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background...
((There have recently been major debates in the Illinois state legislature about how to properly fund mass transit; Primarily Metra (suburb - suburb, suburb - city rail ways) Pace ( suburb - suburb bus lines) and CTA (city rail and bus system).
The RTA which is in charge of this transportation system has been drastically underfunded for years and if emergency bailout funding is not issued by the end of this legislative session on july 1st, the CTA in particular is faced with a 'doomsday' situation, where service will have to be significantly cut, and fares hiked.))
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I am really interested to get people's feedback on this issue as i think it invloves political, economic and social issues... all of great importance.
Do people have the right to expect that government should provide public transit infrastructure and service?
Is it a social responsability or an economic responsability, and where does the ballance lie?
How crucial is Public Transit to a cities health?
Should public transit be more akin to public schools and hospitals, or to semi private utilities?
Do people have the right to expect that government should provide public transit infrastructure and service?
For the taxes we pay.... probably yes. I know I'd much rather see my tax money going to public transportation than to a network of roadways used by private vehicles that cause congestion and pollution.
Is it a social responsability or an economic responsability, and where does the ballance lie?
Both. After all, that's what the word 'socio-economic' is for! Anyways, as I mentioned above there's an aspect of environmental responsibility there. I believe that it's more feasible economically too, to focus on public transportation rather than extensive networks of roadways for private vehicles. Additionally, on both social and economic levels, there's a rampant problem of the poor working in areas serving upper class people where they cannot afford to live themselves. If people of this economic class cannot afford cars to get to work, how many of them will end up on welfare, and which would you rather be paying for, welfare or public transit?
Chicago needs to follow London's lead and have a congestion tax. Charge $10 for anyone who wants to travel into the loop and its environs 6am to 5pm Monday through Friday. Collect it at the exit ramps electronically as with the iPass.
Take that money (don't put it in Stoger's or Daley's pocket because it may have a hole in it) and give it to a new agency that funds Mass Transit in the region in preparation for 2016.
I think the congestion is one important tool to use to decrease travel times, increase public transportation use and make the Chicago area more sustainable.
Actually, private companies used to oversee mass transit in most US cities. They provided shoddy service, didn't maintain their infrastructure, and eventually went bankrupt. This forced the government to take over operations.
chicago's metra and cta and bus systems are used heavily. most people do not drive into chicago for work. the cta needs to be upgraded heavily. the big issue for traffic in chicago metro is from suburb to suburb. thats where car traffic is just insane. going from downers grove to schaumburg for example. but its easy to hop a metra from say lake forest or la grange to get into the city and on the weekends you can buy a pass or a five spot and use it as much as you want. as far as driving in chicago when i go for a visit i just park my ride at a friends and either walk or el or bus it around. its ez as far as fares on the cta well maybe they should be hiked or restructured.
but i gues i didnt answer the question. a city like chicago demands a state of the art transit system and needs to come up with a way to pay for it whether its a tax or from some other funding.
i was hoping someone would bring up a privatized system for the trains...
and this is where the social responsibility inherent in public transportation comes into question. Public (government) ownership of public transportation means that that system is susceptible to pressure from the people they serve. Government has political as well as economic capital invested in the system and can therefore be pressured on both fronts. A private company on the other hand would only be susceptible to economic pressure.
this seems obvious, but its crucial. under served or lower income neighborhoods rely heavily on their public transit connections... obviously more than even adequately served and middle income neighborhoods because they have less options across the board. Cars, cabs ect. are less of a viable option. However, in the case of under served lower income neighborhoods, bus lines and train stops might be operating at a loss. This can be absorbed by the public ownership because political ramifications of pulling the station and routes would be great ( on aldermen, on the mayor, on state reps etc). This seems to ensure that not only is service maintained where it is most desperately needed, but that it can be extended to more places it is desperately needed because public ownership demands less economic return, as the political return is of equal importance.
