CTA Tattler

OK...that raises the question:

How much money do the CITIES (not the states) of

Philadelphia
Boston
Atlanta
San Francisco
Los Angeles

give to their transit systems? And how much does City of Chicago give to the CTA?

This is a very important question.

Last I checked, all of the 1% RTA sales tax in the City of Chicago goes to the CTA. And the RTA's proposal would increase that to 1.25% and impose an additional tax on real estate transfers ONLY in the city of chicago. It's not like the city council has extra money sitting around for transit, they would just have to raise taxes to do it, and the RTA way seems like as good as any other solution out there. So either city council raises city taxes or springfield raises city taxes. But this idea that somehow city residents don't pay for transit is silly.

so when this says public funding, is this from the states or the cities or both?

I agree with Johnny Cakes--it would be good to know how much the city funds the CTA as opposed to those other cities. Maybe we could shame Daley into it--he always acts so status conscious about our place in the country--if we can show him that this is a stain (esp with the Olympic bid) on our fine city, he might ante up. And why just him? Would the Council have a say in it? Let's contact our aldermen, too!

So everyone who is clamoring for the city of Chicago to spend millions more on transit every year does understand that the money is going to have to come from somewhere, right? Most likely either a hike in the sales tax rate or the city's portion of property tax bills. (And don't think that just because you rent you escape property tax increases--a large jump in property tax will be passed on from the landlord to the tenant the next time your lease is renewed). Either way, that's a pretty direct tax on the residents of Chicago.

In my opinion it makes more sense to get more money from the state because you are lessening the impact of the tax increase by spreading it over more people. Which is why Springfield has a problem with it. But as others have pointed out, Chicago's economy (and so the state's as well) is dependent on a vibrant--or at least functioning--mass transit system.

So I agree with Kevin: contact your state legislators. That's more important than trying to shame Daley.

the city puts up almost no cash towards the CTA. It's a joke.

Also conspicuously absent from this chart: NYC transit. How much do they take from gov't funding?

Also, what about advertising? I remember back in September-October, every train had an ad on it. Then they all disappeared and only recently have I started seeing advertisements plastered on the sides of trains. Even then, only a couple cars at a time. Certainly the CTA can do its part to try and receive more corporate sponsorship

Some answers:

1. "Public funding" refers to all source -- city-state-federal.

2. The city of Chicago has contributed a flat $3 million to the CTA's coffers for many year. While I have criticized that paltry sum in the past, we do have to keep in mind okgo's comment that any additional money has to come from somewhere, so we residents would be paying more taxes somewhere.

But Chicago is the biggest beneficiary of the CTA! Think of the high property values that result from being easily accessible to the CTA.

This results directly into higher property taxes, which go directly into the city's coffers.

If the city is benefiting from the CTA in terms of tax revenue, and not pumping anything back into it, the city is mooching off public transportation and not paying its fair share.

That is bad bad bad.

The CTA is part of RTA, its funding is legally determined by Springfield. Any money the City (as in the legal entity known as the City of Chicago) gives to CTA would be considered voluntary. Should the City face a funding crisis, it could easily move to shut off funding to CTA, which would cause the CTA to face a sudden funding crisis.
Better to have a mandated funding formula put in place by Springfield.

If the suburbs refuse to acknowledge that they would not exist without tax money routed there from Chicago by Springfield, that's fine. All the tax dollars generated by Chicago that go to suburban roads and to Metra can be re-routed to the CTA. Enjoy watching your roads crumble. Face it, the suburbs are, in effect, a parasite. They exist in their current form only due to the existence of the city. Without the city, the suburbs would rot. Without the city, Naperville would be no different from Sterling. A podunk town in the middle of nowhere. If the city's economy went into depression (which could easily happen with a defunded CTA), the suburbs would suffer just as bad. Plus, METRA and Pace are hurting badly as well, and need new funding.

In addition, shunting the huge numbers of people who take the CTA every day onto the highways would significantly increase congestion. That 1.5 hour commute from Schaumburg will likely take more than 2 if 50,000 more cars were added to the Kennedy everyday. Were Metra to crash as well, the congestion levels would get worse.

In addition, without the CTA, downtown parking rates would go ballistic. That $20-$25 a day parking space could easily jump to $35 or $40 due to additional demand (additional parking supply would take time to generate).

Finally, numerous suburbs are serviced by the CTA. Oak Forest, Rosemont, Skokie, Evanston, Forest Park, and others have CTA lines that extend there (with Park and Ride lots). And many buses extend into the suburbs.

In addition, as I have seen noted elsewhere, the City does indirectly subsidize the CTA. Chicago Police are responsible for policing the CTA (compare to Metra, which has its own Police force). The City, not CTA, expended the funds to rehab the subway stations in the Loop at Red Line Lake and Blue Line Jackson.

Finally, in regards to the question about subsidies for New York's mass transit. New York's subway system is so heavily trafficked that it's attained a unique status as an operationally self-sustaining system. That is, its operations are entirely paid for by fares. However, NYC's mass transit capital budgeting is still paid for by NY State.

