Ruminations, Haunts, and Errors

With much fanfare the CTA unveiled their next big experiment: special lanes for the Chicago Card set. Yep, express lanes on certain bus routes and certain El stations.

Now, I’m sure this will help speed things up on buses, but I’m not sure I see the point at the El stops (especially the big ones like State/Lake that have 8-10 turnstiles). Sure, I’ve been stuck behind That Guy trying to board the bus while fumbling with coins or trying to figure out which direction the farecard goes…but is this really a problem for the trains? Since the Chicago Cards have been out I have never noticed that they register particularly faster than the farecards; moreover, even at two-turnstile stops like Southport I have yet to see a farecard-fumbler cause any significant backups.

Chicago Card-only fare machines, on the other hand, would speed things up, as I’ve yet to see the person who reloads their CC with small bills and coins…

Word out of Springfield this week is that Governor Gonad and the General Assembly leaders agreed to a state budget plan that shifts some monies out of school funding and even more out of pension funding to cover the CTA’s shortfall for the year. My prediction was thus partially successful, I’m actually quite astonished that the fix happened well before we got to the doomsday schedule.

Now, while at some level I’m happy that neither my fares are going up nor my schedule is impacted, I can’t say I’m comfortable with the ’solution’. For one thing, I’ll happily pay a little more to ride the train if that’s the only way to ensure both CTA service and proper funding for other big items like schools and state pensions. Besides, as an Illinois taxpayer I’m on the hook for the (already severly underfunded) pensions in particular no matter what, so isn’t it better to pay a little more now than a lot more later? Yet the worst part of this ’solution’ is that it doesn’t fix anything at the CTA, all it does is paper over the problem for a moment. Barring some major finding during the audit of the CTA’s books, we’ll probably be back in this situation again next year; the CTA in particular and RTA in general need to rethink their revenue, scheduling, and funding formulas, and that’s a fact.

Combined with some of the recent goings-on in Washington, it struck me this week what distiguishes a politician from a statesman. A politician will do what it takes to balance out competing interests and constraints right now, whereas a statesman considers how we got here and tries to include the interests and constraints of future consituencies. Too bad there are so few of the latter among elected officials in this country.

Both main papers and their red-headed stepchildren screamed out headlines today: Doomsday for the CTA! Draconian cuts in service and hikes in fares, all the result of internal mismanagement (is there anyone competent involved with the Brown Line rehab?) and certainly not helped by quirks of the 22-year-old RTA funding-allocation formula.

As a daily commuter I should be worked up about this, what with the prospect of extended waits for overcrowded trains during rush hour come July…but I’m not. To me this just seems like a scare tactic aimed at the General Assembly, yet one that seems a bit ham-handed. In business they talk about companies that are ‘too big to fail’ (see Citibank a few years ago), and I think the same general sensibility holds here: the social, economic, and (especially in this case) political costs of letting the Doomsday Scenario play out would seem greater than the costs of fixing things. The brunt of the inconvenience is likely to fall on the affluent residents of the North Side corridor–from downtown through Lincoln Park, Lakeview, and the near north suburbs–whose happiness means a lot to politicians. (Hmm, at first I thought the decision to axe service in affluent areas where it would be merely annoying rather than in poor areas where it would be devastating was a rare example of politicos doing the right thing, but maybe it was another sneaky way of applying political pressure.)

The media will be having a field day as the drop-dead date approaches, and us yuppies will be voicing extreme displeasure after a full workweek of Sunday schedules. As Eric and I discussed over morning coffee recently, the deafening silence of His Honor the Mayor has been interesting: unless he’s developed a tin ear (which I find unlikely), it probably means he knows the solution is out there but that it’s too early to call in the political chits necessary to solve it now–like other mayors, maybe Daley feels that the solution won’t really become obvious until the crisis lies heavily upon everybody. My prediction is that the funding gap will be filled either by the end of June or after only one to two weeks of the Doomsday schedule, probably with some eleventh-hour maneuvering by Daley and some state legislators (Emil Jones, most likely) that might include some heads rolling over at the CTA leadership.

Of course that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong…

• The formality of Congress counting the Electoral Votes is now complete, so it’s official that we’ll have a second Bush term. Alas, this time there’s little doubt regarding the legitimacy of the outcome. The sideshow drama of the formal challenge to Ohio’s votes, resulting in each house debating (and rejecting) it, seemed to me ill-conceived…why didn’t they do this in 2000 when there was–and still is–a legitimate concern that glitches may have put the official tally at odds with the will of the voters?
• A number of news outlets had headlines trumpeting that Alberto Gonzales, the AG nominee, vows to protect civil liberties and opposes torture. Great, I’m glad to hear it. But isn’t it disturbing that recent Administration policies and memos–including one authored by said nominee–gave him legitimate reason to loudly and repeatedly make such pronouncements? One would hope that these positions would be so obvious and expected as to make their explicit reaffirmation unnecessary.
• The RTA passed its 2005 budget with no help for the CTA. No surprise, back to Springfield we go. The Trib paraphrased Metra officials as claiming that the funding formula works just fine for them, has since 1983, what’s the problem? Now, I understand that it would be unfair to have the suburbs completely subsidize the CTA…but the reactionary attitude that ‘I’ve got mine, everything works and always has, so there’s obviously nothing to fix’ is not only unenlightened but not helpful in the slightest.

Yesterday, the Governor’s people asked the CTA’s people to remove the ads for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from city buses. While the request wasn’t surprising given the Guv’s recent (quixotic?) crusade, I was a bit puzzled by the CTA’s response: no, sorry the ads are within legal limits so it would be illegal for us to cancel the contract. Hmmm. Methinks the contract wouldn’t be considered so sacrosanct had the request come wrapped in, say, a state-backed plan to fix the CTA’s budget hole.

The last couple of mornings, the CTA has been performing extra security sweeps during the morning commute. For the most part this hasn’t been a problem as I’ve only noticed delays of a couple minutes. No big deal, really, and just like the extra uniformed cops on the street corners in September and October of 2001, maybe a little show of force will make a few miscreants move along and make some of the public feel just a little safer.

However, while waiting at Merchandise Mart both mornings, I noticed something that bugged me. In addition to a uniformed cop and some CTA workers in obnoxiously colored vests, the CTA hired an outside security firm (Securitas, I think) to provide extra staff of the canine variety. At first glance they grab your attention: combat boots, black commando-style cargo pants, black golf shirts with official-looking patches, black low-crown caps, dark cop-sunglasses, and muzzled german shepards. They have the paramilitary look you’d expect from seeing TV and movies…and that’s exactly the problem, they’re trying way too hard to look impressive; it’s so obvious that they are trying to look tough that they just look ridiculous. Sorry, I don’t think too many bad guys are going to be particularly intimidated by a 5′6′ woman in costume just because she scowls, has patches on her shirt, and has a dog.

Even worse, the dogs themselves don’t look particularly threatening. Indeed, I watched one this morning and it was obviously nervous: tail down, slightly panting, definitely looking like it would rather be anywhere but in a crowd of people. This is a line of defense against do-badders on the El? Sigh.