Daley gets a glimmer of hope on BRT funding
Buried deep in a Sunday Tribune story about Daley's reaction to Blago's impeachment was the mayor's announcement that he had convinced U.S. transportation officials to hold over funds for a Bus Rapid Transit pilot program until the Obama administration takes office in just over a week.
As reported here Friday, the city missed a key deadline last month to keep the BRT pilot moving forward.
From the Trib story:
The mayor also repeated his insistence that the federal government needed to be more flexible after the city failed to make a deadline to apply for a $153 million transit grant to help ease traffic gridlock
Daley said he had spoken with U.S. transportation officials, who agreed to hold over the grant money until President-elect Barack Obama's administration takes office.
Daley said the city missed the deadline because it was forced to delay bidding for a 75-year parking meter lease deal to allow bidders to "get their financial situation in order."
"That delayed any proposal we had for the congestion fee," he said.
As I suggested in the Friday post, this story is not over yet, in spite of the wishes of many commenters here who wish that it were.
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Daley said he had spoken with U.S. transportation officials, who agreed to hold over the grant money until President-elect Barack Obama's administration takes office.
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What's next? Taking credit for the sun rising?
Of course they're going to hold the money until the Obama administration takes control. That was the whole point to not extending the deadline. They aren't going to give away the money they don't have to contractually give away until the next administration takes control.
That doesn't mean he got an under-the-table extention. It just means that the money won't be given away to anyone else anytime soon.
The facts haven't changed. Daley's just putting a better spin on it. (Better for him, that is.)
Posted by: Rusty | January 11, 2009 at 02:23 PM
I like the BRT idea, though the devil is in the details.
But Kevin, we should have something much more imminent along these lines. Reports last summer about city council approval for signal priority for the Western Ave express bus suggested it would begin in January, meaning this month. Can you find out for us whether they still plan to get it done that quickly?
Posted by: ryanwc | January 11, 2009 at 09:51 PM
I read this too. Looks like it might be back on track. If nothing else, there are probably very few other cities ready to capitalize on the money. Hopefully we still get it. The Western express would be nice.
Posted by: chris | January 12, 2009 at 09:12 AM
"The Western express would be nice."
It doesn't matter whether that will be nice or not. That was not one of the four streets that was part of the pilot phase of the plan. And it is not consistant with the stated goal of the program which was to reduce congestion downtown. For reasons I've mentioned several times here, the BRT would not be even minimumely effective at that purpose. So it is an illogical goal but was the goal nonetheless. And the Western route doesn't fit within it.
Posted by: MK | January 12, 2009 at 04:46 PM