Transit Groups Budget Comments:
- Objection to Funding by CTA Personnel,
- Lack of Concern for Operating on a Schedule,
- Opposition to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and potential Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
Citizens Taking Action will raise the following issues on the proposed 2012 CTA budget at the hearings scheduled on Monday, November 7th, at its headquarters:
Current Legislation Needs Revision
While CTA is budgeting for much needed infrastructure capital projects, it plans apparently to finance day-to-day operations of the system by extracting concessions in pay, benefits, and working conditions of bus and el train drivers, and maintenance personnel.
Charles Paidock, Secretary of the Organizations, stated: "The budget contains editorials on several pages blaming CTA personnel for 'service reductions, fare hikes, and lost ridership.' (e.g., pages 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 33, 34, etc.) This is complete nonsense, and inappropriate. Inadequate legislation was passed in 2008 for funding public transit, and nothing has been done to correct this. It never worked from the start. There were service cuts and a fare increase almost immediately after its passage. We were told it was going to bring in $500 million more in revenue, which it obviously never did, not from day one (1). It is hardly mentioned in the budget.
Making senior citizens pay was one of their alleged solutions. Making an old lady pay $2, during the off-peak periods when buses are empty, in order to go get a quart of milk isn't right. Seniors must now spend $2 in order to get a lunch at centers which costs them $1.50, so they aren't going. It didn't work, brought in no real revenue as we said, so now the CTA Board has targeted the operating personnel in their hunt for money. In the budget this is called "labor reform."
When I get on a bus I don't expect the driver to pay my fare. Instead of energizing the workforce, the CTA Board apparently is taking a Wisconsin approach. Passengers are expected to take their side, and make others pay so I don't have to. It's tantamount to crossing a picket line in order to use public transit.
I calculate they would have to make everyone work for nothing sooner or later in order to keep the system going. Look at the charts in the budget, and do the math. You don't operate public transit by defamation. These are collective bargaining issues, do not belong in a budget, and passengers are not a third party, deciding official on issues they do not understand."
Concerns Over Lack of Scheduled Operations, Bus Bunching
The transit group is also concerned that the CTA Board apparently is doing nothing about getting buses and trains to operate on a comprehensible schedule. It maintains that a transit system can, and should be designed so that no one ever has to wait. The group is researching and discovering countless numbers of inherent flaws in the route structure, with no attention paid to making connections.
Kevin Peterson said, "They have you getting off an el train, with the last bus leaving before you arrived. Passengers are stranded with no way home. Over and over again passengers come to a transfer point on their trip, only to see the back of a bus or el train departing. The transit dependent rider has no other choice other than to stand and wait, wait, wait for the next to arrive. CTA somehow considers it an aspect of service to keep passenger informed as to how long they must wait."
Harry Brooks stated, "Everyone should go to the CTA's website and view the site which shows where buses are at any given time. There're all over the place, often bunched together, with large gaps on long routes where passengers are sadly left waiting. CTA claims bus bunching occurs only 4% of the time. That isn't what we found."
Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
Citizens Taking Action voted unanimously to take a position in opposition to this cheap form of el train operating on city streets - streets not suited to its installation. A bus is a bus, and not something else. Passengers are not transported any more quickly because the vehicles, as done in other cities, resembles a rocket ship piloted by Flash Gordon. Furthermore, passengers must walk to scattered stops spaced several blocks apart along the route, thus of benefit to only a few. It is a transportation gimmick, which seem to come and go, sold by vendors to transit systems as the alleged solution to overcrowded buses, and requires a expensive and complex reconfiguration of streets. Proposals such as installation on 95 miles of city streets are whimsical, however with potentially disastrous, irreversible results. Adding a third, completely new and separate separate system of transport within an existing network only complicates what should be point A to point B, seamless transportation.
In addition, BRTs appear to be designed or a preliminary to the privatization of public transit. Any public-private partnership, resulting in the sale of Chicago's transit infrastructure, will without doubt result in decreased service and increased fares, and complete loss of control of both. Citizens Taking Action has aligned with Privatization Watch: Illinois to stop enactment of enabling legislation being passed by the State of Illinois.
Citizens Taking Action for transit dependent riders
Monthly meeting the first Monday of each month from 7:00 to 9:00 PM, at 77 W. Washington, 4th Floor www.CTAriders.org
The next meetings are scheduled for December 5th, January 9th, and February 6th.
Charles Paidock, Secretary (312) 714-7790 cpaidock@hotmail.com
