The Regional Transportation Authority is asking the CTA and Pace to consider giving active-duty military personnel a break on fares. Metra already allows soldiers in uniform to ride trains for half the regular fare.
The timing of the RTA's request isn't great, considering both the CTA and Pace are threatening drastic fare hikes and service cuts if they don't get additional funding from Springfield.
But both agencies said the discount program is something they'll consider once the current budget impasse is resolved. If it gets resolved, the way Governor Blagojevich and the legislature are going.
Today I had a story about a United Airlines flight from Phoenix that diverted from O'Hare to Midway this week after part of the right engine backfired.
Passengers on the plane said they heard what sounded like an explosion and saw a burst of flames. The plane landed safely at Midway.
The CTA has reached a five-year agreement with its unions governing wages, health-care and pension reforms, putting the heat on the Illinois General Assembly to act to avert threatened fare hikes and service cuts.
Basically, the CTA struck a deal that involves giving its bus drivers, motormen and other unionized employees a 16 percent pay raise over five years. But those raises would be eaten up by higher contributions to health care and the CTA's severely underfunded pension fund, which is expected to run out in less than five years.
By making its pension and health care programs more cost-effective, “The CTA has accomplished what the governor and legislative leaders have demanded as a condition for reforming public transit funding,” Mayor Daley said at an afternoon press conference today.
The CTA, under new President Ron Huberman, has already announced $18.5 million in administrative cuts designed to show lawmakers that the agency is trimming the fat from its budget. Even so, without $97.5 million in state funding, drastic service cuts and fare increases are inevitable, officials have said.
Still, the response from Springfield has been non-committal, and today was no exception. Gov. Blagojevich lauded the CTA-union agreement, but said he won't approve a regional sales tax increase that's being pushed by the RTA, CTA and some legislative leaders as a funding solution.
More than one transportation expert has said it will take the CTA, Metra and Pace going through with the severe cuts and fare hikes they're proposing before the legislature makes a move. Do you agree?
Chicago's getting it's first colored bike lanes. The green pavement markings are supposed to highlight areas where bike and car traffic merge, in an attempt to prevent collisions between the two.
The lanes are going in at nine locations near busy intersections. The last of them should be installed by next month.
Here's where they'll be:
Dearborn at Chicago (northbound approach)
Elston at Division (northbound and southbound approach)
Halsted at Roosevelt (southbound approach)
Lincoln at Webster (southbound approach)
Milwaukee at Augusta (southbound approach)
Roosevelt at Damen (eastbound and westbound approach)
Warren at Ogden (eastbound approach)
They say misery loves company, and few things make people more miserable than not being able to get where they need to go. Or having to take public transportation under less than desirable circumstances.
So how about sharing your all-time worst travel experiences in Chicago?
It could be the flight from hell, or the CTA ride that just couldn't end fast enough.
Speaking of flights from hell, Jon Hardman sent us a Blackberry message before boarding a United Airlines plane that did not have working bathrooms. He was headed to Rochester, NY.
"They keep making announcements 'we advise you to use the bathrooms prior to boarding the plane.' The equivalent of your parents saying 'you better go now, cause we're not stopping.' Unbelievable."
Jon never wrote back to say how the trip went, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say it wasn't pleasant. Then again, at least he wasn't headed to Australia.
Yesterday was an awful day to fly United. A computer glitch disabled the airline's dispatch system for two hours, creating a domino effect of delays after the problem was fixed.
My column today notes that the 12 board members who run Pace suburban bus service rarely ride it.
This got me thinking about the ridership habits of the state lawmakers who hold the fate of Chicago's mass transit system in their hands.
So I asked representatives for Governor Blagojevich and the state's legislative leaders to ask their bosses how often they take the CTA, Metra or Pace. Here's what they said:
"The Governor grew up riding the CTA -- he used buses and the el to get to school all the way through his university years, and then also used it to get to work when he was a practicing attorney," Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said. Blagojevich's mother was also a ticket agent for the CTA. Now, though, the governor isn't a frequent transit rider.
Ditto for Senate Majority leader Emil Jones. He doesn't take transit, but "he supports it," his rep said.
Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, gave me the brushoff, saying the speaker was too busy with the ongoing legislative session to answer the question. So I can't tell you how often Madigan takes the L or Metra.
Reps for the House and Senate minority leaders were more helpful.
With the exception of trips to Wrigley Field on the Red Line, House Minority leader Tom Cross isn't a regular transit rider, spokesman David Dring said, noting that Cross' hometown of Oswego offers very few options where public transportation is concerned.
The same can be said for Senate Minority leader Frank Watson, who lives in Greenville. But Watson rep Patty Schuh says her boss uses the CTA when he's in Chicago, and takes Metra to visit legislative districts in the suburbs.
In short, CTA riders who say legislators in Springfield are out of touch with the woeful state of Chicago-area mass transit may be on to something, considering how infrequently the state's top leaders ride buses and trains.
But Schuh also makes a valid point:
"You don't have to be an everyday user to understand the importance of it."
Still, understanding the importance of transit is one thing. Coming to a consensus on how to fund it is something else entirely.
Back in April, I asked if you thought the City of Chicago should consider congestion pricing to cut down on traffic in the city, similar to a proposal in New York. Well, now Ald. Ed Burke is backing the idea.
Today, Burke floated the idea of charging motorists a fee to drive into the city; the money would go to the CTA.
