Free Rides Hurting More Than Helping?

[sw4400]

Looking at this quote from the Sun Times, I'd say it is....

'Blagojevich tacked on free rides for seniors, an increasingly popular perk. Before the governor’s gift, seniors paid reduced fares and took 63,000 daily rides on the CTA. In August, they rode for free 92,000 times-a-day.' Full article here... http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1153...y090908.article

Numbers below are presuming they are the same every month of the year...

92,000 Free Rides/Day, 644,000 Free Rides/Week, and 33,488,000 Free Rides/Yearly. Seniors need to pay something. Even if that something is just $1.00, it'll help the people who need the CTA but are just as financially inclined as the Seniors are(Low-Income people struggling to make ends meet) be able to use the CTA without being stuck for the seniors fares. We may as well just stick $3.00 in the fare machine each time we enter the bus or rail station. We're paying for ourselves plus one senior citizen anyways. This fare hike the CTA is talking may be somewhere very near the $5.00 mark(cost of diesel fuel, bus and rail maintainance, and to help pay the CTA employees' salaries). If the seniors want to ride the CTA, they need to pay just like everyone else. Next thing you know, they'll mandate free cab rides for seniors only, then 50% off groceries at Jewel, Dominick's, and all the other major grocery and drug stores. The buck has to start here for these seniors!!! You want these things, pay for them like everyone else!!!

Sorry for the little rant, but I always knew that this'll cost us in the long run and I was very angry when it got implemented, now it's going to cost us paying customers more while they(seniors) board, sit, talk, and leave without paying a penny!!!

[Buslover88]

Seniors need to pay something. Even if that something is just $1.00, it'll help the people who need the CTA but are just as financially inclined as the Seniors are(Low-Income people struggling to make ends meet) be able to use the CTA without being stuck for the seniors fares. We may as well just stick $3.00 in the fare machine each time we enter the bus or rail station. We're paying for ourselves plus one senior citizen anyways. This fare hike the CTA is talking may be somewhere very near the $5.00 mark(cost of diesel fuel, bus and rail maintainance, and to help pay the CTA employees' salaries). If the seniors want to ride the CTA, they need to pay just like everyone else. Next thing you know, they'll mandate free cab rides for seniors only, then 50% off groceries at Jewel, Dominick's, and all the other major grocery and drug stores. The buck has to start here for these seniors!!! You want these things, pay for them like everyone else!!!

Sorry for the little rant, but I always knew that this'll cost us in the long run and I was very angry when it got implemented, now it's going to cost us paying customers more while they(seniors) board, sit, talk, and leave without paying a penny!!!

sw4400, I couldn't agree more. I may respect seniors alot, but really, they need to pay like everyone else. If disabled people like myself have to pay (full fare I might add), then they should too. Paying for CTA to ride it is really starting to get simply too much to pay. It's like $12 just for two rides if three people are riding together! I think seniors should either pay the $1 price you said or pay the FULL fare like everyone else. I don't care if they complain (and if I get ranted here), they need to pay too, just like the rest of us do.

I really hope the CTA does not raise fares, because myself and many other people are struggling to make ends meet here, but apperantly, the government doesn't care. I just hope Daley and these other corrupted government officals are completey THROWN OUT in the next elections. We need new, honest people running the Illnois government.

[BusHunter]

Looking at this quote from the Sun Times, I'd say it is....

'Blagojevich tacked on free rides for seniors, an increasingly popular perk. Before the governor’s gift, seniors paid reduced fares and took 63,000 daily rides on the CTA. In August, they rode for free 92,000 times-a-day.' Full article here... http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1153...y090908.article

Numbers below are presuming they are the same every month of the year...

