The Democratic Party may be against privatizing large services but I don't think they have a unified position on more mundane apparatuses.

You write as though government intervention in both cases sealed their fate. But a bailout for automakers was not the cause of their troubles; they did it to themselves by failing to invest in capital improvements (e.g., to boost the quality of their products) and by focusing too much on fads (e.g., SUVs), both extremely short-sighted policies. And any way you slice it Wall Street bought into the real estate bubble with blind, zealous optimism, as though home prices had nowhere to go but up.

Certainly, the government exacerbated the problems in both industries, but to claim it is responsible for their downfall because of something as esoteric as, say, a couple of percentage points off an interest rate is an awfully fatalistic view for a self-described libertarian. Both industries had enormous agency in spite of federal intervention; both exercised it poorly.

Like I said above, I'm not sure the Obama administration will include an all-out anti-privatization policy as part of its agenda. Obama's a pragmatist, not an ideologue, and where privatization has worked I imagine he will encourage it. I don't think anything about transportation over the next few years will be status quo, especially considering the eight years during which the status quo has developed.

Folks,

I think some of you may be taking the ‘Obama connection’ for granted. Considering this city’s history of corruption, the last thing Obama, IMO, is going to do is grease the wheels for funding that the city of Chicago funked up.

At best, I see this coming out of a total infrastructure stimulus budget that could have been used elsewhere locally.

Are there any currrent examples of succesful fully private public transport companies.....Chicago's history is replete with private "public" transport companies going bankrupt....and this in an era when PT was much more of a "main-stream" modality...

To me public transport is one of the classic public goods....its beneficial externalities are too diffuse to be fully captured by pure profit motive

I am unaware of current private companies that run succesful PT systems....but then again I would not consider myself very well versed in the topic, just a casual observer

My optimism has nothing to do with Chicago connections or any special favors for Chicago. Obama has called for "the largest investment in infrastructure since the creation of the interstate highway system under Dwight D. Eisenhower" and Ray LaHood has been a consistent supporter of public transit for his entire career. The landscape for funding transit projects is about to drastically change for the better for all cities - not just Chicago. I think losing the money actually frees up Chicago to look at a larger scale project or alternatives to BRT that were previously considered too expensive.

None, with the possible exceptions of a few small Swiss tourist railroads, a couple of Japanese suburban railways that are part of big real estate conglomerates, and the Hong Kong MTR, which does a lot of real estate development around its stations and received its storage yard (immensely valuable real estate) for free.

Chicago's Wendella commuter service until recently could be considered one of the nation's only unsubsidized transport companies—but they couldn't resist taking a CMAQ grant a few years ago to buy their most recent boat.

For the auto industries it wasn't that bailouts caused the problems, but rather that the bailouts sustained companies that should have gone under because, lets face it, they suck at doing business. For example, if Chrysler went under in the 80's because of their failure to plan ahead with their product line you bet Ford and GM would have been a little more nervous about building their business entirely around one type of auto.

In the Real Estate industry, none of this subprime crisis would have happend if the Fed didn't set interest rates. Interest rates over the past 5 years should probably have averaged 8-10%, but instead they averaged 6-7%, this means that, in order to get a decent 8-10% return, companies had to lend to subprime coustomers who they could charge the higher rate to. That is the often ignored fundemental cause of this crisis, not evil bankers, not predatory lending, not deregulation, none of that would have or could have happened the government did not operate under the mantra that "easy credit and low interest rates are fundamental human rights"...

Are you exempting private jitney services because they run on roads paid for by government?

Privatized systems can work if the costs of construction and expansion are paid by government and the private company only needs to worry about operating expenses and minor capital costs (like customer improvements and basic maintenance).

I see nothing inherently wrong with this system... construction and expansion are one-time expenses. I think all of us would prefer one-time expenses over long-term tax increases, like the excruciating 10.25% sales tax. If the city didn't offer so many unique stores and restaurants, then commerce in the city would REALLY be in trouble, like so many other high-tax Rust Belt cities.

