CTA-Citgo compromise in works?
I was nosing around on the CTA's web site recently when I came across the presentations made at the February board meeting. Among them was the "Citgo Fuel Proposal," available in both pdf and text versions.
It's important to note that the CTA board has not yet acted on the proposal, but it's an interesting one.
Essentially, CTA staff is suggesting that the CTA give Citgo 200,000 30-day passes -- $15,000,000 worth -- in exchange for $15,000,000 in cash.
Originally, Citgo wanted to give the CTA $15,000,000 in fuel in exchange for free rides for the poor. This report to the CTA board states that accepting fuel directly from Citgo is "not practical because CTA uses different type of fuel" and that doing so would "violate current fuel supply contract and cause valuation problems with hedge counterparties."
So CTA staff recommends "monetizing" the offer. (Don't you just love that word?) In other words, take $15,000,000 in cash and give the transit cards to Citgo, and let them worry about finding a way to distribute them to the poor. (And just to be totally clear, the CTA board has not approved this compromise yet. They are still reviewing it and getting more information.)
That sounds like a win-win for the CTA. They can help the poor without getting into the messy business of figuring out how -- who should actually get the fare cards.
This is totally off topic, but I wanted to share this. The CTA finally learned something about communicating with customers. The brown line project is already a giant pain in the ass, but yesterday (Sunday, March 5) at the Belmont Red/Brown there were 3 customer assistants standing on the platform to tell people that the red and brown were running on the same track and there were clear announcements over the loudspeaker that the brown was stopping at Western. Wow! I was shocked. I'm still shocked.
Posted by: xlprq | March 06, 2006 at 08:50 AM
Back when the CITGO business was in the press, Kruesi said that CITGO should just buy some transit cards and distribute them to the poor, so I suppose that the Board Presentation was just elaborating on that. Nothing new.
Posted by: jackonthebus | March 06, 2006 at 09:40 AM
Hey, I am not poor can I get some of these free passes.
Posted by: bill bucks | March 06, 2006 at 02:18 PM
Let's see - someone offers the CTA $15,000,000 worth of gas, which it uses, and it says "Sorry, we only take cash. Buy our passes and you deal with the problem of who gets them." I live in Chicago, and ride the CTA fairly often, but I can see why the General Assembly is sick to death of the CTA.
Posted by: MLH | March 06, 2006 at 03:58 PM
"Let's see - someone offers the CTA $15,000,000 worth of gas, which it uses, and it says "Sorry, we only take cash. Buy our passes and you deal with the problem of who gets them." I live in Chicago, and ride the CTA fairly often, but I can see why the General Assembly is sick to death of the CTA."
You mean gas the CTA can't use because CTA has already to switch to environmentally-friendlier low sulfur fuel? And violating (and presumably, subsequently having the vendor Terminate for Cause) the existing fuel contract, thereby requiing CTA to get new bids for more expensive fuel (with fuel prices rising as they are)?
Posted by: Vivalfuego | March 07, 2006 at 08:16 PM