92,000 Free Rides/Day, 644,000 Free Rides/Week, and 33,488,000 Free Rides/Yearly. Seniors need to pay something. Even if that something is just $1.00, it'll help the people who need the CTA but are just as financially inclined as the Seniors are(Low-Income people struggling to make ends meet) be able to use the CTA without being stuck for the seniors fares. We may as well just stick $3.00 in the fare machine each time we enter the bus or rail station. We're paying for ourselves plus one senior citizen anyways. This fare hike the CTA is talking may be somewhere very near the $5.00 mark(cost of diesel fuel, bus and rail maintainance, and to help pay the CTA employees' salaries). If the seniors want to ride the CTA, they need to pay just like everyone else. Next thing you know, they'll mandate free cab rides for seniors only, then 50% off groceries at Jewel, Dominick's, and all the other major grocery and drug stores. The buck has to start here for these seniors!!! You want these things, pay for them like everyone else!!!

Sorry for the little rant, but I always knew that this'll cost us in the long run and I was very angry when it got implemented, now it's going to cost us paying customers more while they(seniors) board, sit, talk, and leave without paying a penny!!!

That's what happens when you give something for free. Everyone joins in. I don't understand why all seniors could ride for free. It should be only the ones who are low income. I understand letting them have it. But we are letting any senior ride for free. I once was on a #151 that was packed with seniors from the front to back door. about 22 of them they took all the seats to the stairs to the upper level of the bus. This is becoming an epidemic. With all the talk of ridership increases this is not helping. We are soon to lose our seats and who knows what else. The gov. is slowly putting the CTA back into crisis mode. You can't run a business when your giving away stuff for free. Until a solution comes about the deficit will increase.

[Busjack]

I acknowledged earlier that your predictive powers paid off in this situation. What wasn't foreseen was that the gov would veto the reduced fare subsidy.

I also agree with your point on some not needing it, like a senior asking if I was taking advantage of free Metra yet, to which I said I wasn't old enough. I don't know if he was riding free, but he has 2 Lexuses (if that is the plural). Of course, if he buys another, he will be paying a good chunk of RTA sales tax.

While it is complete hypocrisy on the Gov's part to put in the mandate, and then veto the state subsidy, Mike Madigan also deserves blame for passing an unbalanced budget and then telling the governor to cut it, which the governor did.

On the other hand, it has been pointed out elsewhere that service hasn't increased to meet the "free demand," so costs can't be attributed to it. A certain amount of revenue is lost from those who would have paid half fare, but obviously not all of those who obtained RTA cards in the past few months would have ridden and paid. In the Metra case, I wonder how many of the seniors described above actually ride during rush hour, when there actually is a capacity crunch.

Somewhat related, in my view, is the Pace Press Release, "PACE APPLAUDS NEW LAW PROVIDING FREE RIDES TO ELIGIBLE PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES." Maybe this will cut down the demand for paratransit (although the RTA bill has $100 million off the top to fund it), but Pace doesn't say how much this will cost the bus service, in either foregone income or additional expenses. Of course, since CTA got rid of paratransit, there is no offset for the free rides it is required to provide.

One could also note Jersey Joe who said that the RTA would spend through the tax increase. While we sort of agreed with him, we didn't think that would happen within the year.

Thus, while slow economic activity resulting in less tax revenue may be a greater factor, it all adds up. And, I wonder how much RTA sales taxes are off because Stroger's sales tax increases are driving buyers out of Cook County, to where the RTA tax is only .50% (ignoring the part that gets turned over immediately to the county), as compared to 1.25% in Cook.

My final point is that the CTA is paying the price for Kruesi's strategy a couple of years ago that CTA needs more funding, and raise the suburban sales tax first. As a result of the legislature mucking with it, rather than the collar county RTA sales tax going to 1%, as Frank wanted, the city got stuck with a real estate transfer tax (which I say is good, since city hall's minions messed up the pension system), the gov got to put in his conditions, the city council got to put in theirs, Pace got its setasides, and, as I previously said to jajuan, nobody got any real reform.

In sum, this is all an irretrievable mess that figures to get worse.

[Guest]

Thank Blago for another screw up. Blago dosent give alot thought to the issues, he just does it for votes, absolutely the worst Illinois politician Ive seen yet. He is up there with a few others.

