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Old Posted Mar 13, 2007, 6:05 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Chicago
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^I did see some railway ties imbetween the Brown and Redline tracks I can't remember exactly where but I think it was Armitage. They were stacked on top of each other but there werer not that many to do a large chunk of the line. I feel the Redline is really slow in addition to the Blue Line. Three days a week I travel from Addison and Wilson on the Red Line and those trains crawl at walking pace for much of the trip in addition to stop and go.

Something needs to be done.

Is the situation beyond hope for public transit in Chicago? Starting next year the CTA needs to come up with an annual extra 200 million for pensions in addition to their usual shortfalls. The tracks are in a state of disrepair and so are the trains and busses. The average age of the trains exceeds what the maximum recommended age of a train should be by the Federal Government. The signals date from the 1950's, busses have not had their recommended reconditioning, the railways ties are falling apart. It goes on and on.

I know everyone is pinning their hopes on the Olympics in that the CTA will receive much needed funds. But even if Chicago does get the Olympics can the CTA run until the funding comes up? What if the Chicago does not get the Olympics.

This is a huge concern. I never thought things could fall apart so quickly.

What is going on? I find it hard to believe the Illinois and Chicago just don't care.

So much needs to be done all at once that even if they got billions and billions problems would still mount as repairs, new trains, etc, take years. Yet it looks like the CTA will have less and less money each year as pensions will eat up a huge chunk.

The system is about to collapse.
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