CTA Tattler

Yet another reason to call your state senator & demand a YES vote on the recall amendment!

I imagine after the CTA was able to get the majority of passengers on its side regarding the previous state funding issues despite its threatening to cut service and increase fares, it will be significantly more difficult to get everyone to be as accepting of the threat of another fare hike such a short time later.

Let the seniors start paying their discounted fares again before raising fares on everyone.

Part of the reason that CTA did not realize the full impact of free rides for seniors is that they were projecting based on current usage of reduced fare permits held by those over 65. Obviously, more people are taking advantage of his Goobernatorial Majesty's attempt to deflect attention from his breaking a promise not to raise taxes. Julie Hamos and the transportation committee added an amendment to Blago's amended bill back in January that would have instituted means testing consistent with other state programs where seniors get a break. It passed the House, was never called in the Senate, and was abandoned because no one wanted to jeopardize the entire funding package. Contact your state legislators to encourage them to reintroduce the means test legislation for the free rides program. Also tell them it would be really, really swell if they could pass a capital bill soon so we don't lose millions in federal transit funding and could also buy some nice new cars for the Blue Line so stuff stops falling off of them and causing chaos. While you're at it, if you fell like it, tell them you'd endorse a recall and possible impeachment of the "Governor."

Wow.

Is there a bill to recall Daley and Huberman?

I missed that one...

KevinB

Kevin B, I don't see how you can blame Huberman for this. Daley, sure, I'd love to see him recalled for a number of reasons, but this is not Huberman's fault.

I agree. I'm putting all the blame on bloggo.

"Part of the reason that CTA did not realize the full impact of free rides for seniors is that they were projecting based on current usage of reduced fare permits held by those over 65."

I don't know, you have to add an awful lot of new riders before it significantly increases operating expenses.

I'd like to see the numbers on how seniors riding for free is affecting revenue, because my guess is that it's just a scapegoat. The real problem is far more likely to be exploding fuel costs. Ironically, raising fares will just make the problem worse as some riders will go back to their cars, putting yet more pressure on oil supplies.

This isn't directly related, but I hope everyone has already called their representatives to demand higher transit funding in the capital bill, and told their friends to do the same. Under Blagojevich's proposal five times as much money would go to roads as to transit. With rising gas prices and global warming, that is just ridiculous.

I agree with Jake, the transit agencies aren't exactly losing revenue from riders who wouldn't be riding if they weren't getting a free fare courtesy of Rod's "improvement" to HB656. In layman's terms, you can't lose what you never had. They *are* losing whatever they had been collecting from seniors, which even though it was only a reduced fare, could make enough of a difference to place the system below compliance for the mandated farebox recovery ratio.

It was partly a joke, partly true.

I don't think anyone can defend Huberman for the latest Blue line fiasco. He's just the latest in a series of Daley lackeys. My opinion is still that he was brought in to "pretty" up the CTA for the Olympics. Daleys automatic "praise" of the blue line incident was par for the course. I bet it must have stuck it his craw to have to back pedal.

In spite of the obligatory fanboy responses, he has no excuse for not putting in to effect the emergency procedures that should have been there and were promised on the previous blue line fiasco. He's had plenty of time to put them into effect, he has a "communications team" and still hasn't managed to do that yet.

I also blame him for not putting more cost cutting measures into place as well, starting with the administrative bloat I've previously mentioned. He did the union thing, but that should have been done long, long ago under the Frank years, but he was such a waste of space it was s joke.

I also say if they still manage to do without the 20 or so people standing around at the fullerton and belmont stations for the past 4 weeks, do they really need them whereever they came from? The answer is probably no.

It seems in the last year, the operators/drivers/etc haven't got any less rude, any more courteous and my daily commute even before the SB 3 track system hasn't gotten any faster. I still crawl though the subway even though the "slow zones" are supposedly gone now. We still have the phantom stops between belmont and fullerton and fullerton and clybourn even with a full green signal.

