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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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Illinois might bail out the RTA but who is going to bail out Illinois?
Look at the bright side of this. If you eliminated all train service from Chicago’s south side to the north side you would see a drastic reduction of crime in the north of the city!
The state budget is in the red and Chicago wants how much? Ain’t gonna happen.
Live fat, drunk, and stupid (thanks, Dean Wormer); then, ask for a bailout. It’s The Illinois Way!
“It would be harder for people to get around the Chicago area and put food on the table for their families.” With the above quote, regurgitated by See-BS2 media personality Sabrina Franza paraphrasing the CTA’s appeal for more funds, the CTA now turns from fearmongering about service cuts to fearmongering about surplus jobs that will have to be cut. This merely confirms that the RTA and its operating arms have been reduced to jobs programs for friends and pals of political animals. This is no longer a serious transportation agency. Sabrina dutifully transmitted the executive directors’ extortive message demanding that… Read more »
Walk The Loop yourself and see all the shuttered businesses. If this is Mayor Notes’ program, the results stink. A common occurrence with everything Mayor Notes touches. Ok. Let’s sic the DOGE team on the RTA/CTA/Metra/Pace operations then. You should welcome this openly. The RTA hasn’t been able to afford its operations for five years now. No one is riding, at least not at the levels of 10 and 15 years ago, which is the schedules the RTA operating wings have been running. Gradual service adjustments needed to be made over time and the executive directors failed in their duty… Read more »
This is absolutely embarrassing, look at the Europe and their transportation systems the efficiency and on time schedules for high speed trains everyone relies on the system and in this country especially Chicago you cannot even run a bus on time let alone commuter trains. Why if we are such an advanced country we don’t have a streamlined transportation infrastructure in the USA . Amtrack from Joliet to Bloomington is the only high speed 90MPH if you call that high speed in Illinois in comparison to the U.K, it’s taken over a decade to obtain this speed and yet there… Read more »
The ‘higher speed rail’ from Joliet to St. Louis is certainly in improvement in travel times from when I used to regularly ride this route. It still isn’t all that fast. The cost versus the increase in velocity attained is laughable compared to counterparts in Europe. This is partly due to the distances traveled, requiring many more miles of very expensive physical plant rehabilitation over a longer piece of railroad. Add to that the requirements for Positive Train Control, adding further to the price. Don’t even get me started on the Siemens Charger locomotives and over engineered Venture Passenger Cars… Read more »
Physical plant is very expensive to maintain I remember back in the late 90’s it was about 1 million dollars per mile to replace ties and rail according to the roadmaster in charge today who knows., granted we have way to many grade crossings to have passenger/commuter trains running at 100 mph and up. As far as PTC talking to railroaders still in the industry I’ve heard nothing positive about it. I’m amazed freight traffic is still moving, I’m grateful I left before it’s full implementation.
It’s always nice to be staring at a clear signal with PTC saying ‘Nope.’.
Let’s reboot the system. Again.
Oh ya and when the system won’t reboot your informed about calling IT
And now…. the old Horizon ‘cattle cars’ are out of service due to extensive corrosion due to cheap construction and old age. Reminds me of the Rock Island’s 1949 Spam Cans rusting into oblivion in 1977.
If only there were a ready source of passenger equipment.
Wait a minute! Look at all those brand-new Venture cars collecting dust in the Amtrak yards south of CUS.
Nope. They’re broken down too.
CTA is the problem. RTA was created to bail out CTA in the past. Cut CTA and leave Metra and the suburbs alone.
They had to have know this was a problem for how many years and did nothing to trim the budget or anything and now want a bailout.
I’m all for paying for what you use, raise prices, reduce, etc…
Do like a normal responsible household does when they don’t have the money.
Ding. Ding. We have a winner. This is an executive director-caused disaster.
Watching the See-BS2 video, I am struck that there is no one there speaking up on behalf of the taxpayers. We instead get whining about service that the RTA hasn’t been able to afford for over a decade and must be reduced to something the RTA can actually afford to operate.
No one will notice but the homeless and drug dealers.
Expecting a bailout from Springfield would be drastic to individuals pocketbooks across the State. Raise fares or cut services because why should everyone else pay for a chosen few?