I think it's better when public transit is government owned also becauase the government owns the roads, and the economic returns of public transit look much better when taken from that perspective. Even if it's not exactly making money, how much wear and tear is it reducing on the street system? How much congestion is reduced by an efficient public transit system, and how much is that worth to the government? By contrast, those things would be worth nothing to a private corporation.
in a city like chicago more trains run around yuppie wrigleyville and lincoln park than in the poorer areas of the city. so i think maybe in chitown the public trans services the well to do more than the poor.
well, first, i think privatizing it would be a failure. it's not financially feasible. if they were to charge us as much as they needed to operate the system and make the repairs and upgrades needed, i'm sure the $5 in gas plus $20 in parking might look better... thus spiralling the system into airline like debt.
but, i think the CTA as a whole is entirely undervalued. I mean ridiculously undervalued. How many people take the CTA how many times per mile of track that costs X? How many people drive on a road how many times per mile road that costs Y? I think the road and public transit need to be seen as one system. They do the same things, they need the same funding. I think one can justify a ton more money for the cta than it is actually getting. (Though no doubt, I'm sure there could be some improvement within the CTA in regards to efficiency)
i agree with vado on expanding the system. i think it would densify and benefit the city economy...plus it will eventually be desperately need. i would be heavily in favor of a circle line close to the loop before the suburban line though. part of chicago's commuting problems are because the city is so centralized. a loop line would probably cause some massive rumbings. Property values at certain hubs would go up, businesses might move out of the loop for cheaper land and chicago would be able to expand it's density.
ok...i think i'm getting off topic, and i need to get out of the office
The biggest change I would make in terms of Chicago transit funding would be to merge the RTA and the Illinois Tollway Authority into one agency, significantly raise the tolls, and use the toll revenues to fund mass transit.
However, the RTA and the Tollway Authority are two rival political fiefdoms, each of which is a cesspool of patronage. There would have to be some fundamental changes to the Illinois political culture for these two agencies to even speak to each other, much less actually merge.
vado raises an important point about rail-based mass transit. it is often touted as the mode of choice for the urban poor but historically in the states at least it has almost consistently been built for and by the wealthy, very often bypassing the poor (who get buses if they are lucky)...
it was once believed that poor people would use public transport to ride and and rob all the rich people in their neighbourhoods so voters actively worked hard to stay disconnected from poorer communities. This is part and parcel of the socio-economic segregation viewpoint that informed suburban design since 1850 Manchester and has never gotten better. According to Rob Fishman all of this can be laid at the feet of Evangelical Christians in Britain who started the whole shemeel...so there you go, god made suburbia suck and he doesn't like trains...
privatisation of the rail system worked very well for london [/satire]. no reason it shouldn't happen in chicago too!
I ponder....wondering what Chicagos less favorite son Saul Alinsky would propose to the masses to solve the mass transportaion in Chicago....
shit i know they have my number now....
maybe all the yuppies in lincoln park and lakeview live there because there's decent public transit. the poor people want the transit, but they're squeezed out of the market in places it's decently served. chicago hasn't built a new el line in decades. they need to get their act together and do that. it's crumbling. for a city that's ostensibly progressive because of their overly-powerful mayor (and all the commotion they've caused with their progressiveness on green roofs and some other stuff) i'm suprised they haven't done more with transit. their system is so much worse tha new york's, and new york's is offensively gross if you're used to, say, munich. so basically what i'm saying is i don't want to deal with a car but no public transit system in this country is good enough for me, so i need to find some excuse to move back to europe and become an isolationist.
Just a couple of minor points: The CTA opened the new Orange Line to Midway Airport in 1993. Also, the West Side and South Side have pretty good transit access along certain narrow corridors, but other low-income parts of the city have no rapid transit service at all. (For example, the Metra Electric trains offer fast and frequent service, but bypass large sections of the South Side lakefront without stopping.)
the idea that rail over serves rich areas and under serves rich areas is kind of a egg before the chicken situation.
Its seen that rail stations promote density, and density very often raises property values. Low income neighborhoods are typically much less dense than high income neighborhoods, so which came first? Was lincoln park wealthy and then the trains were built to feed it? How about river north? lakeview? It seems the density that often follows when stations are placed or train lines extended, increase property values in their general vicinity, thereby forcing out lower income residents.
"all of this can be laid at the feet of Evangelical Christians in Britain who started the whole shemeel...so there you go, god made suburbia suck and he doesn't like trains..."
but its more complex than simply building more train lines for the less fortunate neighborhoods. greater accessibility to trains raises real-estate values, feeding gentrification. hence, the poor see their rents being raised, get pushed further into the suburbs (see the southern parts of Westchester in New York), and the problem repeats itself. we need new and creative urban land strategies that create more train lines, protect renters, and provide incentives for the poor to become land-owners.
Privitized mass transit was not a failure. Actually it was quite reliable and efficient. There are literally hundreds of examples of all the cities with streetcar systems. However the popularity of the automobile lead to their decline. The General Motors conspiracy to dismantle the streetcars didn't help either. Since no private companies could make money at it the gov't took over mass transit and operates it at a loss, still to this day.
