Totaling the unsustainable tax increases and windfall revenue during Pritzker Administration – Wirepoints
May 26, 2026
23 Comments
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
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A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
In the early 1960’s, I worked the CTA Rapid Transit extra board out of Forest Park. Generally, I worked PM shifts to pay for college. There has always been crime on the CTA from pickpockets going to and from Sportsman’s Park and Hawthorne Park during the horse racing in Cicero to the riders who refused to pay the 25 cent fares to the conductors once the stations closed the ticket booths. The difference was that the middle class employees and middle class riders cared. Middle class people have abandoned public transportation just as they’ve abandoned CPS.
Two things drive the fear- the unspeakably horrific nature of some attacks, and the apparent choice of random vulnerable victims.
Has there always been crime on the CTA? Sure, but it was usually muggings in fairly predictable areas. No amount of talking about reduced statistics will dampen the (accurate) perception that ordinary people are in more danger of random horrific violence than they were in the past.
I’m old enough to remember years when there was ZERO crime on the CTA. Employee pensions have ruined the quality of transit in Illinois.
ZERO crime? When was that?
Sorry Trib, not buying your unicorn hooey when, for instance, some pile of dreck can go around punching women in the face and is finally charged with a felony after the fifth or sixth time. Or some clown outfitted with an ankle bracelet can commit crimes, not show up for hearings and be credited with time served under monitoring , go to Stateville where he should be for 10 years, sign his name and walk right back out. Bull. Shit.
Fudging the numbers and classification of the crimes.
IF it is down, it is because no one rides it anymore.
I think there may be logic in what you commented. I’m sure there are many other suburbanites like me who very seldom or never venture into Chicago anymore. We’re not into Russian roulette to see if we get mugged or worse. Many parts of Chicago still aren’t close to being safe enough to walk around outside or to use the CTA. Even if the real crime rate is half of what it was in recent years, it’s still way too high.
As we learned from the scandal in DC – they’re all massaging the stats to make themselves look better.
I personally haven’t stepped in Chicago in 20 years. Nothing there for me anymore.
once a great city