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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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The problem is public transit in Chicago is that – outside of commuting downtown – public transit doesn’t take you anywhere you want to go and it takes forever to get there. Years ago when I was younger, friends and I took public transit to the mall. It would have been a 20 minute drive. But using PACE it took over 2 hours each way and took us totally out of the way because there was not anything close to a direct route. Half the time was spent waiting outside at the bus stop waiting for the bus. Who has… Read more »
The well is running dry, and the firing line is assembling. The timing couldn’t be any worse for the habitually inefficient public transportation entities in Illinois. Just as their Covid coffers are emptying, the State is looking at years of several billion dollar shortfalls, and the State’s biggest city is in fiscal free fall. No help available! For starters, the heads of these entities should be kicked to the curb (if they haven’t already retired in shame) for doing absolutely NOTHING to prevent this fiscal cliff. They kept the spigot on all the way despite the precipitous falloff in usage… Read more »
Most people will not take it at any price (free is not low enough), much too dangerous.
This is why political animals make lousy business managers. Captain Kirk’s charges are currently paying around 80% of their operating budgets in direct violation of the law that created the RTA. This law enabled the RTA funding mechanism and limited Operations outlays to 50%. This part of the statute was placed there to stop future (now current) political animals from operating service with insufficient demand thereby keeping the ‘mass’ in ‘mass transit’. Since 2020, the Captain’s board of directors and the Executive Directors at the RTA/Metra/Pace/CTA operated trains and buses serving 60% of pre-2019 ridership as if 100% of that… Read more »
There’s a PACE bus stop around the corner from me. There’s rarely anyone there and the buses I see on the main drag are almost always empty. PACE would be better off giving these people UBER gift cards instead of operating the bus lines
Indeed. The buses seem to be run for the amusement (and paycheck) of the operator and the consternation of automobile drivers.