Fare hike may be necessary this year
Soaring fuel costs and cost of providing free rides for seniors may force the CTA to increase fares this year, despite passage of a huge bailout -- or maybe I should say -- partly because of it.
CTA President Ron Huberman said, ""We're going to attempt to hold the line on any fare increase because certainly we don't want to turn to our customers and their pocket book when it's already tough. But we'll have to wait and see how the year shapes out." He was interviewed on WBBM News Radio 780's "At Issue" program. You can hear it here. Tribune story here.
Disgust. I mean, discuss.
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
Posted by: Kiel | April 29, 2008 at 04:05 PM
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.
Posted by: NoGiftsPlease | April 29, 2008 at 08:38 PM
We don't get federal funding because we're urban and democratic. That and LSD isn't part of the Interstate system.
Posted by: nd | April 30, 2008 at 02:14 PM
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.
Posted by: PCC | May 02, 2008 at 02:18 AM