Reorganize RTA

[dp1]

I read that Forest Claypool will present the 2012 CTA budget, and this one may feature fare hikes and more service cuts. I heard somewhere that Metra may be considering a fare hike as well. Is it time to reorganize RTA? I say instead of having three agencies serving our six county metro area CTA, Metra and Pace, split up the CTA and have Pace organize all the bus service throughout Chicagoland, and Metra facilitate all rail service. Reorganize the service boards to reflect the city and surrounding areas, and making the RTA board President an electable position. I know that there are differences in demand for transit city to suburb, but I doubt Metra would run the Red Line Hourly or Pace to run the #49 Western on a 30min all day schedule. Do you all believe that having two service boards comprising the Regional Transit Authority will end the yearly transit funding mess or is it just systemic. And if you are wondering, the question is hypothetical. It is highly unlikely the CTA will ever be split up.

[Busjack]

One thing is obvious. If you go to the CTA Tattler of August 1, 2011, Claypool has no interest in consolidating the service boards, or service coordination--even Kevin O admits that F. Gump "veered off the topic," and, in fact Claypool went back to the Kruesi playbook of using bogus numbers to imply that the suburbs should be paying more to the CTA. If you look at the recent CTA Press Release, he's complaining about the funding formula, among other things again, while he can't do his own job of getting a proposed budget out in time. So, Claypool and Emanuel are not going to be the force for reform--Emanuel still wants political control of the CTA, and apparently Claypool needs the $190,000/year job for which he has proven that he is manifestly unqualified.

I'm not sure where you get that Pace would be qualified to run an operation maybe 5 times the size of the current one. Maybe it is because they say that they are not going to have a fare hike this year. I doubt that that is going to hold up. In any event, when it comes to budget time, Pace has always said that they are too small even for their recovery ratio to have any effect on the RTA as a whole, and has always fudged it.

If you want a precedent, in 2005, Carole Brown of the CTA said that doomsday would have to happen because CTA had a $55 million deficit and paratransit was costing $54 million. Someone then said "Pace knows how to run it, give it to them" which they did, and was o.k. until she realized that the money for paratransit went with it to Pace. There were also mandated studies on how to make paratransit efficient. However, 4 or 5 years later, Pace has done nothing about them. In 2005, after adding in about $12 million for suburban paratransit, the cost then was $67 million--now it is about $115. Pace did nothing to make it more efficient, but had enough clout with the legislature that it gets the money for paratransit off the top.

As far as an elected RTA President, I've said before that people don't know for whom they are voting when they vote for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District or 100s of judges. So, this would be no different.

The whole problem is the politics embedded in the Service Board concept, which should be totally blown up. I've advocated the NY MTA approach, where there is only one MTA board, and there could be separate subsidiaries for commuter rail, city bus, suburban bus, paratransit, etc., but not separate political bodies behind each. All planning should be under a central board, whether CMAP or whatever, instead of the farces in the RTA Act that it takes 9 board members to investigate service overlap and 12 to take over an alternatives analysis.

However, as I made clear in my first paragraph, the politicians in this area will not allow it to happen.

[cta5658]

One thing is obvious. If you go to the CTA Tattler of August 1, 2011, Claypool has no interest in consolidating the service boards, or service coordination--even Kevin O admits that F. Gump "veered off the topic," and, in fact Claypool went back to the Kruesi playbook of using bogus numbers to imply that the suburbs should be paying more to the CTA. If you look at the recent CTA Press Release, he's complaining about the funding formula, among other things again, while he can't do his own job of getting a proposed budget out in time. So, Claypool and Emanuel are not going to be the force for reform--Emanuel still wants political control of the CTA, and apparently Claypool needs the $190,000/year job for which he has proven that he is manifestly unqualified.

I'm not sure where you get that Pace would be qualified to run an operation maybe 5 times the size of the current one. Maybe it is because they say that they are not going to have a fare hike this year. I doubt that that is going to hold up. In any event, when it comes to budget time, Pace has always said that they are too small even for their recovery ratio to have any effect on the RTA as a whole, and has always fudged it.