When is Rons year anniversary with the CTA? Isn't that coming up soon? Maybe we should see him come up with a list of accomplishments since he started.

If Ron wants my support, then its very easy. When I see people in the admin office being laid off who actually do little or no useful work, I'll become a cheerleader. When I see operators being reprimanded for the daily rudeness and inattention to duty, I'll be there. When I see that cost cutting across the board, when I see a updated/up to date CTA alert system that really works (put out by the CTA), when I see a bus tracker on the 22 Clark, When I call and take the time to tell the CTA about a problem and they bother to call me back and address the issue rather than just provide lip service, When my 20 minute red line SB commute takes 20 minutes (or close to it), then and only then I'll be a fanboy(which will probably be when pigs fly that I see most those things). Until that happens, I'm just going to be the guy that points out where the CTA not only fails (but keeps failing) in spite of having the ability to fix some of the problems with the resources they have (not all them mind you).

I know that the CTA needs a capital bill, I know that the senior program needs to be modified with a means test, I know that there needs to be more cooperation between the CTA, RTA, Metra and Pace, I know that Daley needs to cough up some more money if he wants to have an olympic quality transit system. I'm not asking for miracles, but I'm asking Ron to make the hard decisions even when it means getting rid of some of the deadweight on the payroll.

I also know that if Ron started showing that he could live within his budget and still improve service, I'd be writing my legislators every week to get the rest of the resources. Right now, I'd lump Ron in with the kid who can't manage his allowance, but wants more money. What does it teach the kid if you keep giving without expecting better management of what he already has?

KevinB

Metra went ahead with a planned 10% fare hike in February, despite the passage of the funding bill in January. CTA didn't do the same because they didn't want to piss everyone off after all the doomsdays and finally receiving the operational funding. You are all correct, rides for seniors probably isn't a major chunk of the need. Diesel fuel costing more than $4.00/gallon might just have a little something to do with it. Dick Durbin's demanding answers in Washington. I'm looking forward to the outcome of that. :P

Martha raises a good point, CTA probably should have just hiked the fares at the same time as Metra and gotten all that unpleasantness done in one swoop.

I'm tired of the Huberman bashing. Rome wasn't built in a day. And walking disasters like the CTA weren't fixed in a year.

Huberman has made a lot of progress. He got rid of a lot of needless jobs. He's doing things, basic business things, that were never done at the CTA before. Performance management, for example. Preventive maintenance of trains and buses. But it takes time to fix 20 years of rot. And it isn't fair or constructive or helpful to blame Huberman for a situation that arises from His Imperial Majesty King Milorad of the Royal House of Blago pulling the free senior stunt on the legislature without funding it.

I agree that things remain to be done. The CTA's culture of non-communication needs to be systematically attacked. And Chicago has to accept that we can no longer continue with fares that -- allowing for the bonus from purchasing in $20 increments -- are a mere five percent higher than they were in 1992.

Well said DBX. And I have to blatantly disagree with kevinb here. There have been improvements! Are you blind? Or do you just come here to start flame wars.

More and more I'm asking various CTA employees questions about service issues or just where I can catch the 10 bus to the science museum. I've been getting polite correct answers and generally if I'm concerned about a problem they show interest are concerned as well. Regarding service, although the engineering works to the tracks are a pain trains in other areas ARE moving faster. I take the redline mostly and my commute threw Wilson to Howard particularly southbound has improved greatly. Although some rail operators still stink quite a few are pretty darn good with communication. Much better then a few years ago. Stations have (though not as much as is needed) been getting some dire attention. I noticed today new fabric seats on my redline train. The trains seem to be cleaner (at least on the inside).

What would i like to see? Just plain old better taking care of Urban infrastructure. Daley (and the city of chicago) clean up the subway stops that they own. I'm not taking about a full expensive complete rehab but coming threw with a power washer at track level and cleaning up the walls opposite the platform routinely. Cleaning lights routinely. And just keeping things together.

