CTA Tattler

I have to say, I can't see much of a downside to the free rides for seniors. It's giving them more mobility and the chance to get out and do things they otherwise would have skipped, and they're probably just filling up what would otherwise have been empty space on the buses while barely raising costs for the CTA.

The only potential problem is the loss of revenue from those who would have used the CTA anyway, and I hope we get to see figures on this eventually. But ideally I'd like to see those free rides extended to everyone in Chicago.

The downside to the free rides for seniors is your narrow view of what its like to be a senior.

And as for "they're probably just filling up what otherwise (would) have been empty space", you're wrong on that point as well. They're filling seats that a year ago would have been revenue generating seats. Revenue generated by them.

Are there poor seniors out there that somehow are leading a better life because they no longer have to budget for riding the CTA? Yeah. There might be a few. But how big of a line item was riding the CTA in the budget of most seniors to begin with?

Arbitrarily choosing seniors to get free rides was a knee-jerk reaction by a jerk. No one really looked into the consequenses of the move. Research went no further than noting that seniors are more likely to vote than other demographics, and there are plenty of people out there who you can convince that being a senior is synomymous with being poor and needy.

Personally, I'd rather see fares for everyone lowered to a token amount. (People tend to not respect things they get for free, and not charging a fare at all would make it harder to exclude troublemakers.) I'd rather see the lion share of revenue coming from tax revenues that can be more fairly distributed.

Public transportation in an urban area should be a public service available to all as equally as possible.

Singling out seniors and military personal to get free rides is arbitrary. There are so many other, harder to identify groups that deserve a break more than either.

What's next? Free rides for people who can prove they voted in the most recent election? When you get right down to it, that's what the knee-jerk politicians would like the most.

Rusty: Everyone should ride the CTA & Pace free.
It would take huge numbers of cars off the streets, reducing our need for imported oil & cutting pollution.
It would eliminate the need for fare collection, which actually costs a lot of money.
It would even speed up the buses because then people could board at the rear door.
The increased need for subsidies would be balanced out by the reduced need for road maintenance.

I've no objection to the free rides for the military. They can most likely afford it, but God knows the way the armed services are being abused at the moment, a free ride in Chi-town is the least we can give them.

I do object to the free rides for senior citizens, because it's based on a generalization of seniors as poor individuals. Age alone doesn't make it financially difficult to ride the L, and as for me, I don't believe that all seniors simply by virtue of their age merit a level of respect significant enough to earn them free rides as a "reward" (which is the underlying rationale for free military rides).

If the idea is to assist people who couldn't afford it otherwise, then let's be true to that metric and give people who are below a certain income line free rides on the subway. That'd make a hell of a lot more sense.

"Everyone should ride the CTA & Pace free."

Hey, let's give everybody anything they want for free, comrade. There is already a huge gap between owning/operating a car and the cost to ride public transportation. Making it free isn't going to get rid of cars. Now some people who walk now might start riding. And hobo ridership would also increase dramatically. And the increased number of riders can sit on top of the bus.

"The increased need for subsidies would be balanced out by the reduced need for road maintenance."

If you think the labor unions are going to let road maintenance be reduced you're fooling yourself. Or maybe those now unemployed with less work can offset the loss in income by free CTA rides....even though they have nowhere to go.

"Hey, let's give everybody anything they want for free, comrade."

I've always wondered why if it's something like heavily-subsidized public transit it's communism, but paying taxes to support a fire department isn't.

I maintain this was an empty gesture from the start, though it might have been more meaningful in 2002-03.
How many military men in full uniform do you see in Chicago, anyway? Besides the just-graduated boots who have almost nothing else to wear, of course. One gentleman on the Trib's comment board said they're told not to wear their uniform off base/sightseeing. So we *might* get some young sailors who will take the bus somewhere rather than cabs.

For the record, my dad was 20 years Navy, and I have only the highest respect for the troops overall. But I have greater respect for common sense and none at all for grandstanding when I see it.

Cheryl,
There's a difference between taxation to provide basic services, and taxation to support redistribution of wealth. Transit falls somewhere in between (definitely subsidizing some people but providing region-wide benefits in the form of job-accessibility and air quality etc that are very hard to actually quantify). This is very different than funding a Fire Department, which is not a subsidy or wealth/income transfer.

Obviously common cents hasn't been reading much lately.
The high cost of gas has pushed ridership on buses & trains to record levels.
And they have to pay to ride. If it were free, many, many more would ride.
CTA & Pace are already subsidized to about a 50% level.
Some other cities around the country have up to a 75% subsidization point.
At those levels, the people paying the fare are just paying for the fare collection system.
Completely idiotic.

