CTA Tattler

Yes to a fare increase. Yes to reversing the senior freebie. Yes to restoring the subsidy the governor stole away this year. No to zoned fares.

In a very practical sense CTA fares are near historic lows at presence. If you use a Chicago Card, you're effectively paying $1.575 per ride assuming a $20 recharge discount. You'd have to go back to 1981 to find them lower in real terms -- that was the year fares went up in several stages from 50 cents ($1.20 in real terms today) to 90 cents ($2.18) before the 1983 state transit settlement temporarily stopped the bleeding.

A quarter fare increase is reasonable given the massive increase in costs on the agencies.

The senior freebie is one of the most ill-targeted of all of Blagojevich's so-called reforms. The group of people with the lowest poverty rate get the free travel. It's ridiculous. And the subsidy cut this year adds insult to injury.

Zoned fares, on the other hand, would be a logistical nightmare for the CTA, requiring urgent renovations to many older stations that simply don't have the turnstile space at present to be dealing with registering the fares of exiting passengers. It's a long-term goal to be worked towards but could not be realistically implemented for many years.

And while we're on the subject of state funding, this year's state sales tax augmentation is no more of a permanent settlement than 1983's was. Until Illinois gets a fair and balanced sales tax, a single low rate on ALL goods and services rather than a ridiculous rate on goods and no tax at all on services, we will be stuck forever with declining sales tax revenues for the CTA and bitter complaints from taxpayers. A fair and balanced sales tax on all goods and services at one low rate is part of serious tax reform this state needs, which would also include a progressive income tax with a far larger personal exemption -- the current $2,000 is still the same as it was in 1970, which is ludicrously regressive.

jake and kiel,

The size of and relative wealth of the lower rungs of society is much more highly correlated to immigration rates than tax rates. Immigration and open labor markets depress wages for unskilled and lower tier labor. Ending immigration is the easiest way to acheive basically every one of your crypto-socialist ideals. Not that I support this of course, just giving you some food for thought. Check out the US's immigration rates over the past 100 years, such as the minimal immigration allowed in your romanticized notion of the 1950s, and correlate it with growth in real median income. The tax structure won't do much to fundamentally change the nation's labor market other than to possibly make goods and services more expensive such that the poor are still poor - tax cuts at least have the advantage of growing the pie, rather than progressive tax hikes which will only partially redistribute it. There's only so much you can do to screw with fundamental market forces.

I agree with all of the reasons (and they are good reasons) NOT to increase fares, but what's to be done in the meantime? An overhaul of Illinois' income tax won't happen for a few years, and the legislature almost certainly won't try to raise the sales tax again soon (Rod would probably just use it as a chance to throw free rides at another voting bloc - free rides for baby boomers, who knows?). What can be done now to prevent the CTA's $40 million deficit this year, and its approx $60 million deficit next year? AFAIK, by law the CTA can't end a fiscal year in the red.

"But to say that a fares "should" go up? Why on earth should they?"

"Raising fares provides a greater disincentive to engage in socially positive behavior. It means more people will use their cars than they otherwise would, there will be more traffic and lost productivity than there otherwise would, and a lot of people who are just getting by will have to spend a little less every year on food or clothing or whatever in order to afford to get to work or to the supermarket.

How could any of that be a good thing?"

You make a good point about the need to have a cheap fare relative to driving. But I think the main disagreement I have with your argument is in its premise. The reality is, if the fare is raised it would not actually be an increase in the fare over the long term. Because of inflation, transit systems raising fares every few years is the norm. If it is done at roughly the rate of inflation, it is not actually increasing the price. The last fare increase was around 8 years ago and the one before I believe was around a decade before that (like I said, nobody needed to pay a fare increase when it technically went up in 2006). The norm is a fare increase every once in a while. So the question really becomes not why a fare should be increased but why it shouldn't. If the fare is not increased after several years that, in real terms, is a fare decrease. I'm actually not neccessarally against a fare decrease if it can be shown that revenues are less needed or will increase from another place. But I think it is important to realize what keeping fares the same, in nominal terms, would be. And that is a decrease.

Anonymous, you bring up a good point - but I assume you're talking about *illegal* immigration, and not all immigration.

It's true that illegal immigration depresses all wages. But look, you can't physically prevent 12 million odd people from sneaking across the border. What you can do is try to prevent businesses from hiring illegal immigrants - something which is already illegal. And to add insult to injury, most of those same businesses take advantage of the fact that these people are illegal immigrants and can't complain to pay them less than (much less than) the minimum wage - something which is also illegal.

