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Metra boss is chided for views on CTA
October 20, 2004

The Cook County Board weighed in on the testy debate over regional transit funding Tuesday, with one member saying he was upset by comments Metra's chairman made about the Chicago Transit Authority last week.

During a Metra budget presentation to the board, Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston) said he was "very disheartened" to learn that Jeff Ladd would not cooperate with the CTA's attempt to obtain more funding during the legislature's veto session next month. Instead, Ladd has said he would go to Springfield to protect Metra's money.

"I think that maybe Mr. Ladd has been there too long if he believes he can stand alone," said Suffredin. Suffredin was reacting to comments Ladd made Friday. After a Metra board meeting, Ladd said he believed the CTA's plan to seek more dollars from lawmakers was a ploy to take money from Metra.

CTA officials have denied that is the case. Also Tuesday, county Commissioner Deborah Sims (D-Chicago) said Ladd's failure to show up for Tuesday's budget presentation shows he's "out of touch." Ladd could not be reached for comment.

The CTA hopes to secure $82.5 million during the legislative veto session to address its projected 2005 deficit. It also wants the General Assembly to tackle the regional funding formula that disburses money to CTA, Pace and Metra. That concerns many suburban officials who fear they could lose coveted transportation dollars if legislators tinker with the formula.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

 

CTA has a smaller, more efficient workforce

Dorval Carter Jr., Executive vice president, Management and Performance
October 19, 2004

Chicago Transit Authority -- This is regarding "Needy CTA sees boom in desk jobs; Top staff grows despite threats of service cuts" (Page 1, Oct. 4). The size of the Chicago Transit Authority's workforce--including administrative positions--has decreased, not increased. Since 1997, the total workforce has decreased by more than 9 percent. The workforce in the areas I oversee, which includes most of the CTA's administrative departments as well as some operational functions, has been reduced by 13 percent.

A smaller, more efficient workforce was accomplished by a series of initiatives the CTA has taken to reduce its costs and operate efficiently. And it was not done at a cost to customers. In fact in the same time period the CTA has increased service, making improvements to 68 percent of bus routes and all rail lines. This includes the addition of 25 new bus routes, expanded service hours, more frequent service and changes to improve access and connectivity.

The directive from both the CTA president and the Chicago Transit Board has been to make our dollars go as far as they can. If you look at our budgets and service levels over time, you will see that we have done that.

The Tribune story was based on a flawed interpretation of data from the National Transit Database. The data are derived through a complex formula dictated by the Federal Transit Administration that allocates payroll hours to certain job categories. This information does not directly correlate to budgeted positions. Nor is it intended to do so. The intent is to help the FTA ascertain trends from transit agencies of all sizes and from all across the country. I am familiar with this database from my previous job, which was as assistant chief counsel for regulation and legislation at the FTA. The FTA's own instructions for interpreting the data make it clear that there are a number of variables that go into arriving at these figures and that care must be taken with interpretations. Under this formula, for example, the FTA counts customer assistants on rail lines as administrative employees even though they are not behind desks but working directly with customers. A few years ago, before the CTA's switch to electronic fare-cards, the employees in the same 554 positions were called ticket agents and they were counted as operating employees. They are still operating employees, but due to the nuances of the FTA's formula, they are not recognized as such in the National Transit Database. The change in designation for this category alone could account for the increases in the database that were noted by the Tribune.

For a more accurate accounting of the CTA's workforce, the Tribune should instead look at the CTA's annual budget documents. We use standard accounting principles to develop these figures. In addition, several outside audits of the CTA's financial statements are conducted on an annual basis. They include audits by the FTA, Regional Transportation Authority, the Illinois Department of Transportation and independent auditors hired by the CTA. These numbers make it clear that the size of the CTA's workforce has decreased, including administrative positions.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Everyone likes to trade CTA war stories.

There's the time you were standing on the corner, watching bus after bus go the opposite direction as you waited for yours. And you'll never forget when you were on the train to work and, just as your car entered the dank and lifeless tunnel, the train halted due to a "delay up ahead." Or how about the time the guy in the suit sleeping next to you unwittingly rested his head on your shoulder?