In Portland, OR they've had something called "Fareless Square". It's very popular, and allows people in the very liberally defined (in more ways than one) downtown area to ride any bus or train for free within Fareless Square.

The problem is that since it's a public transit system, and no fare is charged, that space becomes for legal purposes just another public place. That rasies all kinds of civil rights issues that wouldn't exist if a fare needed to be paid to get on the vehicle.

Thus, for security reasons, Fareless Square is going away.

Most free transit systems aren't public, but private systems (for example, a private university's campus shuttle), or publicly owned systems for the beneit of only those who qualify somehow (for example, a public airport's shuttle system for passengers and employees.) The few free public transit systems are usually micro systems with fewer than a dozen buses running in some small town.

While the public benefit of having a totally free major mass transit system in an urban area is certainly there, such a system comes with a multitude of security and civil rights issues that could cost more than the cost of a fare collection system.

So a fare so low that all it pays for is the fare collection system itself is not completely idiotic. It would be far wiser than making the whole system free.

And that doesn't count the lack of respect people have for free things. Give someone something for free, and they get a sense of entitlement.

In the '70s, while most transit systems were struggling with $1 fares, and how to count the dollar bills that were now being stuffed into ancinet fareboxes, MARTA in Atlanta had a fare of just 15-cents. They could have made it free. That 15-cent fare provided any extra revenue over what it cost to collect it. But they knew what could happen if they didn't charge any fare at all.

(Eventually funding for the system began to get tighter, and their fares had to rise to something similar to what's charged in most cities.)

So as idiotic as it may seem on the surface, there are good reasons to not make the whole system entirely free. A fare that just pays for the fare collection system is actually one that makes sense.

Politically, it'll never happen. At least not in Chicago.

Is that why the New Years rides are $0.01 rather than free, even though no one collects the penny?

New Year's Eve rides aren't technically free; they're underwritten by the hospitality industry in an effort to keep drunks off the road. CTA doesn't collect the penny because it would cost more to collect and process the pennies than the "fares" would be worth. Although with the sharp increase in the price of copper, maybe CTA should melt them down and sell them to raise funds for capital projects.

The New Year's Eve rides cost a penny because there is a state law that prohibits free rides.
Many bus drivers & L station attendants just wave everyone by anyway.

Rusty, what are the civil rights and security issues raised by free transit? And who are the troublemakers that you say nominal fares exclude?

Well, why don't you google "Fairless Square security". In a number of the articles you'll find there, you should be able to see the position of the Portland Police Bureau and TriMet security. They seem to strongly believe that if a fare isn't charged it cripples their ability to provide security.

A nominal fare doesn't mean the problem makers can't get on transit. But it does give law enforcement more ways they can handle the issues that can arrise than if no fare was charged.

It's the difference between a public space with no restrictions on access, and an access restricted space. Those are two very, very different kinds of places in the eyes of the law.

It's hard to imagine that Rusty is correct about there being "civil rights" problems with free fares, but since his post is vague on that point it's hard to know what he might be talking about. If his concern is that freedom of expression would rear its ugly head on CTA vehicles (God forbid!), that concern is probably baseless. Although there could be special local or state law in Oregon that turns any 'free' service into a public forum, that's not generally the law in the U.S.

Likewise, I'm not sure what the 'security' issues are, except that some may consider the homeless a 'security issue,' even though that's really not the case.

You'd have to imagine much of the cost of fare collection consists of: (1) handling and collecting cash; and (2) printing and distributing fare media.

If the costs of fare collection are as huge as Unindicted suggests, one could envision moving to a significantly less expensive fare collection system in which a 12-month unlimited pass, sold at some token fare ($5?)is the only fare sold or accepted anywhere on CTA. No cash fares, no other passes. Sell the 12-month passes exclusively using credit card/debit fare machines, so that the CTA does not have to handle or collect cash at all. (For the sake of those without credit or ATM cards, the passes could also be sold at private vendors such as CVS and currency exhanges, for cash.)

This would have the effect of eliminating the cost of handling cash, and it would sharply reduce the amount of fare media that the CTA must print and distribute, since most people would only be buying one pass per year.

Of course, there's the practical problem that this would require re-writing state law...

I thought I was pretty clear already. The problem is that you cannot tresspass on public property that's open to the public. You can, however, tresspass on public property that's past a fare collection point.