If we agree that all people everywhere deserve a living wage, which I think most people do, then the market has to be constrained somehow. There will always be more workers than jobs, and without things like minimum wages, anti-sweatshop labor laws, and working week time limits workers are free to try and out bid each other to see who can work the hardest for the longest hours for the least amount of pay in order that one of them can get the job. Now, in practice it doesn't happen exactly that way these days, but most certainly did before the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the rise of labor unions (even though most of them went terribly corrupt). The 50's weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and regulation did hurt businesses' abilities to squeeze maximum profits out of their endeavors, but a huge part of the country's population was for the first time able to enjoy a fair share of the whole country's wealth, and not just the gilded age rich - which was the case previously.

"Because of inflation, transit systems raising fares every few years is the norm. If it is done at roughly the rate of inflation, it is not actually increasing the price."

It is certainly true that the fare has been creeping downward in "real" terms for the last several years, but for the reasons I mentioned, that's a good thing. In an ideal world, we probably wouldn't charge for public transportation: if driving costs society much more than use of public transit, why would you impose any financial disincentive on the latter? The answer is not a principled one, but a practical one: because the political will to fully fund public transit just isn't there.

But my point is that people on this thread seem to be going beyond that practical reality to assert that a fare increase is somehow the right thing to do, apparently because, well the cost of stuff is just *supposed* to go up every now and then.

I don't see how inflation has any moral significance. The cost of other stuff is going up for all kinds of reasons related to inflation, scarcity of carbon fuels, and whatnot.

But so what? The cost of driving may be going up, for example, but it's not a public good, so the relevance of that to setting public transit fares is simply mystifying to me. Typically it seems to me that it's motivated by some kind of "hey, we should all share the pain" sentiment. But that's simply not true when you're talking about one activity wich has dire social costs and another which has relatively few.

I am not saying the CTA should hold out for an amendment to the Illinois constitution. It can't. What I am saying is that as advocates for public transit -- if I may call us all that -- we should be loath to buy into the idea that fares *should* go up just because other stuff is going up, or just because "that's the norm" or whatever other non-explanation people might offer.

Just because something is "the norm" does not mean it is good or does not require justification. A high sales tax in Cook County is the norm; is there anyone who thinks that it requires no justification?

"When workers are weak, they can't demand their fair share of wealth, which is instead captured by their bosses. "

No, it's captured by the owners of the company they work for. In most cases, these are public companies which have shareowners of all income levels. Most people in the U.S. own stock. That includes lower-middle income people and even some lower income people. I've never understood why so many people act as if labor conflicts involve "workers vs. rich people". That is far from the truth. At most places, an average shareowner is not any more likely to be rich than an average employee. It may have been different in the late 19th and early 20th century when these labor movements began. But things change. Many times when institutions exist, such as unions or "public interests groups" advocating for "poor people", it is very difficult for them to change with the times or even notice when things are different. When these shareowners get more income, they will spend it. And when thye spend it it will help everyone in the economy, including many other lower and middle income people. Why do you think that people pay attention to whether the stock market is going up or down? It is because this effects the economy as a whole.

If a company, from union agreements or government regulation, is forced to pay wages that are higher than they should be it may be nice that those of you who advocate for workers can point to these employees and think you are helping people. But the reality is that the company will have to higher fewer other workers, it will spend less, and it will generate a smaller amount of revenue which means the stockholders will not be spending as much on goods and services. The companies that provide those goods and services will then have fewer employees and less revenue and you can then repeat what I said above. It is very negative for the lower and middle income people you think you are fighting for.

"Incidentally, the American economy grew much faster in the '50s and '60s, when unions were strong and the middle class actually did expand."

You have the cause and effect wrong. Unions were strong because the nation's economy had different types of jobs than they do now. There was not as much of an ability for companies to manufacture products in other countries. They felt they had to cave to unions in many cases. We have seen what often happens when they cave to the unions. The auto industry and the airline industry, two of the most union intensive industries that exist, have recently had to lay off tons of workers and reduce pay and benefits for those it didn't lay off. And many times manufacturers have had to move their factories oversees because they couldn't compete with union wages (not that they always would be able to do so with non-union wages but if they didn't have to worry about unions there no doubt would be much more manufacturing jobs in the U.S.).

