest economy in the world, just behind Turkey (about half as much as India, South Korea, and Mexico), subtantially more than Switzerland, Sweden, and Taiwan....

No, it would simply require Congressional approval and the approval between the parties involved (Illinois and Chicago).

^ Cool. Where do I sign?

I'm all for it, as long as the People's Democratic State of Chicago gets the biggest star on the US flag, and our state constitution guarantees free transit for seniors as long as this great country may live.

Can't we have the Constitutional Convention here in Illinois? It came up a few weekends ago in regards to being able to recall and petition amendments.

I am for all of that.

Random, but I thought it was interesting
 

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/skylinen...108-s1.article

GOP rookies set sights on Durbin

January 11, 2008
By JIM JAWORSKI

Andy Martin

...He supports a strong transportation system, specifically a high-speed rail system in Illinois.

"We need high-speed rail because it will tie this area together," he said. "That is why it is so distressing to see this nonsense going on in Springfield."

Blago's Senior CTA Decision Is First Step In Plan

CHICAGO (CBS) ― After months of debate and disagreement, Illinois lawmakers have agreed on a way to fund public transportation. But Gov. Rod Blagojevich has thrown a wrench in those plans by agreeing to the bill, only if seniors ride for free. CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports on more of Blagojevich's last minute decision.

Ideally, Gov. Rod Blagojevich says everyone should be able to ride public transportation for free. This is a first step that he defends taking and defends waiting until the last minute to do so.

Full article and video:
http://cbs2chicago.com/consumer/cta.....2.628108.html


-----

Now I must say, making public transit free for all would be quite an awesome thing for the city. That is, of course, assuming the state actually funds the RTA the money they need to offer a decent service. A get-what-you-pay-for type deal would be horrible.

If you think homeless, vandalism, and crime problems on the CTA are bad now, wait until CTA trains and buses become totally free and open.

How quickly we forget our roots, Hog butcher, Cyrus McCormick, Grain Warehousing, Commodities trading..... We're all tied together... we advance together.

Are you referring to free rides or secession? Because in the case of the rest of the state, its more like "some of us drag the rest of us down and take our money"...

Chicago does not need the rest of the state, the rest of the state just harms us...

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.

I suppose it might stop some people from moving to Florida.

Every time I hear my parents complain about the weather in Chicagoland and wish they were in the South, I wonder why Chicagoland is so bad for seniors. My grandparents always did okay without moving to Florida.

Meh. Casino revenues are dropping, even in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. I'm not against having one, but there is no reason to overpay for the license. The legislature is out of their mind with what they want for it.

If you are furious about the transporation issue here in Illinois and other things check out this webpage.

http://impeachblago.com/index.html

This is exactly right. Public transit should be affordable, not free.

Cities don't need free transit for seniors, or the disabled, and they certainly don't need free transit for everyone. They need quick, clean, efficient trains to bring people from outlying neighborhoods of the city to their downtown jobs, shopping and entertainment. Public transportation is necessary to continue the gentrification and revitalization of Chicago in particular. They should be using any excess revenue to improve the quality of service, rather than make the same bad service cheaper.

So?

One of the things that upsets me about this whole 'seniors ride free' sillyness is that in the end nothing is FREE. Someone always ends up paying for it. Politicians use these tactics though to show compassion and understanding towards people and unfortunately many people follow along. I've already heard several people say what a wonderful idea that this has been proposed.

I then respond 'Fine, do YOU want to pay more in taxes to subsidize this?'

This whole thing is especially ridiculous considering the amount of money that needs to be spent bringing the enitire system up to code so that seniors actually can use the service. Too many broken escalators, the entire Wabash leg of the loop needs to be rehabbed, dark dreary subway stations etc..

I'm not against the principle of seniors riding for free. I'm simply against this proposal at a time when so much more money is needed to modernize the current system.

Too FEW escalators to begin with. When I was in Paris for the first time a few months ago, almost all of their elevated stations have escalators—nice ones too.

But do they have escalators like the one at North and Clybourn? I think not, that thing is fucking sweet, like 10 inches wide! Its skinny enough to force extremely overweight people to use the stairs!

I encountered one that seemed to be about just under 2 feet wide. Thats true about North/Clybourn, fatties beware!

This fatty loves them because skinny asses cannot run past me on them.:D
(but I do stairs now so I don't get that joy any longer).

Anyone happen to catch Chicago Tonight (well, tonight)? Dedicated the entire hour to the impending transit funding vote/crisis. Excellent piece. One of the points that stuck with me was how one of the guys talked about how London is pouring billions into expanding their transit, and how they view it as an investment. And yet we always look at it as a "subsidy".

I think this whole thing goes to show just how precarious Chicago's foothold is on the world stage. The last guy who they interviewed said it best: "Illinois without Chicago is Iowa."

The new thread under this one notes Vancouver transit getting a $14B dollar investment. How frightening in comparison.

Right. Here, transit gets a "bailout" while new roads and interchanges are economic investment.

..........I know the transit funding agreement is paramount, but.........I just have a couple of unrelated transit questions.......what's new with the Grand Ave (Red) station re-hab ? ........what's new with the Super-station ? ....how is the Brown Line progressing ? ....any news there? ...any word on any progress on the Circle Line ? or Red line extension ? ........these issues may have been discussed recently, but I'm too lazy to pour through all the "transit funding crap" to look for it .......... :rolleyes:

Just when I think Blago can't be any dumber:

Blagojevich to skeptical seniors: 'Hold your nose and take a bus for free'

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/...jevich-to.html

Taft

Basic work for the Grand Avenue rehab has started. Go to CDOT's website to read more.

According to CTA's website, the Brown Line project is 65% done.

No word on Circle Line, Red Line extension, etc.

........thank you !! :tup:

House passes mass-transit bill with free rides for seniors

Link, Chicago Tribune

!!


About damn time.