Doomsday '07: December 2007 Archives

Well, the one-day CTA walkout that would have made for a very interesting Monday morning commute has been called off. For now, anyway.

It seems God is in the details, because the CTA's unions agreed to back down after being approached by a coalition of ministers who urged them to reconsider.

The pastors rightly argued that lawmakers in Springfield aren't the ones who would have been hurt by the walkout (since very few of them seem to take public transportation anyway). Rather, everyday people who rely on public transportation would have gotten the short end of the stick, which they still might if the transit funding stalemate isn't resolved.

Stay tuned.

Fed up with stalled negotiations in Springfield over mass transit funding, members of the CTA’s rail union plan to stage a one-day “job action” that would begin midnight Sunday, union officials said Thursday.

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.