All I can do is laugh at your suggestion that janitors should be paid as much as doctors or lawyers. That doesn't merit a response so I will just skip it.

"What's relevant to the transit debate is how we're going to fund the major infrastructure investments we desperately need. We either raise taxes on those who can most afford to pay them ...Or we resort to quick-fix solutions like privatization or expanded gambling that leave us worse-off and more unequal in the long run. If you have some other solution, I'd love to hear it."

We discussed expanding gambling a few months ago. I am all for that. It is essentually a voluntary tax and there is nothing more ideal than a tax that nobody is forced to pay. So that is the most obvious solution for capital funding. It is unfortunate that the legislature hasn't been able to license another casino when there seems to be so much need for the revenue. And if it is in Chicago, it will encourage tourism. So you get two great benefits for one.

Oops. Obviously I meant hire, not "higher".

"There will always be more workers than jobs"

Where did you hear that? During good economic times, there are many employers who have to absolutely beg people to come work for them. When I was in college, for example, a place I worked at for a summer had to fly people in from Europe to work for them. They couldn't find enough people here in this country. And those foreigners encompassed about 30- 40% of their employees. When the economy is strong, there is a job for everyone who wants one, with the exception of people who are very disabled or have some other major issue that prevents them from working. That is just basic economics and, in fact, I remember learning that in an introductory economics class. And if you ask "well, if everyone can find work than why wouldn't there be a unemployment rate of 0%", I would advise you to understand the differences between cyclical, frictional, and structural unemployment. here is a good link that explains this: http://economics.about.com/od/helpforeconomicsstudents/f/unemployment.htm
In a period of prosperity, there is no cyclical unemployment. Of course, the economy is not strong now so there are many people who cannot find a job.

"What you can do is try to prevent businesses from hiring illegal immigrants - something which is already illegal. And to add insult to injury, most of those same businesses take advantage of the fact that these people are illegal immigrants and can't complain to pay them less than (much less than) the minimum wage - something which is also illegal."

The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants do not work in sweatshops. They work in restuarants or in landscaping or things like that. They work in these jobs because they WANT to do so. That is why they come to this country. I know it is sometimes difficult for people to believe, but the lowest paying jobs here are MUCH better paying than the typical job in the places that these immigrants come from. They send much of the money they receive to family members in their home country. And after they make a certain amount they usually go back to that country (at least from what I have read). When they are in this country, they live at places like rooming houses that provide cheap living. It may not be what you would consider to be a good place to live but it is no doubt much better than their home in Mexico or whatever. If you are for stopping employers from hiring illegals (which there certainly are strong arguments for), you do have to realize that you would not be helping these workers. You will be preventing them from an opperatunity.

"Most people in the U.S. own stock."

Well, let's not get too far away from facts here. It is true that more people own stock nowadays -- albeit mostly because retirement plans have been increasingly been replaced with 401(k) plans. But, at least according to Businessweek in 2005 (http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/wellspent/archives/2005/11/stock_ownership.html), that was about 57 million households. Given that it will often be just one person in the household who has a 401(k) plan or directly owns equities, and given that there are 300+ million people in the U.S., it is a stretch to say that "most people" own stock.

Also, alas, we are not exactly a nation of savers. So the great majority of those 401(k) accounts are probably pretty small. The fact that someone has, say, $7000 in a 401(k) is not a bad thing, but it hardly means that an upswing in the stock market is going to seriously compensate for a dip in the person's wages or work hours due to a souring economy.

I still like the gambling-on-the-CTA idea for raising revenue. :-) While they're busy ripping all the seats out of rail cars, why not replace some of them with slot machines?

MK, I can't expect you to grasp much about economics, since the man you say you're voting for is so proud of his ignorance of economics that he jokes about it, but I'd love to see one citation for your claim that "If it weren't for tourists, the city would probably be about as poor as Detroit, and our infrastructure and city services would be comparable to them." One credible study. That's all I'm asking.

Tourists are a self-selecting group. They've already paid the highest fares in history to stay in the most expensive hotels in the country to shop in the same stores they have in their own cities. You seem to imply frequently that the CTA's fares are among the lowest in the world, so these people must therefore be used to paying much more for their public transportation. Tourists come to spend money. You're claiming that by charging tourists another $5 or $10 for their unlimited-use pass, this city would turn into Detroit. Back it up. One credible study.

