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Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Metra is an absolute shit show. Three days last week the app wasn’t working so they didn’t collect fares. Tuesday the train was so crowded the conductor couldn’t get through to collect fares. Pisses me off that I buy a monthly ticket and others don’t buy a ticket. They wait to see if the conductor is going to check tickets. How do you hit that 50% target if you’re not collecting fares. It’s pretty evident that Metra is loaded with a bunch of Mike Madigan lackeys that have no business working at a transit agency. They still haven’t added more… Read more »
The CTA is a place for criminals and junkies to hang out.
No decent person would ride it.
Ah yes, that pesky requirement of 50% operational farebox recovery. That’s just operations. Add in the cost of all the new equipment these big spenders have on order and the farebox recovery disappears into irrelevancy versus the massive amounts spent. It’d be cheaper to pay for an Uber for each and every one of their dwindling number of riders, but where’s the patronage army going to find its feed? Bad policy on the part of Lightfoot and Foxx started the exodus from downtown with their feckless reactions to rioters and crime, and Covid finished it off. There is no good… Read more »
Covid put downtown into a coma, and the riots following St. Floyd’s overdose put downtown on life support and the summer of love brought downtown close to death. Maybe the patient could have been saved. Various other downtowns across the US have rebounded. But it was the 2nd round of riots in August that killed downtown. It ain’t never coming back and this is coming from a household with two people who went downtown every day, 5 days a week. Now, only my spouse goes downtown one day a week, only during business hours, and doesn’t walk around, takes the… Read more »
Look out. Name of the game will be to shift even more funds to Chicago from the suburbs and the rest of the state. So that vote rich Chicago does not get hit with even higher property taxes.
Transit is over — work from home means no need for commute anymore — time to defund this dinosaur