I haven't been on the transportation beat all that long, but in that time, I must have used the word "doomsday" dozens of times in stories to describe the CTA's (and now Metra and Pace's) near-annual threats to cut service and raise fares if they don't get more money from the state.
Given the sorry state of affairs in Springfield lately, we in the media will probably still be writing that story months, if not years, down the line.
With that in mind, is there a better word out there than "doomsday" to describe what's going on?
Share your thoughts here.
CTA Doomsdays in Chicago are kind of like... Well, there's a Doomsday every month; let's just leave it at that. This reminds me of the story of the boy who cried wolf. The Governor is going to lose a lot of support from riders if he keeps sucker-punching and telling them with doomsday scenarios. If he keeps bailing us out before every doomsday, Chicago's citizens won't take him seriously.
The slow death of the CTA?
Transit crisis?
Blagovich and Madigan as Neros playing their fiddles while transit burns?
THE BS OF THE CTA THEY HAVE NO MONEY, THERE GOING TO LAY EMPLOYEES OFF, CUT SERVICES,RAISE FARES AGAIN,AND THEY KEEP MAKING THESE THREATS THEN THEY SAY WE WANT ALL THE MONEY NOT JUST SOME IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THERE TRYING TO PLEASE CTA OR PACE PASSENGERS. NOW THEY ANNOUNCE THEY WANT TO BUY HYBRID BUSSES WHERES THAT MONEY COMING FROM!I'M 48 YEARS OLD AND I'VE NEVER WITNESSED THE CTA IN SUCH TURMOIL THIS IS MISMANAGEMENT.
Yeah, I have personally heard many people complain about the "doomsday" label. It might be good in some ways because that attracted their attention enough to ask what it was about. I think it is appropriate because the situation is really really bad.
Maybe it's the mortal wounding of mass transit? mass transit Apocalypse?
It really is going to be disastrous for many people. It will be a disaster for the economic present and future of the city, and a tragic waste of already secured federal funding. At a time when there is pressing need for increases in mass transit availability, it is looking like the Chicago area will lose what it already has.
I think the word should be incompetence, rather than doomsday. Failure is another good term.