Recently most of you have likely noticed the 54th/cermak sign removal from the blue line. Who came up with the idea just to sloppily and poorly paint over the old signs with some paint? Its simple thing, maybe not that important but sums a lot of what is the real problem is here. In my opinion the CTA and the city need to team up and stop just slapping duct tape fixes on everything and get to the route of the problem! Start small!

The Postal Service essentially threw in the towel earlier this year, and said that they plan to evaluate conditions every year, and every May postage rates will adjust.

Perhaps that's what the CTA should do. Once a year have a fare adjustment. Yes, most of the time it would be an adjustment up, but there could come a time when it may adjust down, too.

It should all be part of some sort of permanent, predictable funding mechanism that doesn't include Doomsday planning, and marathon begging sessions in Springfield.

All in all, while a regularly scheduled annual adjustment is still going to elisit some moans and groans, if it's on a regular schedule we can move beyond the "is now the right time" crap, and right into the "what should the adjustment be" discussion.

I'm just going to throw this out there: I think it makes sense that the CTA will have to up fares, and probably soon, at the very least because of the rising fuel costs. We are very, very near $4/gallon for unleaded here in Chicago. For example, it's about 5 miles if I take the bus home; I'm gonna guess the #56 bus gets about 6 mpg (no hybrid buses on that route yet) so the cost of fuel for my ride home is about $3.30. I have a $75 all-u-can-ride ticket that still shows up as $1.75 per ride (not including transfers). Even if it were the standard $2/ride, that fare still wouldn't clear the gas costs alone, not to mention the salary of the driver, any money for repair/maintenance, or anything else that goes into the care of a bus.

Supposing we get no help from any outside agency (or Springfield, for that matter) if they hiked it to $5 a ride and did away with transfers they'd get out of the hole, supposing that a majority of the current riders continued to ride. But that's the thing; I and probably a LOT of other people would be walking to/from work and the CTA wouldn't get the money anyway. So is a severe fare hike in the future? I doubt it. But a modest increase, while I'm not necessarily gonna like it, is understandable.

I'm not a troll.

I'm someone who rides the SB red line to and from work every day, 5 days a week. I'm someone who rides the 36 and 22 every week many times. I'm someone who rides the belmont and addison buses alot. I'm someone who occasionally rides the blue line to/from Addison to Harlem.

I'm also someone who expects to get what he sees on his Chicagocard Plus every time he pulls it out to use it...On-Time, Clean, Safe, Friendly.

At any point in time I'd be pleased as punch to get any one of those, let alone all 4.

I see the CTA in danger of a lawsuit for fraud. More accurate would be: Late, dirty, unsafe, rude.

I'm a pretty nice guy. I say hello to the bus driver. I say thank you when I swipe my card. I usually exit the front and say thanks on the way out.

I notice things. Maybe its a curse. I have an attention to detail.

So, I guess it's going to take Ron twenty years to fix twenty years of problems. It really just doesen't work like that. Ron has had more than enough time to make some changes to the culture. The culture hasn't changed. Its business as usually. So what exactly has Ron done? I mentioned I'd like to see just exactly what he is taking credit for on his one year anniversary that wasn't already in the pipeline before he got here.

He's talked the talk, I'll give him that. At some point you've got to walk the walk. His crack "communication team" has done just gangbuster work so far. The blue line incident could have been much worse if the operators weren't on the ball and kept their riders updated and informed. They might have left the trains if that hadn't been done and caused more problems. He sure ducked a bullet there.

Also, the lead time to get police and fire involved must be a new record. Usually its hours or more and they have it down to an hour! Much to be proud of there! Way to go, Ron! Pat yourself on your back and have the mayor give you a raise.

All those people at the fullerton and belmont stations...what a great idea. I know that my train operator is much happier now as he gets waved at by all those people as he comes into the stations. Make my ride much more pleasant and efficient! Way to go! Wooohooo!!!!!!!!!!!