I don't think there is a right to public transportation. Nor is there some social responsibility to have the gov't provide this service. Private business and public municipalities need to look at transit in the same way - what's there to gain from it. While a business man will look at the $$$ profit, the city can evaluate how it will lead to economic growth and viability of their city.
aquapura is getting sort of at the point i brought up in the opening, that while a privately run public transport system looks at profits, a city can tolerate less profitability in the system because it, unlike a private entity, values the health of the people it serves.
ice9 reiterates more clearly what i meant to say in my last post, that increasing density increases land value and gentrifies neighborhoods thereby pushing lower income people farther from available transit (though to be fair, buses run everywhere trains don't)
one other thing i wonder is how much more difficult to achieve is an efficient rail system in the states. Does the density exist to support a system like London or Tokyo or hong kong? Obviously new york is dense, but the area around the lake front of Chicago is the second most densely populated region in the country, yet the CTA has a tremendous amount of track to maintain, and a huge number of stations to serve a smaller population than would be served in more dense cities...
i guess the question for american cities is at what point does the tremendous costs of maintaining so many miles of track and stations become less than the cumulative costs of building streets highways and parking garages?
i guess the question for american cities is at what point does the tremendous costs of maintaining so many miles of track and stations become less than the cumulative costs of building streets highways and parking garages?
You make some good points. We have to ask ourselves what the City of the Future will look like? What will Chicago look like in 25 years? If it does become more dense, as is happening in many places, then the answer will be much different.
As the City's populations increases in density, the roads can only be widened so much and many are currently as wide as they can get. The next step is to add another deck on top of or below what we already have. That will be very expensive.
As far as private ownership goes, the only example of it that I am familiar with is the London Tube. I don't much about it other than it was very expensive to ride and it was really dirty.
The present system in Chicago is a hub and spokes system. The South Side had a great many lines that were torn down: the Alley L and the branch on 63rd Street that ran to Jackson Park. The latter was torn down about 10 years ago with the support of community leaders who believed the L was a blight that holding up renewal of their of their neighborhood. So they tore down about a mile-long section of L in the early 1990s. Isn't that ironic?
There are many reasonably priced neighborhood off the Orange line and of course if you want to live off the Blue line or Red lines on the south or west sides. They don't have hipster bars and many do not have grocery stores.
The hub and spokes system is a real limitation and making various Circle lines to connect Naperville and Schaumburg or Midway and OHare is an expensive challenge. But it's the only way that more people can be served.
Bring on the congestion tax! But how to set it up? And how to enact it in a place where rail transit is of the hub and spokes variety organized around downtown CHicago?
I agree with a tax on congestion to help curb the increase in automobile use in the city, plus it will help encourage public transportation. Sometimes the public can only be persuaded when it involves their wallet...and gas prices will help this as well. Unfortunately it seems the recent real estate explosion only exacerbates the problem with the massive amount of parking garages built with every highrise condo downtown. The public needs to become a lot more efficient with the use of transportation.
The CTA can help this problem by taking a lot more load than it currently is. Rather than building a new line to further spread heavy maintenance costs, efficiency needs to be updated while demand rises (hopefully). Increase train frequency and better quality tracks to take higher speeds I feel might be a better use of the money than building a new circle track just yet. This will make the cta more attractive to occasional users and will tend to increase demand in the long run. Frankly the CTA is disgusting and terribly slow...(I've been spoiled with Metra).
I also think the cta should be privitised. There are inherently good things when some systems are based on making money. Increased efficiency will become a higher priority if a business is in charge. Why should the government be in full control of the CTA when it is already corrupt?
Does anyone know about the subway in DC? now thats a damn good system.
What makes you think a privatized CTA would be any less corrupt? Most of the corruption today -- both in Illinois and in places like Iraq -- involves vital government functions being outsourced (i.e., privatized) to politically-connected contractors. Do you want a Halliburton employee driving your train?
I agree the CTA needs to take care of its existing infrastructure. Since I've been living here they've spent millions of dollars for stupid gimmicks like automated announcements and electronic signage, while they still can't seem to get a bus or subway train from point A to point B without some sort of mechanical breakdown en route.