(One argument is that savvy tourists would simply buy farecards and use them like residents. But many tourists prefer the convenience of unlimited-use farecards, especially not having to stand in line on their way to the destinations they're eager to reach. The point isn't measuring the number of people who'd get around the increase; the point is accepting the money from people who'd gladly pay it.)

Also, please Google and read up on "concentration of wealth" and "transfer of wealth." Your belief that growth helps the poorer strata of society has been disproven since the Reagan years. Most economists agree that the current concentration of wealth approaches or, say some economists, exceeds the era of railroad barons and bank tycoons.

Union agreements, by definition, do not produce unfair wages, because both the union and the employer have agreed that the wages are fair, usually as part of a larger package in which both sides have made concessions. Back in the days when unions were strong enough to be attractive to organized crime, that wouldn't always be the case, it's true; the corrupt union officials would agree to much lower wages than the workers deserved, for their own enrichment. So when union wages have been unfair, it's usually been the workers who've been shorted.

That said, I think zoned fares are far more likely to work on the modern systems that their proponents are citing. Here's an experiment: Go to the Bryn Mawr Red Line station at about 5:30 or 5:45 some weekday afternoon and try to get on, even without every exiting rider passing a card through the turnstile. There are only two turnstiles; there will only ever be two turnstiles, the CTA's plan to have the Red Line stop in the Jewel across the street notwithstanding. And the server as both entrances and exits. Zone-based fares work in the modern systems that are designed for them, but it's pretty difficult to retrofit them.

". You're claiming that by charging tourists another $5 or $10 for their unlimited-use pass, this city would turn into Detroit. Back it up."

Oh, come on. You know very well that I never said anything like that. Read my post again. I was talking about tourism in the city on the whole. You had said that tourism "makes our lives a living hell". I'm not exactly sure why you assume that tourists would gladly pay an increase in their fare. Most of them take cabs. You would just drive more of them to to that. And remember that tourists come in groups of at least two. So when you are raising the price of these passes they are paying at least two times the increase. Eventually, cab rides would be more attractive economically.

Bob S.: The Jewel is next to the Berwyn L station.
You are the second person to get that wrong this week, the other being someone who posted a photo on Flickr.
There must be something about Berwyn that gets to people, maybe it's Svengoolie!

Was I hearing right? Are they talking about giving free rides to the disabled, when last week they are claiming the free rides to seniors is bankrupting CTA? How can they even think to do it?

They should have tried out the program for a month and then decide to make it a universal plan. They didn't count on the money not coming in as they thought.

wow people that supposed to have college degrees did not think this thru did they?

If you think the seniors are going to bust the CTA, just imagine the disabled. there are a small amount of true disabled people, however, with our stupid Politically Correct thingy going on nowadays, these people will also get free rides - alcoholics, drug addicts, homeless, mentally ill, peolple with Post traumatic stress syndrome, people with depression, anyone on crutches, pregnant women, any person who is under the care of a phychiatrict, any person who is too stressed out to go to work (yes there is a disability that people can claim), and other assorted people who will see how far to go to assert that their mental or physical condition will put them in the disabled category.

I guess the average joe who is just going to work will still have to pay for all these others i mentioned.

"They should have tried out the program for a month and then decide to make it a universal plan. They didn't count on the money not coming in as they thought.

wow people that supposed to have college degrees did not think this thru did they?"

I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about. It is well known what occured. It is even clear in the Trib's editorial that is linked to in the original post. The free ride program was not anything that anybody introduced after analyzing the possibilty and deciding it would be a good thing to do. Nobody at any of the transit agencies suggested it. It also didn't come from any of the legislators (who would normally at least spend some time exploring any benefits and drawbacks). You seem to be suggesting that this resulted from some sort of false conclusion coming from those who are supposed to be deciding on these sorts of changes. There was no conclusion and the decision was not made by anyone that generally decides on these policies. (Although Ron Huberman and others, after apparently making a terrible analysis of the political climate, did praise the decision after it was made in order to curry favor with the public. Huberman clearly is now embarresed about that and has backtracked.) You might want to read up on this issue. It has been all over the media (and this is actually something that the media has done a pretty good job of covering).

I don't know what exactly you are referring to with plans for giving free rides to disabled people. Has there been some sort of suggestion for this in the past week that I missed? They already gave free rides, unfortunetely, to low income disabled. I know Blagojevich at one point last year said that all disabled people should ride free (he also said everyone should ride free). But aside from that I haven't heard anything about giving free rides to everyone who is disabled. You seem to be suggesting this has come up within the last week. But I did a google news search and didn't see anything about it.

