Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer
April 22, 2026
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Summary and audio linked here.
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"On an average weekday, trains have only about 40% of the riders who were there as recently as 2020. That’s a staggering drop-off, and if Metra were a private business, it would be precipitating drastic and immediate change...But Metra’s latest strategic plan, as put together by agency staffers, is far more inspiring and is at least beginning to address the huge change in how this region now is willing to use public transportation. In the document, which is impressive in every way except for its lack of urgency, Metra staffers lay out the only solution: a change from commuter transportation to a true regional rail service." SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
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Audio and summary Illinois bill would override local law to allow homeless living in all public parks – Wirepoints
April 14, 2026
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If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago Fiscal Crisis Worse Than Pre-Bankruptcy Detroit, HIV Surge and Public Health Threat From Open Borders Goes Unreported
April 10, 2026
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Summary and audio linked here.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Snowpiercer but with homeless people.
Good movie!
I feel dumber after reading this editorial. I legitimately feel stupider. The Trib Editorial Board wants Metra to run more empty trains to places that no one wants to visit by train…Highland Park to Elburn, huh? Why would anyone want to spend an hour and a half on trains to travel between these two places. The Elburn train station is a parking lot in the middle of a cornfield. And of course, they want the trains electrified because of the environment. Do they have idea what it would take to electrify hundreds of miles of Metra lines? Electrified lines are… Read more »
I agree with everything you say, and I also laugh about Metra becoming a “regional” train service. And I write this as a former Metra rider. 1) With the infrastructure put in place since the end of the 20th Century, people who do not have a job that MUST be done in a physical location can work from their homes. You can save yourself a couple thousand dollars not having to commute back and forth (train pass and parking). 2) As is abundantly clear, Chicago has a crime problem. An excessive one. Less and less people will be traveling suburbs… Read more »
They can call it commuter rail, regional rail or a magic carpet ride if they want to. That doesn’t change the fact that chiraq is dying and the trains in all probability won’t ever recover the passengers lost during the pandemic and made worse by chiraq becoming known by it’s newest industry, uncontrolled crime. The new rail system will be a sucking chest wound that employs over paid friends and family of corrupt politicians, provides unreliable and inconvenient service, and will always operate at a loss requiring huge piles of taxpayer funds to subsidize the declining ridership. Instead of Regional… Read more »
Biden Bux will pay for it all!
Mr. Dabrowski, I have written in this space repeatedly about the ‘jobs for pals’ scheme that Metra became long ago, the ridiculous new equipment overengineered expensively from the wheels up, the empty trains and the spiraling costs. Metra differs from commercial real estate holders only in that it must continue to operate so as to employ the friends and family of Illinois’ politicians. Tell the Chumbolones that they have to pony up for ridiculous and costly battery locomotives, so that the graft can be varnished over by the false religion of the Climate Clerics. Run trains with no one but… Read more »
Its not so much the crime, its the fact that office work can be done just as productively remotely as in person. Especially IT work and administrative work. Skyscrapers and commuter trains are to a degree obsolete. Thats is neither a good thing or a bad thing, its just a force of nature due to the development of the Internet. Dragging commuters back is futile, thinking creatively is the path to optimizing this infrastructure for something useful again or right-sizing it to use the money elsewhere.
Hmm, no homeless, mentally ill, drunks or pot smokers in this photo from yesteryear.
Oops, I forgot panhandlers and public urinators too. Notice the guys are actually wearing ties and business attire.
Surely this is a pic from the 70s.
I must disagree, the Metra lines were always cleaner and more quiet than the CTA rail lines. They were a little pricier than CTA, but you rode with Job Holders who behaved and trainmen and trainwomen who didn’t hesitate to call ahead to meaningful security people. And, as they hit the city limits they highballed it in and out of Chicago with minimal stops.
Metra was always nicer than the CTA. The rush hour trains were packed though, standing room only, crammed into the aisles and vestibules. Waiting outside on the platform in -8 weather in mid-February with driving snow in your face every time a delayed express train passed you by at 50 mph. In retrospect, those were horrible times. Then it was a 30 minute train ride, followed by a 12 minute walk on slippery, slushy streets downtown, all to sit a some cubicle 8 to 10 hours a day. I’ll never do this again.
The Young dudes coulda been me then.
Nothing but homeless and criminals anymore. Decent working people have found another way to get around or just plain move out of the Chitty.
Chicago is a crime infested toilet that decent people avoid. This is a feature, not a ‘bug,” of the Democrat Playbook.