Note how most of these gimmicks seem designed to benefit the conventioneers and tourists while doing nothing for people who actually live and work here. Like so much else in Chicago right now, it's all about the window dressing. The CTA is like the homeowner who knows he has termites and a cracked foundation, but goes out and buys a 60" plasma TV just to impress his guests.
I'll be happy to get back to NYC... The MTA is by no means perfect, but I found transit service in New York to generally be far more reliable and cleaner than in Chicago. While the MTA has make impressive strides in improving service over the past few years, the CTA seems headed in the opposite direction.
I think Halliburtorn is an extreme example of how privatizing could go terrible wrong. Not to mention that has to do with Mr. Dick Cheney and the intentions were wrong from the beginning.
I think Metra and other privitized systems set a fairly more positive example than our current situation.
Most Metra lines are publicly owned and operated. The only ones that are operated by contractors are the ones that operate on privately-owned railroads such as Union Pacific or BNSF, and that's only because those trains need to be coordinated with freight trains that share the same tracks. Such issues aren't a concern of the CTA, since the entire CTA rail system is self-contained.
Sparks, what do you want to know about the DC system? It's definitely not private. Operating expenses not covered by farebox and ad revenue come from DC, Maryland, and Virginia in roughly equal shares. Capital funding comes from various federal, state, and local sources.
"Private business and public municipalities need to look at transit in the same way - what's there to gain from it. While a business man will look at the $$$ profit, the city can evaluate how it will lead to economic growth and viability of their city."
aqua, i'm not sure if i'm making the connection. what does the mass transit businessman stand to gain by aiding the economic growth and viability of their city? Aside from indirect increased ridership? I think you run into the problem of underserving the poorer, less dense areas of a city with this logic. As previously discussed in this chicken and egg dilemma, i think the business risk in aiding a poor community is insurmountable given that people need to see a ROI super fast.
I think the CTA offers potential benefits beyond the care or relevance to a private business venture. You can't assume that a corporation would run the system with any kind of good conscience.
If CTA were to be privatized tomorrow, you better believe that service would be drastically reduced during off-peak times. It would essentially become a Metra-esque commuter service. Forget running basic errands with any kind of efficiency. Buying strathmore's at Brudno's would take an entire day!
Besides, I don't think a lot of people are on the fence between taking the CTA and driving. People who are close to the CTA take it more often than not unless they like the inside of their Mercedes. It doesn't make sense to pay for parking, unless you're making too much money. People who aren't close to the CTA or whose destinations aren't close drive. So, how do we make the system profitable? Hike the fares, right? People who drive are paying 10-20 to park plus more money on gas and their vehicle. So you make it $4 a ride or somethin and you immediately cut out an entire class of people.
i agree with sparks actually about drastically improving existing infrastructure before building more track. The CTA is obviously over extended as it is and really needs to build up more regular use before it begins to extend itself.
However, Building a circle line connecting near south/west/north sides red blue orange and green lines could have that same effect. Making it more convenient to get around the city for things other than work could go a long way towards increasing ridership.
I definitly disagree though that the system would benefit from being privatized. Again, it seems clear to me that a private enterprise gain little by risking expansion into under served areas.
I also think the orange line offers a really intriguing example of a 'if you build it they will come' kind of trait inherent in public transit.
35th and archer (my old stomping grounds) are a perfect example. That area has seen a tremendous amount of growth in the past few years... both housing and commercial... due, in no small part, to the ease of access to the neighborhood provided by the new train line.
The DC Metro is nice because it is fairly new (25 years old) and planned by a centralized government agency to meet modern-day transit needs. (It also helps that they hired a visionary architect who recognized the importance of good design in public infrastructure.)
The CTA, by comparison, suffers because it is very old (over 100 years in many sections), and planned by private investors to maximize profitability in 1890's Chicago.
Looks like a pretty good case against privatization to me.
nice sparks... thats really interesting... i think its pretty interesting to see how much more sprawled out cta is compared to many other cities... anyone know much about madrids system? how it functions? if its good and what not? it seems like its spread way out, much more so than chicagos
Mass Transit - a social responsibility?
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background...
((There have recently been major debates in the Illinois state legislature about how to properly fund mass transit; Primarily Metra (suburb - suburb, suburb - city rail ways) Pace ( suburb - suburb bus lines) and CTA (city rail and bus system).
The RTA which is in charge of this transportation system has been drastically underfunded for years and if emergency bailout funding is not issued by the end of this legislative session on july 1st, the CTA in particular is faced with a 'doomsday' situation, where service will have to be significantly cut, and fares hiked.))