That CTA alerts system is most to be proud of. I mean, you did it without even lifting a finger or putting any resources into it. You got someone else not even a part of the CTA to put it into place....and all you have to do is send out updates when things happen. I mean, hours after the crisis is over, you update the alerts system. now, the next step is to get them to update the web site for you! Woohoo! Score!!

So, fanboys, enlighten me, what exactly, other than talking, promising and hiring lots more people, has he done that wasn't already on the table before he got here? Inquiring minds and all that...

KevinB

Guys, did you really think we'd be totally immune from the rising gas prices when the CTA is still mostly running buses that hemorrhage diesel like crazy? Come on now.

A little gift for KevinB...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFtXTf4_eMU

* or "sucks up diesel fuel like crazy", rather.

wrong word, sorry.

I don't think you're a troll, KevinB. Or else I'd be ignoring you.

Anyway, I have seen improvements over the last year. They're incremental improvements, but have you ever tried to change the way someone has *always* done their job? I have. It's really difficult, even if you show them a way to work that's more efficient and better for them. Because for a lot of people, change is bad. Period.

Yea, good idea remove ALL the CTA workers on the Southbound platforms at rush hours at Belmont and Fullerton, then you'll complain no other how it took you an extra 30 minutes due to a large backup of trains because a mechanical failure took several minutes to troubleshoot in the 3 tracking zone.

There are extra workers during rush hour making sure the doors are clear because of the CURVING platforms that were ok for 6 car service, but has some safety issues with 8 car service. There are also technical people on hand to very quickly address door problems, etc and get trains moving ASAP when there are problems. I have personally seen these people quickly fix door issues and get trains moving again in no time. Now, if standard procedure was followed...having the operator squeeze through the crowded train, walk to the car with the problems down a very overcrowded platform, then troubleshoot the doors, etc, then walk back, squeeze back through what would be an even more packed head car, it might easily be several minutes. In this time lost with ONE TRACK probably at least 5 trains would be stopped and backed up, probably more. Quite possibly this type of backup would not recover until after rush hour ended.

So, KevinB you have once again proven to be shortsighted. Stop pretending to know all about the CTA. Lets see you run the agency, you wouldn't last 2 hours in Ron's seat. Take away those workers staged to troubleshoot, see what happens!

Facing an growing climate catastrophe and a global food crisis driven in part by rising demand for oil, getting people out of their cars and onto transit is one of our most urgent public priorities. So we shouldn't be doing anything to encourage transit use, and that includes raising fares. Our representatives need to hear from us how important it is to increase transit funding and provide adequate investment in transit infrastructure.

I really don't get these persistent comments that CTA fares *should* go up simply because they haven't in a while. It's one thing to say that the CTA needs the money and can't get it any other way; but to say that a fare increase has merit simply because we haven't had one in a while makes little sense.

Among other things, this sort of assertion relies on the (unexplained) assumption that the current fare levels were "just right" at the time they were determined. Then, apparently the thinking goes, since the fares have not gone up in a while, the real value of the fare is "too low." (Why inflation is endowed with this aura of moral authority, I don't know.)

What basis is there for saying that the fare was "just right" in 199x? I, for one, think it's always been way too high; the public costs of driving are high and public costs of transit use are low. Good public policy should therefore promote greater public transit use and less driving. While it might not be politically feasible, it would have been better in 199x for fares to be $.50 or $1.00 rather than $1.75 or $2.00.

On this view, inflation is slowly bringing us towards a more (not less) appropriate fare, through steady erosion of the 'real' fare.

So raising the fares now would only exacerbate the problem that's slowly been getting better since 199x.

So if the CTA must raise fares to keep stuff working, that's one thing. But the notion that fares ought to go up because the real cost of fares *should* stay the same over time makes a big assumption that I think is hard to defend.

