View Single Post
  #15616  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2021, 7:21 PM
ardecila's Avatar
ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,356
^ What comes first, though? Why should we trust those same transit agencies with even more tax dollars, when they can't even work together to better use the resources they already have?

I have no faith that pumping a bunch of cash into the existing system will lead to better outcomes. Maybe we get a few flashy new projects that benefit small areas of the city, but the overall transit system in Chicagoland will still be status quo.

For what it's worth, Preckwinkle's pilot program to lower Metra Electric fares was awesome and a breath of fresh air. I had zero faith in Preckwinkle as a leader when she ran for mayor, but she deserves a lot of credit for pushing this pilot. Lightfoot, on the other hand, deserves plenty of scorn for letting her personal feud with Preckwinkle stand in the way of what's best for South Siders (and south suburban residents).

Quote:
Originally Posted by moorhosj1 View Post
If those projects had already done planning, environmental impact studies, community meetings, preliminary station design, and more you might have a point. The Red Line extension has been planned and studied for years. Many studies and meetings.

Meanwhile, we spent $2.1 billion on the Purple and Red Line on the north side, remade the Blue Line track and stations to O’Hare, added multiple stations on the Green Line, created the Metra Electric pilot project to test more frequent service, and more. This project has been waiting for a while and the background work has been put in over many years.
The great thing about Metra Electric is that it already exists. Metra could start running frequent trains tomorrow and start accepting CTA bus transfers. No environmental work or community meetings needed. It would just require them to readjust their priorities. Yes, long term they need to rebuild stations for accessibility and add some infill stations, but we're not talking about a megaproject here. It's an incremental upgrade that starts with service changes only.
__________________
la forme d'une ville change plus vite, hélas! que le coeur d'un mortel...
Reply With Quote