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I am really interested to get people's feedback on this issue as i think it invloves political, economic and social issues... all of great importance.
Do people have the right to expect that government should provide public transit infrastructure and service?
Is it a social responsability or an economic responsability, and where does the ballance lie?
How crucial is Public Transit to a cities health?
Should public transit be more akin to public schools and hospitals, or to semi private utilities?
For the taxes we pay.... probably yes. I know I'd much rather see my tax money going to public transportation than to a network of roadways used by private vehicles that cause congestion and pollution.
Is it a social responsability or an economic responsability, and where does the ballance lie?
Both. After all, that's what the word 'socio-economic' is for! Anyways, as I mentioned above there's an aspect of environmental responsibility there. I believe that it's more feasible economically too, to focus on public transportation rather than extensive networks of roadways for private vehicles. Additionally, on both social and economic levels, there's a rampant problem of the poor working in areas serving upper class people where they cannot afford to live themselves. If people of this economic class cannot afford cars to get to work, how many of them will end up on welfare, and which would you rather be paying for, welfare or public transit?
Chicago needs to follow London's lead and have a congestion tax. Charge $10 for anyone who wants to travel into the loop and its environs 6am to 5pm Monday through Friday. Collect it at the exit ramps electronically as with the iPass.
Take that money (don't put it in Stoger's or Daley's pocket because it may have a hole in it) and give it to a new agency that funds Mass Transit in the region in preparation for 2016.
I think the congestion is one important tool to use to decrease travel times, increase public transportation use and make the Chicago area more sustainable.
or be like hong kong and have a private company oversee a mass transit operation-- modern stations & trains, clean, efficient, etc, etc..
Actually, private companies used to oversee mass transit in most US cities. They provided shoddy service, didn't maintain their infrastructure, and eventually went bankrupt. This forced the government to take over operations.
chicago's metra and cta and bus systems are used heavily. most people do not drive into chicago for work. the cta needs to be upgraded heavily. the big issue for traffic in chicago metro is from suburb to suburb. thats where car traffic is just insane. going from downers grove to schaumburg for example. but its easy to hop a metra from say lake forest or la grange to get into the city and on the weekends you can buy a pass or a five spot and use it as much as you want. as far as driving in chicago when i go for a visit i just park my ride at a friends and either walk or el or bus it around. its ez as far as fares on the cta well maybe they should be hiked or restructured.
but i gues i didnt answer the question. a city like chicago demands a state of the art transit system and needs to come up with a way to pay for it whether its a tax or from some other funding.
i was hoping someone would bring up a privatized system for the trains...
and this is where the social responsibility inherent in public transportation comes into question. Public (government) ownership of public transportation means that that system is susceptible to pressure from the people they serve. Government has political as well as economic capital invested in the system and can therefore be pressured on both fronts. A private company on the other hand would only be susceptible to economic pressure.
this seems obvious, but its crucial. under served or lower income neighborhoods rely heavily on their public transit connections... obviously more than even adequately served and middle income neighborhoods because they have less options across the board. Cars, cabs ect. are less of a viable option. However, in the case of under served lower income neighborhoods, bus lines and train stops might be operating at a loss. This can be absorbed by the public ownership because political ramifications of pulling the station and routes would be great ( on aldermen, on the mayor, on state reps etc). This seems to ensure that not only is service maintained where it is most desperately needed, but that it can be extended to more places it is desperately needed because public ownership demands less economic return, as the political return is of equal importance.
I think it's better when public transit is government owned also becauase the government owns the roads, and the economic returns of public transit look much better when taken from that perspective. Even if it's not exactly making money, how much wear and tear is it reducing on the street system? How much congestion is reduced by an efficient public transit system, and how much is that worth to the government? By contrast, those things would be worth nothing to a private corporation.
in a city like chicago more trains run around yuppie wrigleyville and lincoln park than in the poorer areas of the city. so i think maybe in chitown the public trans services the well to do more than the poor.
disclaimer: CTA Blue Liner
well, first, i think privatizing it would be a failure. it's not financially feasible. if they were to charge us as much as they needed to operate the system and make the repairs and upgrades needed, i'm sure the $5 in gas plus $20 in parking might look better... thus spiralling the system into airline like debt.
