Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
Isn't that the whole gist of his post? If CTA was really interested in improving service downtown through capital spending, then they would have jumped on board with these projects.
The fact that city government is pushing these projects with little to no reciprocation by CTA is evidence of how at-odds their respective goals are.
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No -
my point is that's simply not how it works. Of course CTA staffers attend meetings at the City about CDOT projects, and city staffers attend meetings at CTA HQ about CTA projects. It's not like there isn't constant exchange of information, updates, input, insight, and so forth for any of these initiatives. I'm not sure what you mean by "jumping on board" or "reciprocation" - it has much more to do with City Hall wanting to own any and every capital improvement downtown, with the exception of when CTA's ownership allows it to tap different funding sources (i.e. CTA paying for the subway track renewal projects via bonding and stimulus funds vs. CDOT taking decades to rebuild downtown subway stations with formula-based CMAQ grants from the Feds).
If anything, I think the entire weird arrangement is just an argument in favor of *gasp* regional-level planning. But the one thing everyone agrees on is that RTA isn't equipped to spearhead these projects (and besides, RTA power is now skewed heavily towards the suburbs, the city would lose out in such an arrangement). Meanwhile CMAP (formerly NIPC and CATS) still struggles immensely to be taken seriously and listened to because of its relatively low visibility and general lack of binding decision-making power, though CMAP would be the best agency to handle conducting and prioritizing the planning studies for large capital projects before handing off design/construction to the actual operating agency e.g. CTA, IDOT, and so on.