CTA Tattler

When is the protest at Blago's house? What's his address? Let's remember (and remind others) that THIS IS HIS FAULT! Recall talk is a start, but it's not very realistic. We should be asking Patrick Fitzgerald to indict his ass already.

The nerve of this governor of ours:

"If they turn down millions of dollars of help and force their riders to find other ways to get to work, then shame on the RTA and the CTA, and maybe there should be some new leadership in those two organizations," Blagojevich said.

if it's money from next year's budget again that Blagoytoy's offering, he can take it & shove it where the sun don't shine!!!
We've had enough poor management of all kinds on the CTA, without adding this flagrantly stupid, short-sighted, damn-fool maneuver!
Having seen what happened with last time, he (or his handlers) should understand we don't care for that, nor did the RTA Board, & I think even the CTA Board was a trifle reluctant to accept it. Being over a barrel, they did.

All I can say to these politicians, who are suddenly trying to cover themselves with concern for us, where were you when this began? Even if you didn't think it would happen, you should have gone on record then with your support or concern (yes, I'm talking to you, Mayor Daley, and to you, Governor--Mr. "I'm just trying to help". Like fun you are.) Don't try to cover your tails now that we're less than a week away from major cuts, and promising to remember it next election.
Just a bit bitter, & I'm not apologizing about it.

That was the quote I was looking for, Doug.

How about new leadership in Springfield instead? I think I might even vote for Bushie-boy if he ran against Blago.
Mmmm, no, I wouldn't--even I'm not that desperate.

Huberman should not hesitate to push the doomsday button as promised. It's the only responsible thing to do given the circumstances. "Pawns"? Blagojevich is simply hoping to escape the just wrath of the riding public. But we know very well he's done nothing at all to deal with the situation, though he's had way more than enough time. Some politicians are so dense that they must have a real-life demonstration of what a transit system means to the economy of Chicago and Illinois. Let's give it to them.

Seconded, C C Writer. I'm a little disappointed at the prospect that Doomsday may be averted. If it doesn't happen, the next CTA crisis can be written off as the agency crying "wolf" and we'll have to go through this all over again. As little as I'm looking forward to the chaos, I think it's necessary for legislators to understand how vital it is to Chicago and how vital Chicago is to them.

It's the governor that's the one that's playing a political game of chicken and using transit riders as pawns- not the transit agencies. He would do well to read the Auditor General's report on mass transit.

The downtown rally on Monday should march right to the State of Illinois Building.

I don't know the time of the protest, but our insane guv lives at 2934 W. Sunnyside, in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood.
Really nice house!

He also has an office on the east side of Ravenswood Ave., near Belle Plaine.
Channel 5 showed the other day.
I think it's 4147 Ravenswood, but I'm not completely sure, just look for the state police bodyguards outside. It's an old red brick building.

I agree with CC Writer and Trish, Huberman shouldn't backdown and just push the doomsday button. As hard as it would be to hundreds of thousands of commuters to find an alternate route now and in Jan. maybe it'll be a wakeup call to all voters and politicians what a catastrophy underfunding regional transit in one of the largest US metropolitan areas can be. Oh yeah, and when the state loses all that revenue from sales taxes from dollars that had to go towards fares instead of holiday shopping, everybody in the state will be crying for help.

Yes there is a lot of corruption and wasteful spending in Chicago and the CTA, but Huberman has done a great job in trimming off the excess fat. I still think we can save an extra $50k by getting ride of Carole Brown.... what has she done lately?

This is insane. In order to get the privilege of imposing a sales tax on ourselves we have to build a casino in Chicago and give the proceeds to downstaters so that they can build more roads and destroy the environment faster?

And what capital project isn't going to get funded in order to cover Blagojevich's ass? I bet you its not some downstate road project. Hopefully the feds will impose a little discipline and torpedo this stupid shell game.

One can only hope that the grand jury will work quickly once it is inevitably convened.

Maybe living in Chicago has made me too susceptible to conspiracy theories, but the more I read, the more it seems Blago and the state legislature allow this to happen on purpose. Think about it -- if they withhold the means to real reform, which I think Huberman is trying to achieve, they can blackmail and extort and manipulate the CTA and the city to get whatever they want every time the budget comes up. I moved here in 2005, shortly before the end of Kruesi's tenure, so I got a peek of the waste and corruption of the past few years. But it seems that now a viable solution and reforms are in sight but Blago and the legislature are resisting. If the CTA ever gets fixed, it will be harder for them to make demands by withholding funding, AND they won't be able to point to the agency in their re-election speeches as a model of the corruption they'll claim they plan to clean up.

Gods. I sound like a total nutjob. But I'm posting it anyway in the hope that someone can tell me how wrong I am.

I think it's time for a new strategy. One of the major obstacles here is that we need a supermajority to get SB572 to the governor's desk. That's because of a provision in the state constitution that says you can't have things passed after May 31st go into effect until June 1 of the following year unless they pass with a 3/5 vote.

