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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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I used the CTA/Metra for decades. It’s sad to see it collapse. But I pretty much used it only to travel to/from and around downtown. Now that I don’t go downtown anymore, well, there’s no longer a need to use public transit.
I guarantee that service cuts and/or fare hikes will solve all RTA’s problems. The RTA wants to keep the pre-COVID levels of staffing and service despite the marketplace not wanting that. If these RTA idiots had their way we’d be paying taxes to subsidize stagecoaches and telegraph operators. The know nothing about supply/demand and free markets
This isn’t news. Journalism, particularly Chicago journalism, is dead. This problem started long before the Coof, but it was magnified by the overreaction to the Coof. Zoom is cheaper than rent. Zoom is cheaper than Metra. The manbun-pronoun generation doesn’t have a need for a car OR transit. People offered the chance to work from home will choose it over even the shortest commute. Metra is still running trains to keep people busy, their own people that is. Pace runs buses all over the suburbs all day long, seemingly for the benefit of Pace employees, as the buses are normally… Read more »
The money is needed to pay all the overtime to spike pensions.
Shut up and pay your taxes.
Once you paid you have been laid.
The RTA needs to skinny up and cut costs. Demand for their service, particularly into downtown, has likely been permanently reduced. Higher sales taxes are not the answer. Chicago area sales taxes are way too high / uncompetitive already. Plus, suburbanites outside of Cook County are getting upset seeing PACE buses drive around empty all the time. PACE bus stop signs along roads outside of Cook County give the look of a dog peeing to mark its territory.
Yet traffic seems worse than ever before. It’s an hour downtown on the Edens from Deerfield Road at 9 am on a Tuesday in December.
Translation: Tax aid + fare hikes + service cuts
Guess that’s doublespeak for “new sources of financial aid.”
1984 is alive and well in 2022.
Stupid chickens.
Crime-Infested, Piss-And Shit-Splattered, Marijuana-Stench-Reeking CTA Has Lost Most Of Its Riders For Good