I actually don't know of any local jitney services in the US that meet insurance and driver licensing standards. Miami-Dade experimented in the early 90s with licensing and regulating jitneys, but that doesn't appear to have been a great success. So it's not clear that jitneys are profitable unless you allow them to cream-skim only the busiest routes and eliminate vehicle cost, insurance, and a good chunk of driver wages.

Given that most regulators are hostile to jitney's, this should come as no shock. A basic licensing and insurance requirement as part of a pro-jitney regulatory framework might not cost that much money.

One idea I've long considered worth exploration is the "every car a jitney" model where we effectively have paid ride shares to boost carpooling.

But who pays for major maintenance? Rail maintenance is one of the main expenses for any transit agency and road maintenance is a big one for municipalities.

Chicago Card Plus iGo
 

I ordered the Chicago Card Plus iGo card, mostly to see what it looks like since I'm a pretty avid fan of ZipCar.

Anyway, I thought it would be relatively slick, like a regular ChicagoCard Plus with a green color scheme and the added capability to use iGo. And, basically, it is, although the card quality is lower than the regular Chicago Card Plus, and the iGo component, rather than being integrated into the card, is a small circle about the size of a dime, taped (yes, taped) to the back of it. Okay, so it's not like scotch tape, but it's still basically tape, and the circle sticks out making that part of the card twice as thick.

Anyway, they also wrote my card info (by hand) under where the card was attached to the mailing, so when I removed the card, the adhesive tore that and I'll have to call in to get that number. Basically my first impression of it was pretty much summed up accurately by my younger brother's comment, "That's pretty ganky."

I haven't used it yet, but it's a lot more seat-of-the-pants than I'd have expected considering the advertising the press they're putting into it.

^^^

That's pathetic. Your brother summed it up perfectly....ganky.

ganky or janky?

take your pick, either applies, but my brother said "ganky"

I go with janky.

In any case I am seriously considering getting one of these (g)janky cards. What is your opinion of the iGo service? Do they have a yearly charge of any kind or can I just get a basic account and then use it to pick up a new shelf or something big from the store every couple months?

You can PM me if you want, don't want to distract this thread too much!

I thought about PM'ing you, but decided it's transportation-related so I'll just post it here:

When i-go first came to Chicago I used them for a while, but then had a billing dispute with them where they refused to even respond to me - not to my calls, not to my emails, not to my postal letters - that left such a bad taste in my mouth I stopped using them and used regular rental services (like Enterprise or Hertz, etc). Regular rental agencies are still usually better (though not always) for multi-day rentals than car-sharing services are.

Then ZipCar showed up on the scene and I went with them. I've been a happy ZipCar user ever since.

One thing ZipCar has done by introducing competition is improved i-go's service levels. It was ZipCar's idea to include miles with the rental - before them, i-go billed everyone for every single mile, which meant ZipCar and i-go expenses were essentially the same for most rentals at first. Since i-go started offering the option to include miles in the rate, i-go is now less expensive, HOWEVER, they don't have nearly as broad a selection of car models. ZipCar is also very responsive to my inquiries and gives hours to compensate for problems without too much hassle.

So, basically, if you want the cheapest option and don't care much about what car you're driving, and for a lower price are willing to put up with lesser service, by all means go with i-go. If, like me, you value good service and on the occasions you choose to drive rather than take the bus or "L" or Metra, like to have the option to drive a Volvo or a Mini Cooper or for more money a BMW - or for less money a Honda Civic, if that's your thing, or a Mazada 3 (I could keep going, the list is long), then go with ZipCar. Both have locations in most of the same places, although you'll want to check to see if one has more in the areas you think you'll use them more.

If you do choose i-go, they offer a number of plan options.
http://www.igocars.org/pricing

Their most basic one is $50 for the first year and $25 a year after that, plus hourly rental plus mileage with starts at $6/hr and $0.40/mile.