So right now the headline is "legslature can't agree on a solution." And so Blagojevich's role in this mess is obscured and everybody just throws up their hands and blames "Springfield."

So let's pass SB572 with a simple majority (it already got a simple majority in the House weeks ago!), with an effective date of June 1, 2008.

That would change the dynamics of this tremendously. The pressure for Blagojevich to sign it would be much greater, and if he doesn't, the pressure to override his veto would be much greater than the pressure to pass the bill right now.

In short, if Blagojevich wants to be the bad guy, let him.

If this gets a long-term fix passed, then we can start looking for a solution for the short-term period of the next 7 months (or maybe just the first 5 months of 2008 if Blagojevich's latest shell game goes through).

And if this idea doesn't get a long-term fix passed, then... well, we're no worse off than we are right now, and we're probably screwed anyway.

We wouldn't have to buy off downstate people with a $20 BILLION capital givaway that does nothing for the RTA's tremendous capital needs (remember those? well, they haven't gone away!)

Sorry Trish, I think you're completely right. When what happens makes no rational sense, the only explanations that remain sound like the twilight zone. But one of them has to be true. Kinda like how I never in a million years would have believed that having the Dems take over state government would turn IL into the loonybin and laughing stock of America.

^+1

Looks like we got another short term bailout. So much for doomsday. Huberman says that if the CTA doesn't get its money by the end of the year they "wont be able to make the December payroll". Great.

Blago is an idiot.

You know, every day this week, the Red Line sucked so badly in the morning that this coming Monday I expect back rubs and fresh warm cinnamon rolls, delicately placed into my eager mouth by supplicants so I don't get my hands all sticky.

Well, as I write this, it looks like the boobs in Springfield are offering stop-gap money from Federal funds that they can dole out -- however it's still (at this moment) not clear if the Feds are going to let money earmarked for capital projects to be used for operating expenses. This is why some reports have said the CTA is worried that this would just be a loan.

I'm sure the Feds are being very careful about what kind of precident they set, but they're not likely to let themselves become blackmailed by the political boobs in Springfield, and they will ultimately make sure that the CTA really can cancel Doomsday I.

But Doomsday II in January is still going to come if Springfield doesn't get their act together. The Feds aren't going to bail-out the CTA and RTA at the last minute again. Or at least not at great cost to Illinois.

The folks in Springfield -- and every local politician who has any influence -- need to be reminded that they will still be held accountable at election time for their actions. They can't pretend they didn't f-up, and say, "It all turned out for the best." The means are just as important as the ends, so I'm going to be very weary of anyone who tries to claim that the avoiding of Doomsday I at the last minute is any kind of victory, or a cause for celebration. It's not.

But maybe this close call will give some elected officials pause to think about how next time (which is already here) they can be part of the solution, rather than be part of the problem (keeping in mind that passiveness was part of the problem.) Maybe some will step-up and become leaders, rather than lumps on a log waiting for a photo-op.

"This is insane. In order to get the privilege of imposing a sales tax on ourselves we have to build a casino in Chicago and give the proceeds to downstaters so that they can build more roads and destroy the environment faster?"

I think the decent thing for all the downstaters to have done would have been to stay out of this issue altogether. They should have voted present ot not voted on any bills addressing the funding of mass transit in northeastern Illinois. The tax increase that was proposed was only for Chicago and the suburbs. The downstate legislaters really have no business getting involved in something that does not involve them.

Just to state what I hope is obvious to most people, this is the reason why Daley does not call press conferences to scream at the legislature every few days. It just plays into the hands of the downstate people who would complain (inaccurately) that the city is asking the state to bail them out. Not to mention, there are even a large amount of suburban people who think of this as a city issue even though it also involves suburban transit. Many surburban legislaters have actually made statements which imply that this is essentually a city bailout. Daley screaming in the press about funding mass transit would just play completely into these people's hands. Yet you still have these moronic comments from people complaining that Daley is not doing enough. Sometimes the sign of a great politician is when he or she realizes that, in some instances, you get more accomplished by guiding things behind the scenes rather than by composing attention getting soundbites. Yet there have been many people on this and other blogs who seem to act as if Daley was somehow to blame for a good portion of this. But I think we are extreamly fortunate to have a mayor who cares about getting things done instead of satisisfying those citizans who only care about hearing reassuring words and don't pay attention to whether they may backfire.

Daley *is* most definitely the person who should be taking most of the heat. This didn't just start a couple of months ago--the problems with the CTA have been building for years. And he's the guy who appoints the CTA president who ignored the problems until it was almost too late.

speaking of "moronic comments", that's hilarious MK. we should not ask an elected representative to speak to an issue that is directly affecting the city he is supposed to be managing. we should simply assume his silence means he is working hard on our behalf and is a testament to his greatness.

gotcha.

