Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee
I guess the root problem of all of this is not enough funding to make it a world class system. When the stations look as despicable as ours, I guess for many its hard to imagine its important to have rolling stock that is reflective of the times.
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Not enough funding, and I think the operations could be made much more efficient, though that would be very politically unpopular (it would involve cutting the plethora of service that CTA provides that no one rides, lke 30+ bus routes and reducing frequency of off-peak services). If operations recovered more at the farebox, then more public money could to capital improvements like station renovations. (of course, at 53% recovery ratio, we're still better than many major systems, Boston is 35%).
Another thing worth mentioning is that most of the system actually is in decent shape: The Orange Line, Green Line, Pink Line are all excellent. The south end of the red line and the brown line will soon be excellent. parts of the blue line are in decent shape. It just so happens that the most heavily used portions, i.e. the north branch of the red line and the downtown subways, are in the worst shape.