It appears as though I was overly generous; apparently CTA buses use diesel fuel, which is currently about $4.29, in comparison with unleaded. Yikes.

Erin: I believe I have read that most of the older buses get around 2.5-3 mpg, while the new hybrid buses get around 4.5 mpg. Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.

If there are 25 passengers on a bus that gets 3 mpg that is the same as 1 person driving a car that gets 75 mpg.

So, assuming 3 mpg, $4.29/gallon diesel and 25 passengers on the bus, your 5 mile commute will use ~29 cents worth of fuel. Obviously this changes if you are on a bus with more or less people.

OK, fair enough - wise to count others on the bus and divide.

I just dont get it - how CTA can say "we just didn't know all the seniors getting free rides would have that much of an affect"

dont they have braniacs in the office that are able to make projections and things like that so that they would not have to say "duh we just didn't know!!!!"

thats pretty lame if you ask me.

Pookie -
Two basic facts.
-- The CTA had absolutely no input in Blago's last-minute decision to offer free riders to seniors.
-- The CTA couldn't begin to estimate the number of seniors who never bothered to get a reduced fare permit when it was half price, but decided to take the extra effort when it meant the rides would be free. The number of senior passes issued by RTA has increased astronomically.

Yes, everyone seems to forget Blago's manipulative last minute move, where the choice was being nice to the old people or losing half of the bus system -- which only happened 3 months ago. Everything is the CTA's fault, including $4/gal diesel, Al Qaeda, and the war in Iraq.

and even when people were waving the revenue loss around in opposition to Blago (I love how some seniors tried to take him down a peg & he didn't--couldn't--understand why), he wouldn't have paid attention because this was a bone-headed and pathetically obvious attempt to curry votes. I blame this squarely on Blagoytoy; he rammed it down everyone's throats; he held the veto threat over the bill. The CTA's only fault *here* was being in dire enough straits to have no bargaining position.

When diesel goes over $5/gal, and unleaded goes for $4.25-$4.55 this summer, I don't think the CTA will be losing riders over an incremental increase in fares.

I don't see how the free rides really affects the cta's budget all that much, since they aren't providing any additional or reduced service based upon that - in other words, even in more free rides are provided, it doesn't change their costs greatly as they'd be running the service anyway. In fact, with more people at bus stops and using service during the day, it may make things safer overall....

I love how me saying that there are what seems to me too many people on the platforms translates into I don't want anyone there.

I can see 1 or 2 people on each of the platforms at Belmont and Fullerton. I do see that there is a need and I'm all for it. But 20+ people on the two platforms for weeks? Can we say "overkill". Can we say "evidently have nothing else productive they can be doing other than waving at the trains"?

Yes, I've worked in places that don't want to change that could make the CTA look like Apple Computer.

There are two ways to show that cultural change is inevitable. First you try it the easy way as mentioned when I was being skewered above for not wanting people at the train platforms. If that doesn't work, then you try the other way that you make an example out of some employees who continue to exhibit the said behavior even after many, many chances to change. A few "examples" and then the rest get the message. If it doesn't take or they go back to bad habits after a while, you make a few more examples. Meanwhile, thats less of your labor cost which is the major cost of running the business according to Ron.

Does anyone think that the union agreed to the retirement concessions out of the goodness of their hearts? No, they saw the writing on the wall and were smart enough to figure out if they didn't do something to cut costs, alot of people were going to be gone. Most people at some point get the message sooner or later.

I work in a large organization. It had a culture of laziness, indifference, lack of customer service and in some cases corruption. Over the last 6 years or so, its done a 180 to a faster, more customer service oriented, more efficient, little or no hint of corruption organization. How you ask? It came from the top. A no-nonsense approach that said if you want to work for us then you are going to do your job, you are going to be nice to the customers, you are going to put your "A" game forth, you are going to be honest, or you are going to be looking for a new job. If you do it the right way, which is document, document, then dealing with a union is not really a problem. People coming in to do their business for the most part are pleasantly surprised that they don't have to spend all day doing their business anymore. I'm one of the many peons who implemented the policies that got us to this point, but it all came from the top and a "no-nonsense, do your job or look for another one" approach did the trick. Are we perfect? Nope. Are things 200% better now? Yep. Is the morale better? Yep.