The free rides for the disabled start on October 24.
To qualify a person must be qualified for the RTA disabled card & also get the Circuit Breaker rebate from the state.
I don't know why the legislature didn't add the Circuit Breaker requirement to the senior free rides at the same time.
Fear & cowardice of the old farts is probably it, they vote more than anyone else.

What's blowing my mind in this discussion is that we've gotten sidetracked with tourists, tax rates, the disabled, "social good," pregnant women, free rides, immigration, illegal immigration, inflation, etc. What are the priorities of some of you?

To me, this boils down to one thing and one thing only: I want the trains/buses to function, get me where I want to go quickly, and I don't want to constantly be hearing about budget shortfalls. If it means that the way to do this is to increase the cost of the ride, so be it. If that means that my ride from damen now costs $3 - I don't care as long as it gets me where I want to go in an efficient way. If raising fares means that to ride the purple line from Evanston down to the loop, it will now cost $5 - that's fine. Let people weigh the cost of the CTA v. the cost of driving a car and paying to park it. In the end, if the CTA prices its fares properly, one of two things will happen: people will pay the fares and the lines will be able to support themselves, or people won't pay the fares needed and service will be discontinued. I'm not particularly concerned with the motivations of the people that live at the farthest stretches of the brown line and why they live where they live - there's a lot more upkeep and maintenance for the 8 miles (or however many there are) of track that goes out there than there is on the upkeep to get the train to Sedgwick - therefore, they should be paying more. If you want the service to your neighborhood, pay for it through higher fares. Public transportation is not a right.

Jimbo, congratulations: your point is pretty hard to debate: the cost of transit doesn't matter so long as it gets you where you're going, consequences for everybody else be damned. The internal coherence of your point of view is admirable, but its persuasiveness leaves something to be desired.

Anyhow, as for free rides for low-income people with disabilities, aside from the fact that this program is means-tested, there is another reason this program may be much more defensible than the other freebies that have been handed out lately:

Paratransit is VERY EXPENSIVE - around $30 per ride. To the extent that waiving $2/ride of fixed-route fare revenue causes a person eligible for paratransit services to use a fixed-route bus or train instead, the RTA as a whole will actually save money.

Now, it could be that as a practical matter, virtually all the people taking paratransit simply cannot make use of fixed-route transit services, and so it won't matter that paying $0 for a fixed-route ride will save them $2-$5 per trip. Assuming that someone at the RTA will actually bother to pay attention, it will be interesting to see whether there is any measurable effect once the free rides become available.

That said, I assume (although I don't know for certain) that any savings would only be experienced by PACE, the provider of paratransit services, and there there probably isn't any mechanism for shifting these savings to the other agencies (CTA/Metra) that will provide the bulk of the free services that lead to the paratransit savings.

Oh, just to be clear: when I said paratransit is $30/ride, I was referring to the average cost *to PACE* to provide a paratransit ride. The cost to the passenger is only around $2-$5, depending on the particular paratransit service in question. there could be a significant savings to PACE in people switching to fixed route service more often, since the marginal cost of a fixed-route ride is much, much less than $30.

I spent the last 8 years in Minneapolis and just moved back home to Chicago... I actually wouldn't mind a page being taken from MSP's Metro Transit book on ride fare no matter how naive & idealistic it sounds.

Charge more during rush hour when ridership is at it's peak.

Metro Transit got away with a 50 cent fare increase from 7am to 9am & 4pm to 6pm on weekdays... and, quite frankly, on a good day their bus system was a real pain in the rear and not even half as reliable as the CTA.

In the end, coming home to Chicago and the CTA was a joyous and celebratory occasion for me after 8 years of buses in Minneapolis and I'll take whatever the CTA dishes at me because I'd still rather ride the L than drive my car. :)

Embarrassed Correction - Pardon my incorrect use of "it's" It's late. (correctly used.)

:)

Higher peak period fares are something that I'd favor, too. Higher fares on express buses and trains than on local buses during peak period, too.

For example, an extra 10-cents on local buses between 6:30-8:30am, and 3:30-5:30pm, and an extra 20-cents on trains, and express buses traveling in the peak direction for downtown express lines. (Both directions for crosstown express lines.)

And if we're giving away free rides, how about free (or reduced priced) rides between 9am-3pm for people collecting unemployment checks.