but, i think the CTA as a whole is entirely undervalued. I mean ridiculously undervalued. How many people take the CTA how many times per mile of track that costs X? How many people drive on a road how many times per mile road that costs Y? I think the road and public transit need to be seen as one system. They do the same things, they need the same funding. I think one can justify a ton more money for the cta than it is actually getting. (Though no doubt, I'm sure there could be some improvement within the CTA in regards to efficiency)
i agree with vado on expanding the system. i think it would densify and benefit the city economy...plus it will eventually be desperately need. i would be heavily in favor of a circle line close to the loop before the suburban line though. part of chicago's commuting problems are because the city is so centralized. a loop line would probably cause some massive rumbings. Property values at certain hubs would go up, businesses might move out of the loop for cheaper land and chicago would be able to expand it's density.
ok...i think i'm getting off topic, and i need to get out of the office
The biggest change I would make in terms of Chicago transit funding would be to merge the RTA and the Illinois Tollway Authority into one agency, significantly raise the tolls, and use the toll revenues to fund mass transit.
However, the RTA and the Tollway Authority are two rival political fiefdoms, each of which is a cesspool of patronage. There would have to be some fundamental changes to the Illinois political culture for these two agencies to even speak to each other, much less actually merge.
vado raises an important point about rail-based mass transit. it is often touted as the mode of choice for the urban poor but historically in the states at least it has almost consistently been built for and by the wealthy, very often bypassing the poor (who get buses if they are lucky)...
it was once believed that poor people would use public transport to ride and and rob all the rich people in their neighbourhoods so voters actively worked hard to stay disconnected from poorer communities. This is part and parcel of the socio-economic segregation viewpoint that informed suburban design since 1850 Manchester and has never gotten better. According to Rob Fishman all of this can be laid at the feet of Evangelical Christians in Britain who started the whole shemeel...so there you go, god made suburbia suck and he doesn't like trains...
privatisation of the rail system worked very well for london [/satire]. no reason it shouldn't happen in chicago too!
isn't urban connectivity a depressing topic?
I ponder....wondering what Chicagos less favorite son Saul Alinsky would propose to the masses to solve the mass transportaion in Chicago....
shit i know they have my number now....
maybe all the yuppies in lincoln park and lakeview live there because there's decent public transit. the poor people want the transit, but they're squeezed out of the market in places it's decently served. chicago hasn't built a new el line in decades. they need to get their act together and do that. it's crumbling. for a city that's ostensibly progressive because of their overly-powerful mayor (and all the commotion they've caused with their progressiveness on green roofs and some other stuff) i'm suprised they haven't done more with transit. their system is so much worse tha new york's, and new york's is offensively gross if you're used to, say, munich. so basically what i'm saying is i don't want to deal with a car but no public transit system in this country is good enough for me, so i need to find some excuse to move back to europe and become an isolationist.
Just a couple of minor points: The CTA opened the new Orange Line to Midway Airport in 1993. Also, the West Side and South Side have pretty good transit access along certain narrow corridors, but other low-income parts of the city have no rapid transit service at all. (For example, the Metra Electric trains offer fast and frequent service, but bypass large sections of the South Side lakefront without stopping.)
the idea that rail over serves rich areas and under serves rich areas is kind of a egg before the chicken situation.
Its seen that rail stations promote density, and density very often raises property values. Low income neighborhoods are typically much less dense than high income neighborhoods, so which came first? Was lincoln park wealthy and then the trains were built to feed it? How about river north? lakeview? It seems the density that often follows when stations are placed or train lines extended, increase property values in their general vicinity, thereby forcing out lower income residents.
that should say over serves rich areas and under serves poor areas... my bad
"all of this can be laid at the feet of Evangelical Christians in Britain who started the whole shemeel...so there you go, god made suburbia suck and he doesn't like trains..."
my favorite line from archinect in weeks!!!
but its more complex than simply building more train lines for the less fortunate neighborhoods. greater accessibility to trains raises real-estate values, feeding gentrification. hence, the poor see their rents being raised, get pushed further into the suburbs (see the southern parts of Westchester in New York), and the problem repeats itself. we need new and creative urban land strategies that create more train lines, protect renters, and provide incentives for the poor to become land-owners.
Privitized mass transit was not a failure. Actually it was quite reliable and efficient. There are literally hundreds of examples of all the cities with streetcar systems. However the popularity of the automobile lead to their decline. The General Motors conspiracy to dismantle the streetcars didn't help either. Since no private companies could make money at it the gov't took over mass transit and operates it at a loss, still to this day.