It's really easy to make excuses. Thats one thing that Ron excels at, no doubt about that. It was apparent after the July 3rd "minor inconvenience" that Ron in my opinion was not serious about changing the culture of incompetence at the CTA. I even gave him the benefit of the doubt and he hasn't learned anything when he blamed the riders for the latest blue line fiasco.

I would have liked to see the chewing out he got by Daley after he was "praised" the "quick response" to the situation. Who knows after that...maybe Ron will "get the message" and start doing the job.

Kevin

KevinB,
Given your incessant, obsessive, frothing comments here, I'm surprised you actually have a job. Kudos for finding a job where "competenence", unlike at say, CTA, is defined as employees spending all day posting at CTA Tattler blog.

Oops, apparently my own anonymous -competence- doesn't extend to previewing before posting.

I get breaks and lunch just like everyone else. I also tend to get my work done faster than most of my other co-workers, so thats another thing I'm bad at too...not rocking the boat so others can slack off. I don't hold anyone else to a higher standard that I hold myself, gotta hate that too.

Also, at the very least I have the "testicular virility" to sign my name to my posts.

KevinB

Yes, Kevin B, you have the "texticular virility" to sign your name, 'cause as we all know there's only one KevinB in this city. And no one EVER put a fake name on an internet post. I admire your boldness.

Also, what's it like working for the only perfectly run business in the city? I mean, I'm sure it is since you require companies you're involved with to be run so competently they squeak. So is the company you work for the equivalent of "on-time, clean, safe and friendly"? Or do you spend every other hour in your boss' office complaining to him about the shortcomings of the company? Becuse I'm sure you wouldn't ask of the CTA what you wouldn't ask of the very company you work for?

And finally, it's pretty cool you get a break at 9:50 (or however long it took to write that most recent long post) and anther a little while later at 10:28. You work for a very generous company. It would be a pity if you were using non-break or non-lunch time to post stuff here. That would be very CTA Employee-like of you...

ah thank you for that clarification about the seniors.. actually Blago held the CTA hostage with sticking that free ride for seniors thing in or else they would not bail out the CTA..

unfortunately, now we're reading news that theres gonna be more financial problems October..

so how far did we get? NOT VERY FAR!

I do have to say I thank God that i dont have to take the horrid Red Line. I am able to take a bus to get to work. When I did take the Red Line home because i was downtown, i got on and it stunk like a toilet. I hate reading the horror stories of people who just want to get to work or school and have to ride along with droppings from people and slop and trash on the floor from peopel who eat on the bus and use it as a trash can.

another bad thing about the Red or Brown line is when they make that curve near the merchandise mart, it has gone around that curve a bit too fast so it feels like your on a roller coaster.

Well, for the record, I get a 15 minute break in the morning, an hour lunch and a 15 minute break in the afternoon. I'm taking my lunch a little early today since I have an 11:30 meeting which is normally part of my lunch hour. We get the same as the union (look for the union label). Sometimes I post before I start (I have to start at a set time or they have kittens) and since the SB 3 track I've had to adjust my schedule and come early due to the unreliabilty of the red line SB service on my morning commute, I find I have some time to kill before I start work. The other Kevin has my valid email address and I've volunteered to be at the CTA coffee so I'm not going out of my way to hide from anyone. I'm here eating a sandwich that I picked up from downstairs as I type(multitasking).

I just said in my earlier post that my job/organization wasn't perfect. It's much better than it was 5 years ago when I started, thats how I gauge my success. I don't dare think its all due to me, but I can point out more than a few things that were successful that I had a hand in either thinking of or implemeting, but its a team effort. This is same gauge that I use on looking at the CTA.