I don't favor zone-based fares because I don't think they accurately reflect the value of the ride. Yes, the ride is longer, but the longer you're spending on urban public transportation, the more time you're wasting. It's not the same as a commuter rail line where you're covering much longer distances, and covering them relatively quickly.

The difficulty in retro-fitting the stations are a secondary issue in why it's not a good idea. Another issue is that it's even less practical for bus rides than it is for rail, and given the integrated, inter-modal system layout, zoned fares for one mode but not for the other could create some odd imbalances, and create incentives for people to choose a less efficient mode to avoid a higher fare.

At least if you're limiting premium fares to express (premium) service, and then further limiting it to peak demand periods, you're running a lesser risk of mode shifting. I think mode shifting would be more likely during non-peak periods, and in cases where premium services aren't involved.

Also, I think more money should be spent educating people on how public transportation helps them even if they don't actually use it. Everything from the "fewer cars on the road" issue, to how it fuels the regional (including statewide) economy providing benefits even to people who don't ever set foot in Chicago. People need to understand why a public investment in mass transit in urban areas is as critical as having an educated and employable populous.

Heaven knows the CTA has people who can produce some PowerPoint presentations on this topic. (And they're probably not the ones on those layoff lists.)

Perhaps a change in Washington might help with better Federal transportation policies. There's no question changes in Springfield are necessary.

"Jimbo, congratulations: your point is pretty hard to debate: the cost of transit doesn't matter so long as it gets you where you're going, consequences for everybody else be damned. The internal coherence of your point of view is admirable, but its persuasiveness leaves something to be desired."

Yeah, at least he admits that his motivation for stating his beliefs is only himself. It is pretty rare for someone to admit that. It is, of course, not rare at all for people to actually arrive at opinions based primarally on their own convenience or well-being. But they don't normally say that, especially on a blog such as this. And many times people come to opinions based solely or overwhelmingly on what is good for them and they then try to convince themselves that their opinion was actually generated from something else. And they rationalize that something has benefits to something at large when it clearly doesn't. This clearly seems to be going on with many of those arguing for distance-based pricing. Again Jimbo makes the false argument that it makes sense because people who take the train farther use more resources. That is just not true. This time he states that since these people are using more track there is more upkeep that must be done. Well, that is like arguing that Wal-Mart should charge more for products that towards the back of the store than it should for those that are near the front. After all, people are walking farther to get them and there is going to the store is therefore going to need to do more maintance on its floors. Or it is similar to saying that restuarants should charge higher prices for those who sit farther away from the kitchen. The waiters and waitresses, after all, will have to walk farther distances to serve these guest. And actually, these arguments would not even be as bad as the one being made that the CTA should charge more simply because people are travelling greater distances. At Wal-Mart, there actually is maintance costs that rise when people walk farther in their stores. They are tiny, but they do exist. On the train, there is absolutely no additional cost to the CTA if someone rides a train from Roosevelt to Howard than there is when someone rides from Roosevelt to Fullerton. I suppose someone could argue that there is some tiny cost for depraciation when people are sitting down, but even that is a stretch. And if it exists, this cost is even smaller than Wal-Mart's cleaning and maintance costs from people walking farther. The cost of upkeep of the rails has nothing to do with the equation. The only thing that matters in analyzing the CTA's costs for a passenger travelling farther distances is the marginal cost to the CTA for transporting the person farther. And this cost is zero. If you give this scenrio to any corporate executive and ask them whether in their pricing they would take into account how far people travel, they would say that they wouldn't. They would take distance-travelled into account if that effects customer demand. It does on a commuter railroad such as Metra. It does in airline travel. That is why distance is one factor (but certainly not the only factor, after all there are many cases where a ticket is more expensive to a closer destination) in airline pricing. But as many people have stated, the demand on the CTA is actually higher for shorter distances. And one of the major reasons for this is that they are indeed shorter distances. I think Jen U's suggestion of charging more for rush hour rides is worth considering. That certainly has a lot more basis in economics and in common sense policy than distance based fares. I've suggested perhaps charging more for people departing from the loop during the afternoon rush hour. Both of these would hit the people who are least likely to choose another mode of transportation. And these passengers, by the way, are using more resources. If the CTA could have successfully encouraged more people to take the train during more non-peak times there wouldn't be a need for as many train cars or buses. They wouldn't have had to purchase or operate as many. All of the equipment operate at its peak during rush hour and there much is left during other times. So, Jimbo, if you are concerned about using more resources you should be arguing for that. But since that would seem to be raising your fare you will probably think up some rationalization as to why this doesn't make sense. It would seem, however, that the more logical time to have set-up a variable fare based on peak times and/or whether people are travelling from the loop would have been at the start of the brown line construction project.