[Busjack]

Thank Blago for another screw up. Blago dosent give alot thought to the issues, he just does it for votes, absolutely the worst Illinois politician Ive seen yet. He is up there with a few others.

For another perspective, look at this just posted in the Tribune:

... Blagojevich accused the CTA of exaggerating the cost of the free rides and accused CTA board members of being beholden to City Hall, not riders.

Blagojevich, who controls three of the appointments on the seven-member board, said he wanted to appoint new members who would be more independent. The mayor appoints the other four members.

"We want to put some people in there who will press the leaders of the CTA everyday on where all the money is going," Blagojevich said.

Something that makes sense, in that I previously said that we got no reform of the CTA Board as part of the 2008 legislation. Of course, I wouldn't trust Blago to appoint the members, but it is clear that the mayor's appointees are just puppets exercising no oversight.

In the meantime, there is a story about the Loop signal project going overtime and over budget, just after the Block 37 one did. So much for Huberman's aura of competent management.

[jajuan]

Well Blagojevich is at it again. During a press conference earlier today, he blasts the CTA and Daley saying the CTA broke promises by cutting some administrative jobs, among other cuts to help close their budget gap, and considering the prospect of another possible fare increase. He also says he wants to make changes to the CTA Board to find out why the CTA is 'wasting money', and that the CTA is using seniors as scapegoats by blaming their financial crunch on the free rides program. What a bunch of bull! He fails to say that he vetoed the subsidy to the RTA that helps to pay for the program. Also to be fair to the CTA, they not only focused on the free rides program, but also referenced the much lower than expected tax proceeds, the economic slowdown, and higher fuel costs as other sources for the budget strains. The CTA says that the cuts are and possible fare increase are to avoid the one hot button action that nobody wants, service cuts. Now can the CTA be more efficient in operations? Of course. No one denies that. However, you don't just mandate giving away service for free to certain segments of the population and then take away the funding that would pay for that action. Then you want to lash out at the agency that provides the largest bulk of these freebies for saying that you should be helping to pay for it? GIVE......ME.....A......BREAK.

I'm a lifelong Democrat but the pompous, arrogant attitude of this guy is downright ridiculous. He wasn't even interested in giving seniors, or anyone else for that matter, free rides on public transit until the Legislature found a more politically viable way to find the money for transit than his dead on arrival casino plan and he didn't want to be seen as standing in the way of keeping transit going if he happened to veto the plan in front of him because it wasn't the one he wanted. The whole thing was just a ploy to save face because the Legislature went with the compromise plan that had a better chance of passing than the more irresponsible casino plan that he was pushing, and he didn't want to be put in the position of a veto that would politically disastrous for him. Now this latest stunt just shows even more that he will say just about anything just to make himself look good in front of voters so his ever increasingly dysfunctional tenure in the governor's mansion can continue. Yes there's dysfunction in CTA management and City Hall, but personally I don't think they can come close to the dysfunction of Blagojevich. I think only Todd Stroger's reign over the Cook County Board comes close to doing that.

One last thing. Everyone talks about the mismanagement at the CTA. However, we're talking about decades of corruption, mismanagement, dysfunction or whatever else you want to call it, at the CTA that has to be undone. In all fairness, that just doesn't happen overnight regardless of whatever reforms that could have happened with the RTA's oversight of the transit boards and that could have happened on the CTA Board but didn't and any future ones that are put in place.

It's interesting that this whole fiasco is even coming up among all the players involved when the legislature is in special session to get a capital bill passed. Maybe Blagojevich should be trying to focus on that than lashing out at Daley and the CTA in the latest ploy for political gain.

