Richard Rodriguez

[Kevin]

The mayor announced Richard Rodriguez as CTA's new president today.

Rodriguez is "not familiar with the CTA." I'll leave it at that.

[Busjack]

And, of course, the CTA Board won't comply with the statutory requirement that "The Board may appoint an Executive Director who shall be a person of recognized ability and experience in the operation of transportation systems to hold office during the pleasure of the Board." 70 ILCS 3605/27.

The Breaking News also indicates that Frank Kruesi was lobbying for Dorval Carter, which, imo, puts a strike against Carter, but he said that he didn't want it.

As I have said, probably a thousand times, the Mayor shouldn't be handpicking CTA Presidents and then think that the suburbs are going to bail out the CTA ....

....even if the ones without transit experience seem more competent than the last one who had it, although the story is still out on Huberman's legacy.

[Guest]

The mayor announced Richard Rodriguez as CTA's new president today.

Rodriguez is "not familiar with the CTA." I'll leave it at that.

Just more typical politics instead of finding qualified people to run a major transit agency. Lets see if Rodriguez stays more than ten months. This is why the transit crisis will never get solved because no one wants to stick around, or they jump everytime the mayor calls.

[jacksone44]

This agency will never gets to where it needs to go if things like this keep happening. It looks terrible on the Olympic bid.

[Guest]

This agency will never gets to where it needs to go if things like this keep happening. It looks terrible on the Olympic bid.

If this city wants the olympics the CTA, Pace and Metra would be playing important roles in making it successful. But in my opinion at the rate things are going right now it wont be ready for 2016. CTA, How was CTA 7 years ago? How will CTA be 7 years from now? They need to start getting ready, Now! If they keep doing "The Changing of the Guard" at CTA, important projects that could be of good use by 2016 wont get done. Another case of Pass the Buck!

[jacksone44]

If this city wants the olympics the CTA, Pace and Metra would be playing important roles in making it successful. But in my opinion at the rate things are going right now it wont be ready for 2016. CTA, How was CTA 7 years ago? How will CTA be 7 years from now? They need to start getting ready, Now! If they keep doing "The Changing of the Guard" at CTA, important projects that could be of good use by 2016 wont get done. Another case of Pass the Buck!

Well said CTA5750.

[trey824]

Just more typical politics instead of finding qualified people to run a major transit agency. Lets see if Rodriguez stays more than ten months. This is why the transit crisis will never get solved because no one wants to stick around, or they jump everytime the mayor calls.

i totally agree this is just so obscene i mean why couldnt someone who is fond of cta operations be givin such a high position?? why not carole brown ? i havent seen her do any thing erratic in the past few years in her tenure.

[Guest]

i totally agree this is just so obscene i mean why couldnt someone who is fond of cta operations be givin such a high position?? why not carole brown ? i havent seen her do any thing erratic in the past few years in her tenure.

Carole Brown dosent care about the CTA top job anymore! Are you kidding? She wants to go to Washington! CTA is beneath her now. There is a passionate future CTA President out there somewhere but Daley isnt going to waste his valuable time! He just shops in his own City Hall candy store! A real transit passionate leader is out there somewhere but the politics that get in the way here in Chicago we'll never find that person. CTA has lots of potential but it needs a strong, competent leader.

[trainman8119]

Carole Brown dosent care about the CTA top job anymore! Are you kidding? She wants to go to Washington! CTA is beneath her now. There is a passionate future CTA President out there somewhere but Daley isnt going to waste his valuable time! He just shops in his own City Hall candy store! A real transit passionate leader is out there somewhere but the politics that get in the way here in Chicago we'll never find that person. CTA has lots of potential but it needs a strong, competent leader.

Carole Brown would screw up the CTA worse than Frank did.

I think you see the results of Huberman's tenure right now....higher fares, service cuts and increasing costs attributed to unnecessary equipment moves and horrible planning.

As for Rodriguez, at least he did avaition...so there is some transportation in his background. But then so did Monique Bond, and all she is good for now telling us what cops are doing...not that she would actually know why. I will agree though...just another mayoral pretty boy...ho hum !!!!

[Busjack]

How was CTA 7 years ago?

