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The RTA — which coordinates funding for Metra, the CTA and Pace — wants $1.5 billion to hire more staff to improve service with increased frequency. It’s looking to the state Legislature in Springfield to come up with the money
Summary and audio linked here.
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.
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.
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Audio and summary
The executive director class, an inbreed apart. The RTA has been living off of Uncle Fed’s credit card since the Coof. The executive directors knew this proverbial credit card would expire in 2026. They did NOTHING to align their operating costs with half of operating revenue. Instead, these political animals continued to tout transit ‘access’ and ‘equity’ as justifications for running near-empty buses and trains all across Chicagoland. These same animals even conned the USDOT into anteing up for more route miles through areas already served by transit, falsely calling these areas of Chicago as ‘underserved’ despite these areas having… Read more »
Maybe CTA and RTA need to hire qualified people for management. Not patronage and DEI hires.
Taxpayers cannot win for nothing. They are losers always.
here’s today’s Blockclub article where CTA’s announcing adding a ton more train service: The new service schedule will add: Blue Line Forest Park branch: 30 additional trips on weekdays, 17 more trips on Saturdays and two new trips on Sundays Blue Line O’Hare branch: two more trips on weekdays, six on Saturdays and five additional trips on Sundays Yellow Line: service has been realigned to more closely fit with Red Line departures from the Howard station, the northern terminus of the Red Line and the southern terminus of the Yellow. Under the new spring schedule, the first trains in both… Read more »
To quote Gerald Ford’s reply to money hemorrhaging, begging for tax dollars from the rest of the state to NYC- “Drop Dead!”.
Incredible. Declining customers, but hey, let’s spend more. If we build it….they will come? Sorry, again, right size your operation to address the current needs. These services like so many other government agencies have no interest or focus on need and balance. They’ve become nothing more than patronage jobs and empire building. Pathetic. What’s worse, is these people are asking Illinois residents who have never used and have no intention of using Chicago public transportation…to friggin pay for it!! How in the world does that make ANY sense. More Illinois corruption.
Teachers unions tell the same things to kids. If we don’t get _________ the world will come to an end. The end result? The country’s highest paid teachers and lowest performing students.
Public transit is obsolete. Ridership has declined for decades. It now serves mainly as a rolling homeless shelter/crack house/drug market/super-predator hunting ground. Time for it to be replaced with a new transportation paradigm.
I wonder what line-item in the approved budget pays for this.
Taxpayers paying for ad blitz for more taxpayer funded spending.
only in Illinois, revolting.
Revolting, but expected.
what’s most “revolting” is sadly nobody even cares.
Wow! Every time you think the insanity couldn’t get any worse, it does.
Big picture, it’s the machine (labor & pols) are asking dopey taxpayers to pick up the tab for now spent ARPA-COVID fed funding and make funding levels permanent…..look for many other similar pushes, especially in ed & higher ed…. look for a lot of blame it on Trump/ DOGE rhetoric…and most importantly, look for gullible brain dead dopey taxpayers go along like sheep as usual. In one way or another your tax $ are also funding United We Move Illinois (https://unitedwemoveil.org/) as well as so many other organizations. The last thing any of these machine ghouls care about is how… Read more »