"speaking of "moronic comments", that's hilarious MK. we should not ask an elected representative to speak to an issue that is directly affecting the city he is supposed to be managing. we should simply assume his silence means he is working hard on our behalf and is a testament to his greatness."

I have absolutely no idea how you could interpret my comments that way. I did not say that you should just assume anything. But I don't see how anybody could really believe that just because Daley has been reletevely silent about the CTA that he is not commited to its future. Obviously he understands the enormous effects that an efficiant and reliable public transit system has on the city's economy. In my opinion, someone would have to be completely out-of-it to believe otherwise. I have never seen any other elected official in the entire country who is anywhere close to as commited to the long term health of the place that elected them as Daley. And I find it absurd that there are all these comments suggesting that he was not trying hard enough to get state funding or that he would let significant permanant service reductions happen. There are, in my opinion, way too many people who look at everything simplistically and therefore measure their opinions of someone's effectiveness on something based on how much they talk about it and if their words make them feel good. You saw Blagoivich get elected based on extreamly inaccurate commercials targetting his various opponents and on simply stating over-and-over again that he supports "the working people". But we see that this is not the case. Probably many of the same people who elected Blagojevich are the people who assume that Daley does not care about the CTA simply because he does not talk about it as much or as forcibly as they would like. But Daley realizes that this would be counterproductive since his image on the television screen gets downstate and suburban voters angry, and would make it less likely for a good transit bill to be passed. I'm sure Daley knows that many simplistic city residents dislike this tactic since they don't get their "reassurances" that Daley is fighting for them (of course, words don't actually mean anything as you can see if you look back at all of Blagojevich's commercials). I think, quite frankly, it is very brave for Daley to risk his popularity for the long term interests of the city.

I do agree with Cheryl, however, that Daley is not completely blameless. Many of the current problems with the CTA (such as pensions and deteriorated infrastructure) were self inflicted and he is the person who appointed the leaders who let these things happen.

ummm...somehow, when they put together a list of great politicians & statesmen of the 20th & 21st century, I really doubt Daley would be on the list (nor would any number I could name currently holding office).

I think he could have stated earlier on in this crisis that he had concerns about the funding & urged the idiots in Springfield (not in so many words, of course!) to take positive action. That is not ranting at them, but simply demonstrating concern for his constituents, the city economy, & would have been a right step towards becoming a green city (another concept he seems to be simply paying lip service to, according to the papers). I think shooting his mouth off 3 or 4 days before the hammer was supposed to fall was merely a gesture to save face. (Of course, if he could give a press conference without turning red in the face, he wouldn't make such good TV downstate...)
He's on the list of people I don't plan on voting for come next election for many other reasons, not just transit.

Any politician who actively, or even passively allowed this to become a crisis, and then took the opportunity of the bail-out to thump their chest for photo-ops and sound bites is not deserving of public office.

Unfortunately, I cannot think of anyone who has actively worked to provide any long-term solutions to CTA funding. All I can think of is grandstanding politicians who worked hard to spin the issue in a way that they thought they could look like a hero.

Sorry, but I'm not falling it. Our government needs leaders, not politicians who are in it for their own egos.

The bail-out was actually something engineered by non-elected staff, who found themselves in a position of selling it to politicians who's primary interest in the plan was "how can I use this to stroke my own ego".

There have been good plans engineered by non-elected staff that would end the madness. But the politicians (and I use that term in as negative of light as I can) aren't interested in a real solution. They're only interested in plans that can make them look like stars.

It would be bad enough if this attitude of our elected officials only affected transit. But it affects everything they touch.

I'd rather my elected officials governed in a partisan way that I disagree with than continue to play politician. I can respect a leader I disagree with far more than I can repect a egomaniac that panders after the fact.

Of course leadership involves more than just a conviction to one's beliefs. A leader needs to be pragmatic, and willing to compromise as necessary. But that's far different than waiting for the marching band to come by, and then jumping out in front, pretending to be the drum major.

It's time for some sweeping changes, especially in Springfield. Politics needs to start taking a backseat to governing. And the CTA/RTA funding issue is proving to be a good example of everything that's wrong with our elected officials.

I think that the riders should do their own doomsday to protest the meanless CTA doomdays. Riders should stay home or use an alternate route or methods. It would be nice it could be in the next few weeks but it will be too cold for most people. I think it should be sometime in the spring. A good date would be around March 24 2008. What do you guys think? Maybe call it CTA freedom day.

The problem with any kind of rider's strike is that some people - many riders - need to ride. And they don't have alternate transportation.

So they aren't going to self-impose a hardship on themselves, even for one day. And even if you could get people to stay home for one day, they wouldn't be jamming the highways with cars they don't have. (Part of the problem with not having the CTA would be its effect on the streets and highways, which you can't really demonstrate in one day.)

But most importantly, you'd never get a critical mass of people to join in such a protest. I wish it could work, but it won't work. Sorry.