The next step up from that has slightly higher hourly rates, but includes mileage (150 miles per 24-hour period). Starts at $8/hr. I'm guessing most people go with this one.

Then there is a plan where you basically pre-buy three discounted hours each month but they don't carry over, and you get a reduced rate for other hours. And finally a plan where you pay $30/month to get a discounted hourly rate, which pays for itself if you use at least 8 hours a month.

For ZipCar, rates start at a little over $8/hr and go up to almost $14/hr (for the BMW 3-series cars). You can get up to a 15% discount on your miles if you pre-pay for some miles each month and depending on how much you pay you may or may not be able to carry those miles over for 1-3 months.

The startup/annual fees for I-go are reduced or otherwise waived (don't remember exactly) for college students, or at least people with .edu e-mail addresses. So that's another potential bonus in I-go's favor, depending on your situation.

I'm still shocked that the local press is essentially giving Daley a free pass on blowing $153 million. I mean, where the hell is the Tribune and Crains on this one?

Essentially, wasn't the whole reason for the parking meter deal to create a "stick" for a future "carrot" (that carrot being the BRT system)? So now there's just a stick..

I kind of wonder if it's too late to reverse the lease of the city's parking meters.

^I, too, have been patiently awaiting any announcements about the BRT plan. I wonder, though, if the recent ubiquitous news about the budget deficit has anything to do with the lack of reported progress on it.

This is relevant to post here I should thing, and a small and satisfying sign of progress at any rate that I will certainly be making use of (the current lock-ups outside of the station are at point-blank range of the salt shooters from the plow trucks--really horrible on the components)--sheltered, in-station bike storage at the Damen Blue Line stop):

http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/943...9510787qh2.jpg

Different initiatives - the BRT project was tied to downtown off-street parking fee increases, while the meter lease was an asset privatization deal.

I think they're waiting to see if the Feds reconsider after the inauguration before they declare the money actually lost.

I personally think it was dumb to be willing to accept BRT money by agreeing to raise the cost of driving to downtown. I think limiting parking spaces and enforcing bus lanes in and too downtown is about the limit of what government should do to limit driving downtown. Like it or not, congestion and traffic are legitimately symbols of success if an area has a built-out infrastructure. If you have a two-road town and those roads are congested, you build more roads. But in a place like downtown Chicago or London or Manhattan, where all the logically necessary roads are in place congestion is just the price of success. In order to do more than that, you have to have so much inertia and so much resistance to companies relocating that charging fees will just be absorbed. Apparently - for now - London has that. Manhattan might be able to sustain that for a while, too. But I don't think Chicago has that - it's too spread out and while there is some premium on locating in the Loop it's not high enough to justify active discouragements from doing so. Keep the drivers coming AND find a way to bring in even more people. Easiest way to do that is increase densities near existing "L" and Metra stations. Second easiest way is to keep building out - with both offices and residences - the Central Area. Final way you do that is by improving the grade-separated transit options in the Central Area and adjacent-to-central-area neighborhoods so that the whole central area is tied together. Residential is cratered right now, which makes it the perfect time to work on the TOD zoning since there won't be any immediate impact to scare NIMBYs.

The Federal Requirements made it impossible for NYC to get the money and now it looks like it made it impossible for Chicago too. I don't really see this as a big loss at this point tho'. We went for the money when it was hard to get any funding for transit, now we're expecting massive federal spending on infrastructure - we should just let this go and look at bigger plans.

When has the press EVER taken Daley to task for his screw-ups? There's a reason he continues to get re-elected without formidable challenge.

I've never seen anybody raise taxes the way he has and offer nothing for it, and still get re-elected without incident.

Eh?
 

CTA chief: Bus rapid transit 'not dead'
Recommend (1) Comments
January 14, 2009
BY MARY WISNIEWSKITransportation Reporter

CTA President Ron Huberman said the agency’s plans for bus rapid transit is “not dead” despite the recent loss of $153 million in federal funding.