[Buslover88]

Well Blagojevich is at it again. During a press conference earlier today, he blasts the CTA and Daley saying the CTA broke promises by cutting some administrative jobs, among other cuts to help close their budget gap, and considering the prospect of another possible fare increase. He also says he wants to make changes to the CTA Board to find out why the CTA is 'wasting money', and that the CTA is using seniors as scapegoats by blaming their financial crunch on the free rides program. What a bunch of bull! He fails to say that he vetoed the subsidy to the RTA that helps to pay for the program. Also to be fair to the CTA, they not only focused on the free rides program, but also referenced the much lower than expected tax proceeds, the economic slowdown, and higher fuel costs as other sources for the budget strains. The CTA says that the cuts are and possible fare increase are to avoid the one hot button action that nobody wants, service cuts. Now can the CTA be more efficient in operations? Of course. No one denies that. However, you don't just mandate giving away service for free to certain segments of the population and then take away the funding that would pay for that action. Then you want to lash out at the agency that provides the largest bulk of these freebies for saying that you should be helping to pay for it? GIVE......ME.....A......BREAK.

And he thinks its CTA's fault? I don't think it is, that much anyway. The governor's just covering up for himself again. He's so arrogant its not funny.

[Busjack]

And now the lie of the day, from the Tribune:

CTA Board Chairman Carole Brown took issue with the governor's accusations of misspending and defended board members as a "very engaged and talented group . . . who are dedicated to their fiduciary responsibilities to this agency and its riders."

Anyone here who knows this isn't a total falsehood (except perhaps about Leonis and Zagotta), please speak now.

What about CTA Board Member Rev. Robinson, who ministered to someone who embezzled CTA funds, and then prayed to God for a bailout last January?

A pox on all their houses--Blago, Madigan (I don't see any attempt by the House to fund the line item for the reduced fare subsidy), Daley, and Brown.

[MVTArider]

This thread reminds me of one of my favorite lines I heard when Metro Transit was looking at having to reduce service on some routes because of budget constraints, I don't know who said it or the exact words but, "If the members of the Met Council had to give up their cars we would probably have the best damn transit system in the country."

[Busjack]

This thread reminds me of one of my favorite lines I heard when Metro Transit was looking at having to reduce service on some routes because of budget constraints, I don't know who said it or the exact words but, "If the members of the Met Council had to give up their cars we would probably have the best damn transit system in the country."

At least the analogous thing is that when Carole Brown was ramping up her blog in 2005, to start the crusade for funding, it came out that she rode the bus only once or twice a month, and she said she had to use other means to get to her "real job."

Of course, our governor uses a state airplane to commute from his home in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood of Chicago to Springfield. Also, I doubt that he uses CTA to get to the airport.

There was also a newspaper study a couple of years ago on how much CTA management employees were using their free passes. Apparently Kruesi and Terry Levin (head of "customer service") did quite a bit, but most of the others (including the head of P.R.) did not. (Article archived in the Yahoo group).

[Chicago13]

My only question is: Why isn't Blago in prison yet?

[Guest ctafan630]

I agree that the free rides for seniors has hurt the CTA, but has the CTA done everything to cut costs. Has the CTA looked at ridership level on some the routes? Are there any routes that can be cut or reduced in order to cut costs? Instead of waiting for another doomsday scenario before routes are cut, why doesnt the CTA start looking at ridership level now on routes?

Do routes #64 and #69 actually generate enough from the farebox to justify these routes.

What about the #90. Does it really need to go all the way to Harlem and Lake at this time?

Can routes #120 and #122 be combined into one route that serves both the ILL Center and Navy Pier while still running express? The same goes for #121 and #123?

[Busjack]

I agree that the free rides for seniors has hurt the CTA, but has the CTA done everything to cut costs. Has the CTA looked at ridership level on some the routes? Are there any routes that can be cut or reduced in order to cut costs? Instead of waiting for another doomsday scenario before routes are cut, why doesnt the CTA start looking at ridership level now on routes?

Do routes #64 and #69 actually generate enough from the farebox to justify these routes.

What about the #90. Does it really need to go all the way to Harlem and Lake at this time?

Can routes #120 and #122 be combined into one route that serves both the ILL Center and Navy Pier while still running express? The same goes for #121 and #123?

Some good places to start.

For that matter, what ever became of the Booz-Allen recommendation about 10 years ago that 64, 69, and the corresponding Midway area routes be converted to some sort of community transit, dial a ride model? If it is good enough for west Joliet....

