Funding & Finance – Page 9

WBEZ’s Jerome McDonnell talks bike commuting at Active Trans’ annual member meeting

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Monday night I joined dozens of Active Transportation Alliance members for the annual member meeting at the American Dental Association offices, 221 E. Chicago. At the event Active Trans staffers reviewed the advocacy group’s many milestones in 2011.

Some of the highlights: this year the organization promoted the Sustainable Transportation Platform to Chicago mayoral candidates and heavily influenced Rahm Emanuel’s decision to include protected bike lanes, the Bloomingdale Trail and a large-scale bike share system in his transition plan. In 2011 Active Trans also launched the Riders for Better Transit and Neighborhood Bikeways campaigns. Continue reading WBEZ’s Jerome McDonnell talks bike commuting at Active Trans’ annual member meeting

There is no typical CTA rider

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Javier Perez, trustee of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241, speaks while Gregory P. Longhini, Assistant Secretary of the Board, moderates.

I’m writing this article just two hours after getting home from the Chicago Transit Authority’s (CTA) second budget hearing. It was held from 6 to 8 PM at its headquarters, 567 W Lake Street. The hearing is where you gain a good understanding of how changes in the way the organization charges for or provides service will affect people.

It’s also where you learn that there is no “average” Chicago transit user. Passengers who use CTA have extremely diverse needs, geographic origins and destinations, jobs, incomes, and beliefs about who should run public transit service and how it should be run.

Not a single person disagreed that it is a necessity to have a “good” transit service in Chicagoland – many speakers stressed the importance of having transit in the region. They showed up because they want the CTA to maintain its current service and even expand service. They showed up because the CTA is important to them. Continue reading There is no typical CTA rider

It’s fare increase time again at Metra

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“It’s become a Chicagoland tradition that every year around this time, transit riders cross their fingers and hope they won’t be hit with service cuts and fare increases. Unfortunately, it looks like the tradition will continue this year.” -Lee Crandell to the Metra board on October 14, 2011.

Lee Crandell is right, but the tradition is not something Metra, or any other Chicagoland transit agency, has much control over.

Metra staff has proposed fare increases to the board who have accepted the proposal and will submit them to public hearings in November (schedule at the end). The staff first proposed fare increases to the board on September 16, 2011. They proposed a revised fare increase at the October 14, 2011, meeting, at which Crandell spoke. The alternative to fare increase was one of two service reduction options.

Continue reading It’s fare increase time again at Metra

Riders for Better Transit comments to Metra board

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This supports the article It’s fare increase time again at Metra.

Lee Crandell, a manager for the Riders for Better Transit campaign at the Active Transportation Alliance, spoke at both the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) and Metra board meetings this month. He published his comments to the CTA board and I’m posting his comments to the Metra board below (they’re nearly identical).

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Lee Crandell and I manage the Riders for Better Transit initiative at the Active Transportation Alliance. We have 6,800 members across the Chicago region who support our mission to improve conditions for biking, walking and public transportation.

It’s become a Chicagoland tradition that every year around this time, transit riders cross their fingers and hope they won’t be hit with service cuts and fare increases. Unfortunately, it looks like the tradition will continue this year.

There are no winners when our transit agencies are forced to make these tough decisions. As you already know, the consequences of fare increases and service cuts would be far-reaching, impacting our mobility, our economy, our quality of life, our environment, the congestion on our streets. The impact on our daily lives would be very real, making everyday activities more difficult for people from all walks of life—from a child trying to get to school, a worker getting to their job, and a grandmother trying to visit her grandchildren.

As a world-class region, we deserve better. Our transit service should be improving and expanding, not slipping backwards.

Criticizing Metra in this situation is a normal reaction—and certainly on behalf of the riders we represent, we urge you to explore every possible efficiency to prevent fare hikes or service cuts—but ultimately, it’s our elected leaders who hold the purse strings and decide whether our transit agencies will have enough funding to make ends meet. Transit is significantly under-funded because our elected leaders at the local, state and federal levels have put it on the back-burner. And that means we, as transit riders and as voters, also bear some burden of responsibility. Riders for Better Transit will be asking our elected leaders to end the cycle of service cuts and fare increases by increasing investment in transit.

I’m here today to tell you that transit riders are ready to speak up, and we hope you will join us.

Please ask our elected leaders: how are you supposed to fulfill your duties as a Metra board member if they don’t adequately fund transit for our region?

Thank you.

Photo is of an outbound Metra Milwaukee Division North line leaving Glenview, Illinois. Photo by Eric Pancer.

Rahm’s budget proposal and bike lanes

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There might be peace in the downtown streets if Mayor Emanuel’s budget is approved by City Council. He proposes a parking garage fee to discourage driving on weekdays.

I’m reading the live transcript of Mayor Emaneul’s speech to City Council to introduce the “features” of his administration’s 2012 budget proposal. The speech was later emailed to people who signed up for the campaign mailing list. This article will be updated as I find new information.

The interesting stuff?

Congestion

“On a typical workday our central business district is jammed with people which makes it harder to do business, so I’m proposing that downtown congestion premium of $2 per day only on weekdays for parking garages and lots downtown and in River North. We would use this new revenue to invest in new and existing stations, and bus rapid transit stations, expand bike lanes, and other efforts to reduce congestion in the downtown area.”

Excellent! Now will this revenue go to a trust fund so that the revenues can only be spent for this purpose? If not, I surely hope that your budget and spending is transparent where we can see how much the City collects from this fee and how much is spent on those congestion-fighting initiatives.

“Waving” hello to Jackson, a protected bike lane that undulates

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Jackson bike lane at Crane Tech High School, 2245 W. Jackson

Back when Chicago’s first protected bike lane (PBL) on Kinzie Avenue was a work in progress, I was a little skeptical of how well it would function.

But, aside from motor vehicles – especially mail trucks – occasionally parking in the lane, I think Kinzie has been a big success. It’s usually a pleasure to ride and it’s definitely gotten local cyclists excited about Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) Commissioner Gabe Klein’s plan to build 100 miles of protected lanes citywide by the end of the Emanuel’s first term. Continue reading “Waving” hello to Jackson, a protected bike lane that undulates