I actually do spend alot of time in my bosses office pointing out problems. It's one of the things that he depends on me for. I'm not a "sugar coating" kind of guy. There are lots of those around and it's few and far between to get honest appraisals of your organization. More than a few times I've told him something was stupid and useless. I'm also the one responsible for keeping track of waiting times and service times and dealing with managers on why times are outside of our normal averages. Sometimes there its just the ways things are, sometimes there's a reason and a problem.

So, rant away and don't bother to read the whole of my posts, just the parts that you want.

If I was to be CTA employee-like I'd tell you to screw off and I don't have to be accountable to anyone including Ron Huberman and I'd continue to be rude, unhelpful, and not give a flying *%^& abut anything other than myself.

KevinB

"So, rant away and don't bother to read the whole of my posts, just the parts that you want. "

LOL. The funniest line from you yet. ME rant? Priceless.

On another break I see... great job benefits you have.

I can't hate on KevinB's ability to post. My job deals with the Internet, so I am on it 8 hours a day. My job is also client-support related, so I may or may not have anything to do at any given time.

I love it how people always take offense to KevinB's posts. They act like he just insulted their momma or something sheesh. At least someone is willing to point out ALL of the flaws in the CTA hehe.

For the record, I take no offense at KevinB's posts. It's his opinion. One that presents over and over and over and over... But he's entitled to post them as often as he wants. We get it. Many of his points are valid. Just don't accuse someone else of ranting when you consistently posts 15 paragraph screeds several times a day... I mean, c'mon.

Editor's Note: the "15 paragraph" comment was a slight exaggeration. Slight.

It is true that the CTA is filled with flaws. These will take a long time to fix, if ever they do get fixed. We have to keep in mind that as soon as the CTA gets around to (e.g.) finally fixing the Wilson stop on the red line, it'll probably be time to shut down and completely rebuild the green line again.

But there's more at stake here than any one person's personal commute, or any single branch of the El. I mean, yes of course, KevinB has no right to expect a 20 minute commute - not when he takes the red line to work everyday through an active construction zone. Everybody knew 3-tracking was going to happen, and that it would slow everything down a lot, and that it would last at least 3 years from start to finish. Once all of the construction's over (mid-2010?) and the red line still takes 40+ minutes to get downtown from Addison, then he'll have a right to complain. But, in the meantime it's nothing that should upset any of us or cause us to demand to know what his work schedule's like.

But now the bigger picture: the pitiful $1.75/$2.00 we pay to get on a bus or train is not a first-class ticket to our destination. No one who rides the CTA has a right to expect fast, efficient, clean and friendly service. You get what you pay for, and we don't pay enough. We live in a country whose infrastructure and economy rests on the assumption that everyone owns a private automobile. Public transportation exists as a subsidized government program used to get people who can't afford to own a car AND park it at their job to be able to get to and from that job, anyway. Other reasons that people take public transportation, and they are legion, are merely exceptions to this general rule.

And anyone who knows anything about government-run or subsidized programs knows that not only are they underfunded, they are historically underfunded. Ask anyone who works in child welfare, education, the police and fire departments, parks and sanitation, and yes public transportation (Amtrak anyone?).

The CTA doesn't have a culture of corruption or unaccountability or incompetence - no more or less than any other business, anyway. They simply don't have enough money to buy new things before the old ones break, clean things as soon as they get just a little dirty, upgrade to new technologies as soon as they're available, or hire people who are paid well enough that they won't be rude to the customers. And it's all of our faults, because all of this money comes from our taxes.

When you DO provide a govt. institution with enough funds, like the military for example, you do get fast, clean, efficient, and (at least on the surface) competent service. But when you don't, you get crumbling schools, no money for foster families, overflowing public trash cans, policemen who takes bribes and beat the [expletive] out of people, and blue line trains that break down in the subway.