I don't think there is a right to public transportation. Nor is there some social responsibility to have the gov't provide this service. Private business and public municipalities need to look at transit in the same way - what's there to gain from it. While a business man will look at the $$$ profit, the city can evaluate how it will lead to economic growth and viability of their city.
aquapura is getting sort of at the point i brought up in the opening, that while a privately run public transport system looks at profits, a city can tolerate less profitability in the system because it, unlike a private entity, values the health of the people it serves.
ice9 reiterates more clearly what i meant to say in my last post, that increasing density increases land value and gentrifies neighborhoods thereby pushing lower income people farther from available transit (though to be fair, buses run everywhere trains don't)
one other thing i wonder is how much more difficult to achieve is an efficient rail system in the states. Does the density exist to support a system like London or Tokyo or hong kong? Obviously new york is dense, but the area around the lake front of Chicago is the second most densely populated region in the country, yet the CTA has a tremendous amount of track to maintain, and a huge number of stations to serve a smaller population than would be served in more dense cities...
i guess the question for american cities is at what point does the tremendous costs of maintaining so many miles of track and stations become less than the cumulative costs of building streets highways and parking garages?
You make some good points. We have to ask ourselves what the City of the Future will look like? What will Chicago look like in 25 years? If it does become more dense, as is happening in many places, then the answer will be much different.
As the City's populations increases in density, the roads can only be widened so much and many are currently as wide as they can get. The next step is to add another deck on top of or below what we already have. That will be very expensive.
As far as private ownership goes, the only example of it that I am familiar with is the London Tube. I don't much about it other than it was very expensive to ride and it was really dirty.
The present system in Chicago is a hub and spokes system. The South Side had a great many lines that were torn down: the Alley L and the branch on 63rd Street that ran to Jackson Park. The latter was torn down about 10 years ago with the support of community leaders who believed the L was a blight that holding up renewal of their of their neighborhood. So they tore down about a mile-long section of L in the early 1990s. Isn't that ironic?
There are many reasonably priced neighborhood off the Orange line and of course if you want to live off the Blue line or Red lines on the south or west sides. They don't have hipster bars and many do not have grocery stores.
The hub and spokes system is a real limitation and making various Circle lines to connect Naperville and Schaumburg or Midway and OHare is an expensive challenge. But it's the only way that more people can be served.
Bring on the congestion tax! But how to set it up? And how to enact it in a place where rail transit is of the hub and spokes variety organized around downtown CHicago?
I agree with a tax on congestion to help curb the increase in automobile use in the city, plus it will help encourage public transportation. Sometimes the public can only be persuaded when it involves their wallet...and gas prices will help this as well. Unfortunately it seems the recent real estate explosion only exacerbates the problem with the massive amount of parking garages built with every highrise condo downtown. The public needs to become a lot more efficient with the use of transportation.
The CTA can help this problem by taking a lot more load than it currently is. Rather than building a new line to further spread heavy maintenance costs, efficiency needs to be updated while demand rises (hopefully). Increase train frequency and better quality tracks to take higher speeds I feel might be a better use of the money than building a new circle track just yet. This will make the cta more attractive to occasional users and will tend to increase demand in the long run. Frankly the CTA is disgusting and terribly slow...(I've been spoiled with Metra).
I also think the cta should be privitised. There are inherently good things when some systems are based on making money. Increased efficiency will become a higher priority if a business is in charge. Why should the government be in full control of the CTA when it is already corrupt?
Does anyone know about the subway in DC? now thats a damn good system.
What makes you think a privatized CTA would be any less corrupt? Most of the corruption today -- both in Illinois and in places like Iraq -- involves vital government functions being outsourced (i.e., privatized) to politically-connected contractors. Do you want a Halliburton employee driving your train?
I agree the CTA needs to take care of its existing infrastructure. Since I've been living here they've spent millions of dollars for stupid gimmicks like automated announcements and electronic signage, while they still can't seem to get a bus or subway train from point A to point B without some sort of mechanical breakdown en route.
Note how most of these gimmicks seem designed to benefit the conventioneers and tourists while doing nothing for people who actually live and work here. Like so much else in Chicago right now, it's all about the window dressing. The CTA is like the homeowner who knows he has termites and a cracked foundation, but goes out and buys a 60" plasma TV just to impress his guests.
I'll be happy to get back to NYC... The MTA is by no means perfect, but I found transit service in New York to generally be far more reliable and cleaner than in Chicago. While the MTA has make impressive strides in improving service over the past few years, the CTA seems headed in the opposite direction.
