Service Cutbacks/fare hikes imposed by the RTA?

[Guest metralink]

Whats up with the news on Friday that the RTA wants the service boards to raise fares or cut service?

maybe the hostle CTA take over of suburban services will be stopped?

how does this impact the Pace south restructuring plans?

what about Metra's STAR Line, NW and W UP upgrades, SE line are these dead?

[Busjack]

If you are referring to the Sun Times article posted on the home page, Daley isn't saying anything new (if you have been reading the CTA Press Releases and Budget). This is just political posturing. The legislature doesn't do anything until the last week of May, and if stuff doesn't happen then, there may be Armageddon, but more than likely, the legislature would be called back for a special session.

Notably:

• Daley said he wasn't for contracting out routes, so I don't see what's preventing privatizing the other stuff. For instance, CTA contracted out rehabbing the 2600 series cars and 5800 series buses. What it should do is fire the retreads from City Hall and the Department of Aviation, and let people who know how to run a transit system (such as Veolia, formerly ATC, or First Group, formerly Laidlaw) be in charge.
  
• No mention, from either Daley or CTA's spokeswomen, about implementing the governance reforms described by the Auditor General. By relaxing rules about pensions, does he mean to be excused from funding existing liabilities, instead of finding a way to control them?
  

BTW, most of the things you mention are way over the horizon, anyway. Only two things will stop CTA incursions into the suburbs: implementation of the Auditor General's recommendation by legislation that is properly enforced by the RTA, or a doomsday plan similar to the one proposed in 2005 (probably to put pressure on Julie Hamos), that would only run Sunday service, and hence would have pulled most of CTA's suburban bus routes.

[Guest metralink]

This was on WBBM where the SB were sent a letter from RTA telling them to figure it out cut service, raise fares, its up to them

[Busjack]

This was on WBBM where the SB were sent a letter from RTA telling them to figure it out cut service, raise fares, its up to them

If so, this is after the RTA assured the service boards that more funding was coming (according to all the three budgets). Shows that the RTA's word is good.

You didn't say if it was WBBM radio or TV, but I did a search on both wbbm780.com and cbs2chicago.com, for RTA and "Regional Transportation Authority" and didn't find anything there newer than the mid-March reports on the Auditor General's report and Moving Beyond Congestion. If it was mentioned on the radio, it apparently wasn't important enough to archive (at least as of this moment). In any event, it was foreshadowed in the 2007 CTA budget, and still could be a ploy to put pressure on the Legislature, similar to the Doomsday budget (since it appears that the Moving Beyond Congestion strategy wasn't too successful, especially with the Auditor General's report coming out soon thereafter). However, at this point, one must assume that the House Mass Transit Committee is still at work.