-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
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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Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.
It might help if Metra would actually coordinate their service levels with ridership levels. Tuesday and Wednesday trains are packed. Quite often to the extent that fares don’t get collected. My line has two trains an hour where pre-covid it was three trains an hour. I don’t have any railroad experience but it seems you should go back to the three trains an hour so the conductor can collect fares. The loss of fares is magnified because less people are buying monthly tickets. They are only in the office two or three days a week. Those are the busy days… Read more »
The cost of the additional train and crew will exceed the incremental fare collections. The business model is from the 19th century, plus an unsustainable cost structure, minus the paying customers.
Overall ridership is far too low to sustain the system, much less invest in expensive toys that generate two things: Headlines when they’re announced, and rust outlines after they’re parked.
The time to acknowledge the cliff and do something about is before you roll off of it.
Additional train and crew? Did they actually reduce their headcount during covid, I doubt it. If they did then your answer makes sense. And if they did then maybe they can add more cars.
An entirely additional train requires an entirely additional crew. If that crew is transferred from another train, then the other train then needs a crew. No one is riding like they used to, so the funds will never overcome the costs.
Exactly railroader I spent 40 years in freight service and it just doesn’t happen with a flip of a finger like some people think, you need qualified crews for certain routes etc etc.
(The RTA BOD) “…expect(s) to see ridership growth after a steep decline during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Based on what? Hope? Charity? The RTA, in the guise of its CTA, PACE and METRA franchises, has seen a long term decline in ridership. The Covid insanity accelerated the trend and the riders have still not come back. A 10% increase in the operating budget? The CTA can’t afford a 10% cut in their operating budget, much less than a nearly 9% increase. It only gets worse when you add METRA’s 20% increase and PACE’s 13% increase. Flip those around to cuts and… Read more »