Think it'll work? London did it four years ago, resulting in a 20 percent decrease in traffic from 2003.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed an $8 congestion fee for driving into Manhattan. What would you be willing to pay to go to the Loop?
More than 100 people showed up this morning for the last of four public meetings on the CTA's contingency plan to balance its budget.
The CTA board was supposed to vote on the proposed service cuts and fare increases right afterward. But the vote was postponed because CTA President Ron Huberman and board Chair Carole Brown were called to meet with the governor and state legislative leaders in Springfield.
No word yet on what's going to come out of that meeting, but the hope is that it will be good news for the CTA.
Governor Blagojevich has said that he won't approve a budget that doesn't include at least $100 million for the CTA, which has a $97.5 million deficit for 2007. But he also said that he won't support a sales tax increase in the collar counties, which is the funding mechanism the Regional Transportation Authority is pushing.
CTA riders, meanwhile, expressed outrage at the proposed service cuts and fare increases the CTA has said it will resort to in September without additional state funding. Yet, many also acknowledged that the public hearing was an exercise in futility, since the real answer to the problem is "in Springfield...not in this room," as one rider put it.
It takes a sense of humor to drive in Chicago, what with the soul-killing traffic jams and the broad range of stupidity/rudeness other drivers exhibit on the road.
That said, "How to Drive Like a Moron" offers some sage advice on the proper ways to conduct yourself in any traffic situation.
Stuff like:
"Feel free to give other drivers the middle finger at will. If they do it back, wait until you get to the next red light, get out of your car and beat the living crap out of them."
And, taking a page from the Britney Spears school of driving:
"Whenever possible, children should sit on your lap."
There's a lot more where that came from on the site, if you're looking for a laugh.
Are there any bad driving behaviors you'd add to the list?
Southbound Red Line trains operating through the Loop will be rerouted to the elevated tracks because of planned construction related to the Block 37 project.
Trains will be rerouted at 9 p.m. tonight until 5 a.m. Friday morning. It'll happen again at 9 p.m. Thursday until 5 a.m. Friday.
Southbound trains will be rerouted a third time at 11 p.m. Friday until 1 a.m. Monday.
You should allow extra travel times, the CTA says.
In case you missed our extremely short story in the paper today, Pace is moving ahead with plans to build a new headquarters, right next to its current home in Arlington Heights.
The timing may seem off, given the possibility that Pace might have to consider fare hikes or service cuts to balance its budget. But Pace officials say the move is necessary, because Pace's current building is well past its prime and would cost more money than it's worth to fix.
Repairing the 45-year-old building's heating and air conditioning alone would cost Pace $3.5 million, the agency says.
That's why Pace approved a $13.7 million contract Wednesday to build new digs. The low bidder was Mt. Prospect-based Nicholas and Associates.
Grants from the federal government will cover $7.5 million of the cost, and another $3.3 million will come from the RTA. Pace is contributing $2.6 million.
The new building, which has been in the works for 12 years, is scheduled to be complete by this time next year.
In the meantime, Pace officials are raising the specter of fare increases and service cuts by 2008, if Springfield legislators fail to provide adequate funding for the agency, whose $23 million deficit is a larger percentage of its budget than the CTA's $110 million hole.
For you Pace riders out there, does the timing of the Pace headquarter news bother you, or is it no big deal?
For months now, the RTA, CTA, Metra and Pace have been talking about how they've ditched their inter-agency squabbling to present a united front to Springfield in an attempt to score more state funding.
That's all very kumbaya, but every now and then, you get the sense that coordination between these agencies still isn't what it should be.
Take the RTA's proposed funding plan, for example.
The RTA is pushing a plan to raise $452 million a year in operating funds for Chicago-area transit by increasing the RTA sales tax in the six-county region by .25 percent--on top of an additional .25 percent increase for the five collar counties--and by raising the real-estate transfer tax in Chicago by .3 percent.
But officials from Metra and Pace say they don't support the plan and weren't consulted before the RTA announced it to the media.
Metra's spokeswoman said they weren't even invited to the press conference, even though it came two hours after the CTA announced its no-funding contingency plan.
Metra and Pace also aren't thrilled with the bill that just passed the Illinois House Mass Transit Committee, which would implement the tax increases the RTA proposed.
"We wanted a complete package, including capital and operating [money] and pension reform," Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet said. "Until we see that, we're withholding our support."
Pace's top brass also quibbled with the way the RTA would divide the money if additional funding from the state does come through.
Of the $452 million, Pace would get $32 million, Metra would get $96 million, CTA $193 million and the ADA paratransit program would get $100 million, Pace officials said. The rest would go to the RTA.
"Our goal was to get $60 million," Pace Executive Director T.J. Ross said yesterday. "If all we get out of this is $32 million, then I'm right back in Springfield in 18 to 24 months."
In short, the days of squabbles between the RTA and its three sister agencies look like they're coming to a middle, not an end.
Tonight will be the first of four public hearings on the CTA's proposed Doomsday plan, which involves cutting 63 bus routes, the Yellow Line and the Purple Line Express if the CTA does not receive additional state funding to balance its budget.
Here are the specifics on tonight's meeting:
Tuesday, June 5, 6:30 p.m.
Sherman Park Fieldhouse
1301 W. 52nd Street
Chicago, IL 60609
Additional hearings will be held:
Wednesday, June 6, 6:30 p.m.
Michelle’s Ballroom
2800 W. Belmont Avenue
Chicago, IL 60618
Monday, June 11, 6:30 p.m.
University of Illinois at Chicago
Student Center