If we want change, neither Huberman nor Daley nor Blagojevich is going to do it for us. The people who CAN afford to park downtown don't care that our bus is dirty or that some homeless person left yesterday's lunch in the hobo corner for us to smell. And a new study that I heard about on WGN news this morning says that those people would rather stay at home and do nothing than stop buying gas and take public transit or carpool. And at the same time, those people's voices are heard in city hall, Springfield, and Washington much more loudly than ours are. It's up to us to demand that our legislators REALLY start throwing cash at public transportation. And not only that, but to tell our friends who own gas guzzlers and drive all the time when they don't have to that it's gross and they need to get a bus card.

Kiel, Good post, but two points, the automobile is heavily subsized, more so than transit, both through taxes and employers and business providing free parking (apparently, surprisingly, much more parking in LA than one would imagine is not free) to drivers.

I'm glad you pointed out that the CTA is goverment entity, not a business, no matter how much people want it to be run like one it is not and will not be one (and to ram my point, it once was one, and failed, along with NYC, London etc...).

Funnily, people have the same comments about their systems in a lot of cities, London, Stockholm etc as we do. I remember getting very incompetent service on the London system, albeit somewhat more pleasantly.

Did anybody else see that the Federal money that NYC lost by not approving (well, OK, the state of NY) Congestion Charging is coming to Chicago?

MY problem with KevinB is that he asks questions but doesn't accept anyone's answers. Earlier in this thread he asked where were the improvements, right below someone who had noticed some. I've noticed some too. It's actually amazing to me that someone who rides the CTA regularly can't see some improvement, cause it's there. THAT'S why people generally like Ron - cause he's making a difference never seen before. If you don't agree, that's fine, but you should at least accept that others ARE seeing changes for the better.

Thanks, nd, your point about auto subsidies actually furthers my point. It is assumed that everyone has car, so any legislator who wants to a road repaved gets every cent he asks for (just like the military gets every $ it asks for), and so we have clean, smooth, well tended highways while the blue line creeps along at 15mph because of rotting, 50+ year old rail ties.

It is always funny to see what other cities' systems are like. I was in NY recently and was amused by how as much as we here in Chicago get up in arms about e.g. chicken bones on the floor, New Yorkers seem to have completely given up on the idea of clean public transit. On the flip side, though, their trains come every couple minutes 24 hours a day (or almost). And London is clean, but un-air conditioned. And Tokyo is always on-time, but people are packed like sardines. Different cities' priorities are always an adventure :)

"and so we have clean, smooth, well tended highways"

Like Lake Shore Drive, where yesterday a book I was reading flew out of my hands when the bus I was on hit a pothole...

Yes, of course, grain of salt here - interstates will get their pieces of the pie before LSD will, but I'd be willing to bet good money that LSD will get a re-pave many years before the stations on the Wabash side of the loop are no longer pigeon-poop smeared antiques made of rotting wood and old legos :D

I think it was clear to anyone that with a 50% farebox recovery ratio (even with the exclusions) the infusion of new operations funds would mean that service boards would have to raise fares.

We don't get federal funding because we're urban and democratic. That and LSD isn't part of the Interstate system.

Count me among the others who have seen big improvements in my CTA experiences over the past year. I suppose I'm uniquely blessed to live in Wicker Park, since all the Blue Line subway slow zones have been fixed -- my travel times have been cut in half. I get a nice greeting from the train operators about half the time, too. I was initially quite critical of Huberman, given his role in starting the "yellowjackets" TMA, and the slow zone repairs are being done with far too much operational disruption -- but at least they're being done.

Also, it's true that even residents of DC, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. complain about their transit systems. Granted, we probably have more to complain about than they do, but it seems okay relative to the starvation levels of capital funding our fair CTA has received.

@NoGifts: HB656 included a "soft landing" clause so that the new operating subsidies wouldn't immediately trigger matching fare hikes.