Huberman said the CTA is continuing to lobby the U.S. Department of Transportation to get the funding, which was lost after the federal government refused to grant the city a 13-day extension to approve “congestion reduction” fees for downtown parking and deliveries.

Huberman said staff planning continues for bus rapid transit, which would give buses their own designated lanes during rush hour on certain streets, though the agency is not spending money on engineering.

“There’s a truly unique opportunity here in Chicago to get this done,” said Huberman. He could not provide a time table as to when the new administration may reconsider the grant.

Mayor Daley last week said he had tried to salvage the federal funding for Chicago but “inflexible” federal bureaucrats would not allow it.

So a Metra train derailed?

What general taxes has he raised? The most egregious tax increases of the past few years have been from other agencies, not the city.

It was an Amtrak train that derailed:
Amtrak derailment at Union Station severely delays 3 Metra lines
The derailment Wednesday afternoon of two cars of an Amtrak train while departing the south side of Union Station severely delayed three Metra train lines during the afternoon rush and could have a major impact on Thursday morning's rail service, officials said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,6518214.story

He’s raised property taxes, and the end all be all of all real estate taxes, the “transfer tax” associated with real estate sales, which are now paid by both buyers and sellers. He’s given his blessed approval of the county’s increase to the sales tax, and the city eventually added to it.

^ this is not the general "let's bitch about how high taxes are" thread. if your comment does not in some way directly relate to a transit issue in chicagoland, then it doesn't belong in this thread.

and no, general bitching about mayor daley because you don't like his policies is not a directly related transit issue in chicagoland. please keep your commentary specific and on-topic

I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet:

http://www.transitchicago.com/news/d...ArticleId=2274

I wonder what numbers were like for November and December when oil prices tanked? They would be the best indicator of what we can expect going into '09, I think.

So anyway...

The SB Brown and Purple lines are still backing up during the morning rush hour. A guy in my building got off at Merchandise Mart and I got off at Clark/Lake on the Purple line. We both walked to our building at Lake & LaSalle (200 N LaSalle). He had time to get coffee and held the elevator for me. What a time saver the Purple line reroute has been…

That's not a Brown Line problem per se, I don't think - it's more of a Loop problem. The CTA has an ongoing project to replace the signaling system with something modern and computerized; this should wrap up sometime in 2010, according to the CTA website.

The current signaling system on the Loop was installed in the 1970s, a period of declining ridership.

^ They often back up at the peak of the peak south of Clark Junction all the way to the loop, as well, particularly in the outbound direction. The combined headway is now very short, and it's very difficult if not impossible to evenly space the trains on their way out of the loop now that the two lines are coming through Tower 18 from different directions with 3 other lines also vying for space through the junction. I don't know any details about the loop signal project; I imagine it will help somewhat, but the only way to really ensure smooth operations all around would entail reducing the number of trains going through the junction, particularly those making the slow 10-15mph turning movements (straight movements can be taken at 35 mph). This could be achieved either by simply reducing the number of trains on all loop lines to the minimum possible to meet demand, or by creating some new through-route lines e.g. connecting Midway-Kimball, which would probably introduce a whole other set of problems.

It really wasn't a problem until the Purple line started running on the inner track in the loop, which happened on Dec 28th. At that point, CTA did two things that I think caused the problem. They started running brown line and purple line trains more frequently, and rerouted the purple line trains. Obviously, it's going to take a train longer to hang a left at tower 18 than it would to go straight. That's half the problem. The other half though, is the frequency of trains. The trains seem less full in the mornings too.

As long as we're discussing potential re-alignments, what if the Green Line used the Douglas Line instead of the Lake Street Line? The Brown Line would then use both sides of the Loop, crossing itself at Lake/Wells and continuing on to Oak Park. Orange and Purple would continue to make the full circuit of the Loop.

^Ardecila, That would make more sense if the Brown/Pink lines merged. Both use the elevated tracks around the Loop.

I think the main problem with that is the lack of ridership on the pink line compared to the brown line. It would likely substantially over-capacitize the current pink line.