[Zol87]

This is so true. I think that reduced fare was better than giving select groups free rides.

[Busjack]

If you want to add more to the B.S.ometer, the RTA is implying that the operating deficit wouldn't happen if there were a capital bill. RTA Statement on CTA Cuts.

[Guest ctafan630]

If you want to add more to the B.S.ometer, the RTA is implying that the operating deficit wouldn't happen if there were a capital bill. RTA Statement on CTA Cuts.

Wouldn't a capital funding plan only effect capital projects like expansions, bus purcahses and major overhauls. How does a capital funding plan impact operating costs? Is the RTA implying that the CTA could be purchasing new buses instead of having to fix old buses and train cars that should have been retired years ago?

[Busjack]

Wouldn't a capital funding plan only effect capital projects like expansions, bus purcahses and major overhauls. How does a capital funding plan impact operating costs? Is the RTA implying that the CTA could be purchasing new buses instead of having to fix old buses and train cars that should have been retired years ago?

Sort of. However, since CTA is in the progress of getting the final 200 buses of the NF D40LF order and whatever hybrids without the plan, it is sort of irrelevant in that context (see page 26 of this month's President's Report, indicating that $32 has already been saved in 2008 by getting rid of 1991 buses, and supposedly all the cost of maintaining them will be gone by 2009).

However, what the RTA statement really is is self-serving propaganda about trying to get a capital plan, as opposed to really solving the problem. If the money spigot opened tomorrow, it probably would take 3 years for the process of obtaining equipment not already ordered to be completed (most relevant in the Metra context). Since the RTA finished the crusade for "more funding" (i.e. a tax increase), and that doesn't seem to have worked (at least as far as the CTA is concerned), all it can do is try to push a capital plan.

You can also consult the most recently posted Pace board minutes, which indicate that the 2008 bill was enough to satisfy it, at least for the bus operation for the next few years, but still complaining about free rides given because it is not receiving reimbursement for the CTA 7 Day Pass.

Hence, everyone has an excuse (rides for seniors, no capital plan, no reimbursement), but none of them is really addressing the problem, if one exists. Remember 3 years ago when CTA's budget problems were equal to the cost of paratransit and were supposed to be fixed by turning it over to Pace? That didn't accomplish much.

[sw4400]

My Father(one of those "Free Riding" Seniors BTW) says we should be paying more for our rides(and why not, he gets his rides because we pay for them!!! ). You know what, I think all non-senior people should find alternate transit than the CTA for a week(carpool, taxi, bike, etc...) just to show the CTA(and Blago especially) that without the younger, non-senior crowd, you wouldn't have a CTA as everyone can board and depart without paying a thing!!! Personally, if the fare goes to $5/ride, I'd just assume take a cab or carpool. I'm not giving up my paycheck to give a senior his/her ride for free!!! They may be on a fixed income, but they gotta bite the bullet just like us, IMO. You want the service, pay for it.... nothing is for free in this world(like my "Free Riding" Father likes to quote all too often to me).

BTW: The Unlimited Ride passes will probably look something like this(might be a little more or less than what I put here) after the increase. Just a little food for thought for us paying CTA Customers...

1-Day: $9.00 (Currently $5.00)

2-Day: $15.00 (Currently $9.00)

3-Day: $20.00 (Currently $12.00)

5-Day: $26.00 (Currently $18.00)

7-Day: $30.00 (Currently $20.00)

30-Day(Full): $100.00 (Currently $75.00)

30-Day(Reduced): 50.00 (Currently $35.00)

I'm not sure how the much the transit card packs will cost as I don't use them, but they'll be signifigantly higher then before.

[jcmellencamp78]

My Grandmother even thinks that Free Rides for Seniors is a joke! She said exactly what he all think: "We don't even ride Metra or the CTA as much as other people. This was a joke!" No one (not even Low-Income riders) should be getting a free ride! I have no problem with a reduced fair, but free rides are ridiculous! Just another thing Blago screwed up in Springfield!