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Commuters Take Action, a grassroots transit advocacy group, has been tracking discrepancies between scheduled and real-time trains and buses since 2021, finding that train service has been cut by 24 percent. Fabio Göttlicher, the group’s cofounder, is calling for CTA president Dorval Carter Jr. to be fired, for Mayor Brandon Johnson to get directly involved, and for city residents to treat public transportation as a utility — before it’s too late.
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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So much to unpack from Fabio Göttlicher’s group. While the idea of less wait times for CTA trains and buses is attractive to the beleaguered riders of one of Chicago’s jobs programs for family and pals, their quest was doomed before it even began. I actually like the concept of Fabio’s ‘Anti-(CTA)Board’, as the CTA board is comprised of naked political hires with few, if any, of them actual regular riders of the service they were anointed to oversee. These political creatures are certainly prominent at Silver Shovel time, when ground is broken for their latest billion-dollar construction gift to… Read more »
Certainly, having a Board composed of regular CTA passengers would be a good start. Not necessarily average riders, but folks who use CTA regularly and want it to get them where they want, when they want, reliable and safe. with reasonable speed and comfort.