When a fare is collected, police can exclude someone from the system with a tresspassing summons. If fares are not collected, you can't ban someone from the system without violating their civil rights.

The homeless are not a security issue just because they're homeless. But at this point there are rules that prevent them from camping out on a CTA vehicle all night. If there was no fare, you might have to take the vehicle out of service to get them off.

It's not a matter of it being a free service. It's a matter of being a public space to which no admission is charged. Numerous ordinances that can apply on a CTA vehicle now could not be applied to an open public space.

If you think this is too vague, or if you're having a hard time imagining there being issues, find yourself a civil rights attorney. I'm sure that there would be some ready to make a name for themselves representing someone kicked-off a bus for violating one of these regulations that could never apply to a public space.

But this is all a moot arguement in Chicago. Not because the US Constitution doesn't apply, or because Illinois has tresspassing laws that aren't in line with the US Constitution. But because the funding will never be found to allow rides on the CTA to be free.

Unindicted Co-conspirator says of me: "Obviously common cents hasn't been reading much lately. The high cost of gas has pushed ridership on buses & trains to record levels."

Really? I can't read? The latest CTA Financial report available states:

"Bus ridership for the month of March was 26.4 million. This was 0.6 million or 2.2%
more than budget and was 0.5 million or 1.7% less than March 2007. Rail ridership for
March was 15.4 million and was 0.2 million or 1.5% less than budget and was 0.8
million or 4.9% less than prior year."

Link: http://www.transitchicago.com/news/motion/board/0805financialreport.pdf

So bus ridership is down -1.7% and rail is down -4.9% vs prior year and Unindicted Co-conspirator calls this a record? Time for a name change to "Indicted BS'er".

Facts never stopped socialists before.

Come on, guys. We saw during last year's legislative battle for operating funds that there are many people who expect riders to pay the overwhelming majority of the costs of the service vs. the taxpayers. These people are, of course, generally incorrect since public transportation benefits those who do not use it around as much as those who do. But I think it is just as absurd to suggest that riders not pay anything at all or pay only roughly enough to cover the fare collection process. That really is, for the most part, expecting welfare. It doesn't make any difference whether the rider only uses public transportation, mostly uses public transportion, or uses it for a minority of their trips. Those who drive have to pay a lot of money for gas and in some cases for parking. It is really absurd and quite frankly selfish to suggest that public transit riders should pay very little or nothing for their commute. Not everyone has the good fortune to live and work in an area that is convenient via public transit. This suggestion that those who don't should pay almost all of the costs for those who do is one thing that makes so many people angry at any increased taxes. And I say this as someone who uses public transit more than driving. The best way to fund it is the way it is done now, with roughly half coming from taxes and half from fares. I think it is increadibly exteme both to suggest that riders pay all or nearly all the costs (and that is not possible anyway since the decline in ridership would increase the costs that would need to be recoped by each individual rider) or none or nearly none of the costs. Let's try to get out of the pipe-dream world. And let's avoid the temptation to rationalize that something that benefits us is good policy. Those that keep mentioning the need to encourage more people to use public transit should be advacating new transit or more convenient transit in areas that are basically only convenient for driving. But instead you see these people suggesting cheaper transit (apperently resulting from the myth that the reason people don't use it in transit-rich areas is price) and bus rapid transit in areas where public transportation is already way more convenient than driving.

By the way, just to clarify. There are some circumstances where it may make sense to charge little or nothing for transit. For example, if it serves the purpose of allievieting extreme congestion for short trips in the downtown area. My understanding is that was the reasoning for Portland's free area and I believe something similar in Seattle. Chicago's free trolly system essentually is similar (and also serves the purpose of encouraging tourism and increasing economic activity). That is a good thing. So it isn't the case that free or nearly free rides are never a good idea. But it would be absolutely absurd for them to be the predominant fare.

It wasn't congestion they were trying to solve. It was compliance with the Clean Air Act.

The plan also involved building "Smart Park" parking garages in order to put huge gobbs of parking on the edges of the core. The idea was to reduce the number of motorists cruising for parking spaces.

Of course now it's touted as if it were part of some big transit inititive. But people don't ride TriMet to work because they can ride around downtown for free on their lunch hour. (They can ride around free on their lunch hour even if they drove to work!)

There are a number of cities that have created free shuttles in their downtown areas, but none of them do much to relieve congestion. Most operate such limited hours that they don't have much in the line of security issues. Certainly nothing like a 24/7 system covering a whole city would have.

While price alone isn't going to attract people to transit, I also don't think that so much of the cost burden for relieving congestion should be put on the shoulders of those who are doing the relieving.