If you want a precedent, in 2005, Carole Brown of the CTA said that doomsday would have to happen because CTA had a $55 million deficit and paratransit was costing $54 million. Someone then said "Pace knows how to run it, give it to them" which they did, and was o.k. until she realized that the money for paratransit went with it to Pace. There were also mandated studies on how to make paratransit efficient. However, 4 or 5 years later, Pace has done nothing about them. In 2005, after adding in about $12 million for suburban paratransit, the cost then was $67 million--now it is about $115. Pace did nothing to make it more efficient, but had enough clout with the legislature that it gets the money for paratransit off the top.

As far as an elected RTA President, I've said before that people don't know for whom they are voting when they vote for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District or 100s of judges. So, this would be no different.

The whole problem is the politics embedded in the Service Board concept, which should be totally blown up. I've advocated the NY MTA approach, where there is only one MTA board, and there could be separate subsidiaries for commuter rail, city bus, suburban bus, paratransit, etc., but not separate political bodies behind each. All planning should be under a central board, whether CMAP or whatever, instead of the farces in the RTA Act that it takes 9 board members to investigate service overlap and 12 to take over an alternatives analysis.

However, as I made clear in my first paragraph, the politicians in this area will not allow it to happen.

Here's my suggestion, have CTA and Pace merge and Metra operate on it's own

[Busjack]

Here's my suggestion, have CTA and Pace merge and Metra operate on it's own

You would still have to deal with the political issues if there were still boards behind the services. As I said, the city is not going to give up its patronage, and suburbanites won't want the city patronage workers running their transit, presumably into the ground, while taxing them for it.

Of course, the suburban mayors who get the Pace board for their patronage probably wouldn't want to give it up either.

[dp1]

As far as an elected RTA President, I've said before that people don't know for whom they are voting when they vote for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District or 100s of judges. So, this would be no different.

I would disagree a little with that. I think the person who would be charged with operating the regions' transit services would garner more attention than the Water Reclamation District President. Suburbanites are most passionate about Metra, Chicagoans are passionate about CTA. The Redeye [love it or hate it] has a column dedicated to the goings on at CTA, along with CTA Tattler and here. Running to be RTA President would be a unique challenge that would not fly completely under the radar with voters. Hypothetically, if Frank Kruesi was RTA President, you don't think he would generate voter interest?

I'm sick of the politics involved with the transit system. Claypool is a hired hand, so was Rodriguez, and Huberman. It would be nice if CTA hired someone who actually oversaw a transit system.

I am all for NY type transit format here, but that won't happen for all of the reasons stated by the other posters.

[BusHunter]

I doubt anything is going to change concerning the service boards unless transit gets really ugly around here. I see CTA cutting service that Pace may take up. Pace can always restructure existing routes to serve the cut areas. CTA may become more of a city based transit not reaching the suburban areas. With Pace getting a larger piece of the funding pie, CTA may just be forced to downsize. So far what we're hearing is not positive. There seems to be no pressure from the mare to downsize the deficit. Claypool is behind with the budget. That doesn't sound like he's working to downsize it, he's too busy catching up. There may not be time to downsize anything. With the Emanuel/Claypool team being both in a first term administration, we just may be in "a deer in the headlights" moment, but they are kidding themselves if they don't believe these massive service cuts could become the next "Bilandic." Without cutting a budget deficit there's the possibility of 30 route cuts, 2 rail lines cut or scaled back, 2,000 to 3,000 layoffs and/or the closing of another garage. It might be the biggest cut in CTA history. And that doesn't figure in fare increases which could be up to three times the normal fare increase. I'm just wondering how the riders are going to transfer to/from Pace when there could be a big difference in fares.

[Busjack]

Hypothetically, if Frank Kruesi was RTA President, you don't think he would generate voter interest?

As far as getting anyone voted out of office in this state, it would have to be Blago or Ryan corrupt or Stroger totally incompetent. Kruesi might have come close to the latter, but he had da Mare's backing until the end. If sentiment of others on the CTA Tattler is any indication, Claypool wouldn't have been voted out.

In any event, like the 3 I mentioned or Quinn, it takes 4 years of incompetence or an indictment to remove that type of person. Of course, it also took 20 years to find out about Pagano.