If I remember correctly, it was in the process of ordering 226 articulated buses from NABI.

But then so did Monique Bond, and all she is good for now telling us what cops are doing..

The last I saw, she was a PR flack for the schools, under Huberman. CTA has enough of those.

I'm surprised that Abby Ottenhoff and Lucio Guerrero aren't back at some other government job at the moment. At least Blago took care of Sheila Nix. But, basically, these press people are useless, except to the "reporters" who rely on them.

And as far as Carole Brown, all she is is a part time cheerleader for the next cry for CTA funding. She acknowledged that it is a part time job, and claimed to be losing money at it. However, it doesn't appear like Valerie Jarrett is coming through for her as soon as the Sun-Times thought.

[trainman8119]

However, it doesn't appear like Valerie Jarrett is coming through for her as soon as the Sun-Times thought.

I will continue to contend that if these characters think they are going to get oodles and oodles of money just because Barack is the home son, they are mistaken. With the budget he proposed and the backlash that is starting to form, combined with the Blago/Burris fiasco, pols might not "trust" Chicago and the State of Illinois to give too much until they can prove they won't improperly use it. I am just not so sure this is green pastures.

[Busjack]

I will continue to contend that if these characters think they are going to get oodles and oodles of money just because Barack is the home son, they are mistaken.

I was referring to the federal job (in response to 5750), not the federal money. Sorry for any ambiguity.

With respect to the money, we know that Congress passed about $800 billion, but don't know who gets to parcel it out. UPDATE: Based on this post about Pace, apparently the transit authorities do know what they are getting.

[Busjack]

Interesting statement when after initial reports after his appointment it was said Rodriguez knew little about the CTA and then the RedEye article that Busjack linked states he rides the CTA frequently especially on the weekends with some or all of his kids as well as using the Brown Line weekdays to get to Loop meetings. The article quotes him as saying he's been using public transit all his life. So which is it? He either knows something about transit or he doesn't. To be clear this isn't a shot against anyone's post just an on observation of a conflict in media reporting that just occurred to me after reading 5750 and Busjack's posts. Which of their reports is correct?

I put this back here, because were were getting too far away from the goodbye NABIs topic.

I don't think the two are contradictory, unless you want to get into a semantic quarrel over "something." Maybe there is a distinction between knowing enough to ride the system and enough to run it.

Probably most people in the area know enough about how to get around the system, and also not to use goroo and its predecessors. The folks in this forum know about fleet and run numbers, and that there are plenty of ghost buses that don't show up on BusTracker or WebWatch, but most casual riders don't. Certainly most passengers don't care about what model transmission is in a given bus or how it sounds on YouTube (again, not to slam anybody).

To actually run a transit authority today, one needs to know how to deal with the legal issues (the article said Rodriguez graduated from Chicago-Kent* so he doesn't need my advice or that of others here), lean management skills, labour,** the State Legislature, PowerPoint, supervisors who don't supervise, the budget, grants, weird leases, etc. One must also pick up the mystical skill of bus swapping, although we pretty much agree that it need not be exercised to the extent it is.

Of course, I continue to insist that the CTA Board violated its statutory obligation by not picking an Executive Director "with recognized ability and experience in the operation of transportation systems." The RedEye certainly reinforces the view that that standard has not been met the last two times, unless one year in Aviation qualifies.***

______________________

*In my day, Kent was where would-be Republican politicians went, while Democrats went to DePaul. Times must have changed. However, people with backbone went to the U of C.

**British spelling intended.

***Some whom I have goaded may wonder why I haven't gone to the courts with that.

• It isn't worth my money. Not Don Quixote here, where I don't have a financial interest, unlike others who claim to.
  
• The same political system elects our judges.
  
• Especially for the "what the FTA will do crowd," I came across, in my real work, a case decided in our federal court, but involving a Michigan school bus operator, saying that if the FTA doesn't do anything effective, the private bus operator does not have standing to sue the FTA, apparently unless the operator unsuccessfully bid on the work (Area Transportation, Inc. v. Ettinger, 219 F.3d 671 (7th Cir. 2000)). Given that taxpayer standing is even more tenuous, I'm sure the same would be held here.