"If raising fares means that to ride the purple line from Evanston down to the loop, it will now cost $5 - that's fine. Let people weigh the cost of the CTA v. the cost of driving a car and paying to park it."

Well, there is also the cost of Metra (which from Evanston is currently roughly the same as the CTA assuming that the Metra riders are using monthly passes). And just to remind you, people also way the costs of transit in terms of whether they choose to live and work in the area. That is the major reason why transit exists. To encourage both residents and employees to locate in the area. The CTA is not an island in itself. It exists for the purpose of the region.

"want the trains/buses to function, get me where I want to go quickly, and I don't want to constantly be hearing about budget shortfalls."

Why do you care whether you hear about budget shortfalls? You've already stated that you don't mind if the fares increase. And the CTA is required to have a balanced budget every year. So it is sort of expected that there will always be funding challanges. It is sort of set up purposely that way.

Again Jimbo makes the false argument that it makes sense because people who take the train farther use more resources. That is just not true.

I'm not reading past this, because really - like every other one of your posts - it's just hyperbole.

I'll admit that I mis-phrased what I intended to say. What I should have wrote is that the greater the distance is that one travels, the more of the CTA's resources he/she uses, and there are more resources that the CTA needs to maintain.

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What I should have wrote is that the greater the distance is that one travels, the more of the CTA's resources he/she uses, and there are more resources that the CTA needs to maintain.
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Not true. The marginal cost of a passenger who rides a longer distance is fairly insignificant compared to the cost of just having the infrastructure there for boarding in the first place.

Only during peak periods when people traveling longer distances are taking away the ability for other riders does it make a difference.

In other words, if you're riding from 95th to Howard, and someone else is riding from Fullerton to Belmont, as long as your presence on the train isn't preventing them from getting on, the cost of serving you is the same as the cost of serving them -- even if people have to stand.

I agree with your point, Rusty, but the problem with it is that peak periods are obviously the busiest times and the times when the most resources get used.

I've been trying to figure out what you are trying to say in your last post, Jimbo, but I just can't. Those who commute short distances (whether during peak times or not) are mostly people who commute during the peak areas where people need to stand and others may not be able to board. So those who commute longer distances are certainly not adding to the crowding problem any more than those commuting for only a few stops. Everyone knows that the only area where anybody needs to stand are the loop up until around Addison on the red line at most, Southport on the brown line, and around Damon on the blue line. So nobody is going to make it more crowded because they are travelling farther than that.

MK above says "The destruction of unions (and certainly free trade) has helped the nation's economy."

MK, As a PROUD LABOR UNION MEMBER, who works hard for her money, FUCK YOU ASSHOLE! The destruction of labor unions has helped the nation's economy alright--the top 1%. Meanwhile, people like me who actually work for a living have gotten screwed. SCREW YOU ASSHOLE!

Bravo Janice! Way to stick up for unions! I'm a proud union member myself!

But don't waste your time with MK. He's a troll railfan who thinks he knows everything but actually knows nothing! Read his posts. He offers no solutions to anything, but criticizes everything and everyone (except himself of course). He's disrespectful to everyone, especially women.

You got pretty greedy there, Janice. Or should I say Robin? You should not have done that. Had you only made your first post tonight (the one in which you used the name Janice P.) I would have assumed that the post was actually made by a new poster who actually just read my post and decided to post her disagreement with it. I would not have taken it very seriously considering its language and false statements, but at least I would have actually believed it came from someone who hasn't spoken before. But instead you decided to make a second post attempting to make it seem as if another user just happened to come to this blog and decide to express something similar (on an old thread) less than 15 minutes later. And you use language in both of these posts that are very similar to the those in Robin W.'s earlier posts (such as the word "railfan" and the angry language). The simularity of the language in the first post to Robin W's posts likely would not have even dawned on me if my suspicians had not been triggered by these two posts fifteen minutes apart. And, in fact, I am wondering whether some of the other posts arguing with me about this were also made by the same person. That, by the way, is actually sort of the definition of a troll. So it is rather ironic that you continue to accuse me of being one.