No Cuts on the Party Line
This is a well-publicized field trip to the state capital. The state legislature is holding a special veto session, and the city is sending 36 aldermen on three private buses to lobby for more state money for education, health care, and the Chicago Transit Authority.
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Kruesi says he’s ridden every train line on the CTA since he took over, and as many of the bus lines as possible. Sometimes he passes out his business card to riders and employees, sometimes he doesn’t. That’s because he’s a passenger, “like everybody else.” He’s waited for trains “like everybody else.” He’s dealt with ludicrous, inexplicable delays “like everybody else.” “We’ve lost 30 percent of our riders in the last ten years. That oughta tell us something’s wrong. Now, it’s partly demographics, but a lot of it is people saying, ‘We don’t need this anymore.’ We need to bring these people back.”
The CTA certainly won’t be bringing back the 25,000 or so daily riders who have already lost or will lose their CTA service in the upcoming months. On October 5, the CTA instituted the first round in a yearlong series of service cuts that will virtually isolate poor neighborhoods on the south and west sides from the rest of the city. The agency eliminated ten bus lines and weekend service on several others. By March, many more cuts will have taken effect, including a weekend shutdown of the Douglas el line and hourly reductions on more than 70 percent of the buses all over the city, including on heavily traveled routes such as Lincoln Avenue. The CTA has been talking about providing “alternative service” to neighborhoods affected by the cuts, including private vans, or “jitneys,” that run on flexible routes, but it’s been all talk.
Kruesi explained that capital improvements need to come first, not operating money. The CTA’s infrastructure is crumbling: buses are years outdated, rail supports on all train lines are collapsing, and garages are antiquated. He pointed out that state and federal assistance to the CTA has dropped by nearly $50 million a year since 1990, and said that the city already adequately funds the CTA through a sales tax, fares, and the Chicago Police Department’s mass-transit unit, which provides subway security.
Instead, the city was going once again to Springfield to beg for money. Leavy cautioned that the CTA had better have something specific to show the state legislature. But Leavy’s warning went unheard by Kruesi, who had left the chambers by the time she spoke.
on Transportation met a half hour later. Several aldermen testified. Thomas Allen, who’s taken over the Transportation Committee from Pat Huels, spoke first. Forty-eighth Ward alderman Mary Ann Smith gave a long presentation in which she showed how traffic has choked her far-north-side neighborhood in the last 30 years. Brian Doherty said, “We’re basically down here looking for a little help….It’s the aging infrastructure that we’re experiencing.” Danny Solis from the 25th Ward could have testified that the service cuts will make life extremely difficult for working families in Pilsen. Instead, he read a statement spoon-fed to him by the administration, limply asking the state for more money to help the CTA comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