To compare it to something else, in many areas, you'll pay extra for more or larger trash containers, or more frequent collections, but more or larger recycling containers, or more frequent collection of recycling containers doesn't cost more money.

So if you work harder for the common good by seperating more recyclables from your trash, your share of the collection costs go down.

But we don't do the same for mass transit riders. The more they ride, and the less they drive, their share of the public cost goes up. Drivers may be spending more money, but they're spending it on the private costs of their own automobile, and not on the shared public costs.

But since you'll never convince the typical down-stater that they benefit from mass transit usage in the Chicagoland area, it's all a moot point. Transit riders in Illinois will always be expected to pay the lion share of the cost of mass transit even though the people it benefits most may be the ones who never get out of their cars.

Unindicted Co-Conspirator says that, "The New Year's Eve rides cost a penny because there is a state law that prohibits free rides." So if state law prohibits free rides can I perform a citizen's arrest next time I see His Goobernatorial Majesty on one of his jogs through Ravenswood Manor?

Who's this Martha @5:59? I know it wasn't me because I was busy filling my face with panang chicken at 5:59 and I learned a long time ago it's dangerous to blog and eat Thai at the same time. Annual fare media would be great except when people lose them. I have friends who go through several Chicago Cards a year due to loss or abuse. Don't even get me started about my students and their inability to retain their student riding permits for more then one day. The $5 charge probably doesn't defray CTA's cost in replacing them.

I wasn't clears enough.
Obviously common cents hasn't been doing any reading of newspapers in the last two weeks.
Everywhere ridership is up due to high gas prices. There was much less traffic on Memorial Day weekend than previous ones.

As to the cost of collecting fares, if I remember correctly, it cost the CTA well in excess of $100 million to convert to the fare card machines.
That's a huge sum to collect money & the machines do break down. I often see the repairmen working on them.

Common Cents, I guess you missed our earlier discussion about ridership figures. The year-to-date figures thru March (1.8 percent increase in ridership) and the figures you cite for March seem low because the spring break dip happened in March this year and April last year, which also makes this year's April numbers much higher than last year's (up 8.9 percent). When you add it all up thru April to get an accurate comparison, this year ridership is 165.5 million, a 4 percent increase over last year's 159.2 million thru April.

So obviously the cost of gas is having an impact on ridership, and I think we'd see a lot higher ridership if it were free.

Rusty, your argument makes no sense. Perhaps you've never ridden a train or bus to the end of its route?

"This is O'Hare... All passengers must leave the train."

Trespass is hardly the only legal basis for asking someone to leave a train or bus.

OK, so ridership is up approximately 4% over prior year and gas prices are up around 35% over prior year. This works out to a cross-elasticity of demand of +0.11. So the positive amount implies that driving and public transit are substitutes (no news flash there), but the fact the the amount is near zero, indicates a very weak relationship. The inverse should hold true as well (i.e. significant % price change in public transit causing a small % decrease in driving).

So free or near free public transit will get you: a big decrease in fare revenue, a minor decrease in # of people driving, some increase in crowding on public transit and maybe even less people walking (and as I mentioned before a big jump in hobo ridership). Oh, and you get non-public transportation riders subsidizing to an even greater extent those who do take public transport. So there's no "found" money or a magical offset, it is still costing the same, and probably more.

And what happens when fuel costs start coming back down? The few people who did switch are back in their cars and the CTA is still stuck with no far revenue.

Now I am all for cutting waste at the CTA and passing on the lower costs to commuters.

Link to historical fuel costs:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mg_tt_usM.htm

April/May numbers should show significant increases in rides via bus and train.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the bulk of state legislators from the Chicago area much like the bulk of the population? I think it's just pointing fingers to always blame "downstate" for local and regional failures.... Blame the collar counties, which is where more of it should do, since many of their reps don't believe in mass transit.

"April/May numbers should show significant increases in rides via bus and train."

Well the YTD increase of 4% already included April (and April was up due to holiday timing which caused a drop in March versus prior year).

If there is an increase in ridership in May, I am guessing that there will also be an increase in potential injuries due to people getting off a stalled train in some underground tunnel and touching the 3rd rail.

Face it, Chicago transit is horrible (long waits, old equipment, dirty facilities, rude employees). The price of a ride is not the problem.

CTA has been hostile to members of the armed forces so it's not suprising that they would start a program that affects veterans quietly.

ME -
Why would you consider a quiet start to a program that is only going to expand and get better (this summer) hostile?