P.S. - The current and proposed RTA funding schemes only tax the Metro region. Downstate taxpayers don't pay a penny towards the RTA subsidy.

In summation, this is a region wide problem. No new funding for RTA and Chicago may very well go the way of Detroit.

raise the gas tax to fund transit!

it doesn't seem likely this time around since the rta proposal doesn't include it, but for the future i think we need to think seriously about it. the cost of driving is way too low given the amount of damage it does to public health and the environment. essentially drivers receive huge subsidies from taxpayers to build their roads, from health insurance buyers to pay for road accidents and pollution damage to health, from poor people in the countries that will be devastated by global warming like bangladesh and sub-saharan africa, and from future generations who will be crippled by global warming.

raising the gas tax would be a start to correcting those messed-up incentives. plus drivers are the second-biggest beneficiaries of expanding transit since it reduces congestion and takes some pressure off gas prices.

Kevin: Thanks for linking to our action form to help get some more messages out to the legislature.

The campaign has been really successful--we're at something like 2500 actions, and growing. We've been told that legislators are abuzz about being flooded with faxes and e-mails on this... Not just by us, but cumulatively with other campaigns happening right now.

I'm really excited about the momentum here, and am really hoping for a fix in the coming weeks.

We've grossly underinvested in transit over the past few decades. We need better, more frequent, and more effective transit services. With continued work at CTA to do better with what they've got (which is far too little for the moment), and proper funding to grow the system here and throughout the six-county area, I think we can have a much better metropolis in which to live, work, and play, if this gets done.

Yeah, I know, that may sound a little trite, but I really believe in this city and its surrounding communities. We can do this.

Jake: The problem with gas taxes is that they're unreliable. The original RTA act based funding on gas taxes, and it kind of wrecked CTA, the commuter railroad companies, and the suburban bus companies when there was the big gas shortage in the late 70s. The less people drive, or the less gas that's getting purchased, the less money goes into transit--it's kind of counterintuitive if you think about it. I'll say I prefer something more reliable than gas taxes, even if something like sales tax is impacted to an extent by how good or bad the economy is at any given time.

Okay. Let's say we continue to not fund mass transit. The best case scenario is that no one becomes unemployed because they'll all buy cars.

Great for the car dealers. Great for the mechanics. You'd probably even see an increase in jobs in auto-related fields.

But what would all those extra cars on the road do? If there's no money for mass transit, there's no money to build the roads needed to carry all those extra drivers.

No matter how you crunch the numbers, if you bother to look at the consequences of not funding mass transit, the cost is more.

In other words, if the government agencies can't find the money to fund mass transit, the consequences will require far more money.

It's not so much a matter of where the money needed to fund mass transit will come from. The real problem is where will the even greater amount of funds come from to pay for not having a fully funded mass transit system.

Not only do the riders benefit from funding mass transit. Everyone benefits. The whole city. The whole state. The whole region. The whole country.

Anyone who doesn't want to get the needed money to CTA is simply not looking even one step down the road (pun unintended) at the consequences.

There is no doubt that many people do not look one step down the road. But the problem with your analysis, Rusty, is that you are only looking one step down the road. I think if you look a step or two farther, there really (at least in the long term) would not be a problem with congestion or the need to build more roads. That is because much fewer people will choose to live in the city when they do not have convinient and economical transit. There will also be a sharp increase in employers leaving the city because it will be much harder to attract employees when they must pay ridiculus amounts to commute during rush hour for, in many cases, extreamly inefficiant routes. As a result, there is going to be an enormous loss of property and income taxes as well as sales taxes as fewer people will be in the city to shop. Businesses would close which will result in a loss of even more tax revenue. There will be fewer people visiting the city because it is harder to get around and there are less people to visit or business to do. This means a drop in hotel taxes and closings of some hotels. The city will not have enough tax revenue to fund basic services. There will be even further financial pressure on the CTA because of the loss of riders. But there will be about the same (or perhaps even less) traffic than there is now because the additional traffic resulting from the service cuts and fare increases will be balanced out by fewer people being in the city to drive. That won't be the problem in the long term. But there will be many others.

tony, it's a good point that gas taxes are unreliable. but i wouldn't want transit to rely exclusively on gas taxes. it should be easy to craft a funding formula that incorporated increased gas taxes but still guaranteed a minimum and increasing budget. far easier, at any rate, than getting the bill thru a legislature in the grip of drivers desperate to avoid financial responsibility for all the damage they do.

New York Transit budget

http://www.nytransit.org/mn_legissues/Docs07/FYE%202008%20Budget%20Spreads%20013107.xls

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the only self-sustaining transit system (at least light rail) was San Diego's. I don't think that NYC's system would survive without subsidies.

New York's MTA is lucky enough to have an extremely healthy subsidy in the bridge and tunnel tolls paid to cross in and out of Manhattan. The MTA actually owns several of the bridges and tunnels, so they get $8 from every person who drives into Manhattan to work every day.