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Ridership and revenue have become increasingly important as the CTA braces for federal pandemic aid to run out in 2025, leaving transit agencies in the region with a collective $730 million budget gap and regional planners debating the future of public transit and how it should be funded. They have made recommendations about service, floated changes to sales taxes and suggested consolidating the Chicago area’s three transportation agencies into one. It will ultimately be up to lawmakers to decide how to move forward.
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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A good example of MAGA thinking
Private companies built mass transportation and operated them at a profit.
Then the government told them not to raise their prices, the profit went away, and the government took over; and as usual the gov. cant manage anything.