I've always thought the best option would be to through route both the pink and orange lines to the brown so alternate trains on the ravenswood branch would go to either midway or douglass. the brown (kimball-douglas) would still make the full revolution around the loop but wouldn't have to make a turn at the clark junction and the orange (kimball-midway) would run the south and west branches (opposite the green; again running straight through the junction). that would certainly help congestion in the loop and add connectivity to the system.

^^ That actually makes sense. Instead of alternate trains, though, it should be only every third train that uses the Douglas Branch. Pink Line has about 30,000 riders per day, Orange has 60,000, and Brown has 90,000.

The downside is that
a) your Kimball-Midway route wouldn't serve the whole Loop,
b) it's confusing, and
c) that would be an absolute terror to render on a map.

while that's true the kimball-midway wouldn't serve the whole loop its not as if you couldn't transfer at roosevelt to the red/green to get there.

Any word yet on when they'll begin construction this year on the Oakton station?

Also that Pink needs more frequency than one third of the Brown Line's frequency, and Orange probably needs more than two thirds. Especially during off-peak hours--you'd either be greatly increasing the frequency of Kimball trains or cutting Douglas trains to like every half hour or 40 minutes. That's not rapid transit.

I don't understand exactly what any of these realignments would accomplish. You could get a one-seat ride from Kimball to Midway or whatever instead of the trivial inconvenience of stepping off the train at Washington/Wells, but how much is that worth? If you were going to try to link up lines by ridership, wouldn't it possibly make more sense to have a Lake-Loop-Midway route and a 63rd-Loop-54th/Cermak route, and leave the Brown Line out of it? Even then, unless you increased frequencies on the Douglas-South Side route, you'd have ridiculously long headways on the two 63rd St. branches.

well the initial discussion was about how to ease congestion in the loop, this being, in my view the easiest way in that you'd reduce the number of trains in the loop and remove all but the purple line express from making a turn at the clark junction. I don't know if its realistic in terms of train frequency but I picked this idea up off of the final train routing schematics from the circle line proposals.

"Clark Junction" is at Roscoe and Clark, near Wrigley Field.

"Tower 18" is the crossing/junction at Wells and Lake.

they should re-build that station at clark/roscoe.

My plan to reduce congestion on the Loop L.

#1 - Build a flyover at Clark Jct (relieves northbound congestion, necessary to add more Brown/Purple runs).

#2 - Reallocate frequencies from trains with lower ridership to higher ridership. For example, replace a half empty six car Green Line train with another 8-car Brown Line that is jammed to the gills.

#3 - Spot construction to enable selected Brown Line trains to be routed through the State St. subway, which is under-utilized. I'm not sure how the trackage connects to the south, but it would be a great is if this could be through-routed with the Orange Line to take even more runs off the Loop. Otherwise, the backup is to investigate through-routing with the Green Line south branches.

#4 - Replace State/Lake and the three stations on the east side of the Loop with two superstations. Shift the platforms for Clark/Lake to the east to reduce queuing problems at Tower 18.

#5 - Signal upgrades and operations reviews at Tower 18 and Tower 12 to look for other possible improvements.

If all else fails, bring back spacer boards!

Interesting little article, but I like this segment:

Windy City White House
By: Paul Merrion January 19, 2009

Sources in Chicago Democratic circles say Robert Rivkin, former general counsel of the Chicago Transit Authority and now deputy general counsel of Chicago-based Aon Corp., could be named to a high-level position under Mr. LaHood. Mr. Rivkin's wife, Cindy Moelis, who worked with first lady Michelle Obama at City Hall in the 1990s, is said to be going to work in the White House.

^ We'll see if this translates into anything..

I don't think its physically possible to put more trains in the state st. subway at peak hours (3-7 minute headway), somebody with better knowledge can answer more completely.

Whether the CTA can pull it off or not is another question, but the physical capacity of the line would support greater frequencies. Heavy rail runs on greater frequencies in many other cities. The CTA's signals may require upgrading for this, however.