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Originally Posted by the urban politician
Not sure why you always have to get so worked up all of the time, but yes of course I am serious. Facts matter.
Ridership is WAY down, nobody in leadership is willing to confront the realities of accepting COVID as endemic (if they did, maybe more people would wake up and be willing to ride the trains more), and WFH is essentially a semi-permanent state of affairs, if not permanent altogether.
Improvements in the internet is an infrastructure investment, a HUGE one, that is making rail transit somewhat obsolete. Technology tends to do that. People will still ride trains, but far fewer people will be doing it than pre-COVID. I don't think daily CTA rail ridership will ever again reach where it was prior to 2020.
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WFH is most certainly not as permanent as you seem to think. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of my professional friends has been forced to phase back into working full time in the office in the last month. Some only have to come in 3 days a week until the new year when it will become 5, but many are already having to do so. Plenty of the largest employers have announced that they are going to require workers to come back into the office. Omicron fear might slow that down a bot, but almost certainly not permanently.