I think Halliburtorn is an extreme example of how privatizing could go terrible wrong. Not to mention that has to do with Mr. Dick Cheney and the intentions were wrong from the beginning.
I think Metra and other privitized systems set a fairly more positive example than our current situation.
Most Metra lines are publicly owned and operated. The only ones that are operated by contractors are the ones that operate on privately-owned railroads such as Union Pacific or BNSF, and that's only because those trains need to be coordinated with freight trains that share the same tracks. Such issues aren't a concern of the CTA, since the entire CTA rail system is self-contained.
Sparks, what do you want to know about the DC system? It's definitely not private. Operating expenses not covered by farebox and ad revenue come from DC, Maryland, and Virginia in roughly equal shares. Capital funding comes from various federal, state, and local sources.
"Private business and public municipalities need to look at transit in the same way - what's there to gain from it. While a business man will look at the $$$ profit, the city can evaluate how it will lead to economic growth and viability of their city."
aqua, i'm not sure if i'm making the connection. what does the mass transit businessman stand to gain by aiding the economic growth and viability of their city? Aside from indirect increased ridership? I think you run into the problem of underserving the poorer, less dense areas of a city with this logic. As previously discussed in this chicken and egg dilemma, i think the business risk in aiding a poor community is insurmountable given that people need to see a ROI super fast.
I think the CTA offers potential benefits beyond the care or relevance to a private business venture. You can't assume that a corporation would run the system with any kind of good conscience.
If CTA were to be privatized tomorrow, you better believe that service would be drastically reduced during off-peak times. It would essentially become a Metra-esque commuter service. Forget running basic errands with any kind of efficiency. Buying strathmore's at Brudno's would take an entire day!
Besides, I don't think a lot of people are on the fence between taking the CTA and driving. People who are close to the CTA take it more often than not unless they like the inside of their Mercedes. It doesn't make sense to pay for parking, unless you're making too much money. People who aren't close to the CTA or whose destinations aren't close drive. So, how do we make the system profitable? Hike the fares, right? People who drive are paying 10-20 to park plus more money on gas and their vehicle. So you make it $4 a ride or somethin and you immediately cut out an entire class of people.
...i got a whole bank of this 2 cents stuff
i agree with sparks actually about drastically improving existing infrastructure before building more track. The CTA is obviously over extended as it is and really needs to build up more regular use before it begins to extend itself.
However, Building a circle line connecting near south/west/north sides red blue orange and green lines could have that same effect. Making it more convenient to get around the city for things other than work could go a long way towards increasing ridership.
I definitly disagree though that the system would benefit from being privatized. Again, it seems clear to me that a private enterprise gain little by risking expansion into under served areas.
I also think the orange line offers a really intriguing example of a 'if you build it they will come' kind of trait inherent in public transit.
35th and archer (my old stomping grounds) are a perfect example. That area has seen a tremendous amount of growth in the past few years... both housing and commercial... due, in no small part, to the ease of access to the neighborhood provided by the new train line.
bryan4arch, I don't know the politics or funding behind DC. I was impressed by it's system, but maybe Chicago and the RTA can learn something?
The DC Metro is nice because it is fairly new (25 years old) and planned by a centralized government agency to meet modern-day transit needs. (It also helps that they hired a visionary architect who recognized the importance of good design in public infrastructure.)
The CTA, by comparison, suffers because it is very old (over 100 years in many sections), and planned by private investors to maximize profitability in 1890's Chicago.
Looks like a pretty good case against privatization to me.
yeah you might be right...
everyone should buy scooters
...or perhaps we should live like 1890's chicagoans! world's fair anyone?
Cholera, anyone?
I think you would all find this interesting:
http://chicago.metblogs.com/archives/2007/05/cta_vs_world_su.phtml
nice sparks... thats really interesting... i think its pretty interesting to see how much more sprawled out cta is compared to many other cities... anyone know much about madrids system? how it functions? if its good and what not? it seems like its spread way out, much more so than chicagos
It's that time of the year again: CTA's doomsday scenario
why ride? gas is only 3.60 a gallon.
$3.92 at the place down the street. And that's for regular unleaded.
$3.99 for regular unleaded this morning. When I sell my Jeep, it won't be a moment too soon.
My Vespa lasts 10 days on 1 gallon of fuel. The tank is 1.2 gallons and she goes 57mph!
Can't get better than that in downtown Chicago.....and park almost anywhere I want!
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