But don't try trading stories with Rebecca Prindable. Trust me, you would never win. It would most likely go something like this:

You: "Man, I was waiting for the bus for 20 minutes today and ended up five minutes late for my appointment. What a pain."

Her: "Yeah, that stinks. The CTA burned down my house."

Point Prindable. Game, set, match.

On Feb. 26, Prindable and her roommate Kymberly Hyde were in their apartment on North Wilton Avenue. The two of them were unaware of work being done on the Red Line tracks that run behind their Lincoln Park building. While iron workers welded the tracks by their porch, sparks flew. A few landed on the porch and caught fire.

According to a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court by the two roommates, the workers left the scene. There were only two things those workers allegedly forgot to do before they fled: put out the fire on the porch and, failing that, alert the women inside the apartment.

Prindable and Hyde, both 23, hadn't even been told about the work going on outside their porch, said their attorney, Heather

Begley. Because the case is now in court, the women spoke through their lawyer.

"They had no knowledge of [the fire] until they were in dire circumstances," she said.

According to Begley, neither woman saw the fire or smelled smoke because it started on the porch. Their first hint was the sound of glass imploding from the heat. Nearly everything the women owned was burned, including all of their winter clothing, a loss that looms large now that fall is here.

The CTA would not comment on the matter because it is in litigation, though spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said an investigation is ongoing. In March, the CTA held a news conference announcing that two ironworkers had been fired and four others disciplined for not following proper procedure.

One of the two fired workers, the CTA said, tested positive for cocaine.

It may seem like a remote story, something that happens to other people and is distanced from your life. But you probably know Prindable and Hyde--if not specifically, then the types. They are typical North Side residents: young, living with friends, just moved to the city, recently out of college, not exactly raking in the dough.

They had lived in the apartment for six months before the fire, just about enough time to accumulate all of their possessions in one place. Their lawyer said the two had to make the dreaded move: back to their parents' homes.

"Neither had renters' insurance," she said. "At 23, they didn't have the money to go back out and get a condo or another apartment. The apartment was a total loss."

In a letter to RedEye, Prindable said the CTA offered to settle up to $10,000, something that neither Begley nor the CTA could confirm. The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 for each woman.

Ziegler said the CTA is often sued for bus collisions and slip and falls, the type of accidents that lead to lawsuits against any public body. Ziegler said large-scale property damage complaints are rare, and neither she nor CTA attorneys could remember a case like this one.

That's good news for the rest of us. When faced with a burning house and the loss of everything you own, standing next to a guy who spills coffee on the train becomes a dream commute.
Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Chicago -- Concerning the CTA budget crisis, nobody ever mentions increasing advertising revenue or ridership. Here are some easy ways how this can be done--and soon:

- Environmental groups should advertise on the CTA. They have important messages they want to get out to the public. Many of them have merchandise, magazines and memberships to sell. So why not accomplish this while aiding your publicly stated goal of reducing dependency on oil and cutting auto emissions?

- Political candidates could advertise more on the CTA. This would also allow them to give detailed breakdowns on their platforms without being filtered by the censorship and bias of the media.

- Ridership could be boosted if merchants would treat certain or all CTA passes as discount cards.

- Ridership could also be increased artificially with a "Take a Bus to Work Day." Non-riders would use the CTA so they could personally prevent their riding brethren from suffering service cuts. This would mostly be a symbolic protest.

- The CTA could also rent property out to valet parking services and sell options on properties should they become available in the future.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Glen Ellyn -- In the face of the rhetoric being put forth by the Chicago Transit Authority, it is very tempting for state legislators to react by changing the transit funding formula that has served northeastern Illinois relatively well for some 20 years. Such a short-sighted overreaction would be a mistake and would put suburban transit at great risk. This would exacerbate the problem of congestion in the suburbs.

Clearly a strong, well-funded, efficient CTA is essential to the entire northeastern Illinois region. Well-funded, efficient transit, however, is important regardless of whether you live in Chicago, Maywood, Glen Ellyn, Joliet or McHenry.

I am totally blind and depend on all of the region's transit systems--CTA, Metra and Pace--to get around.

I urge all Illinois legislators to take a careful, long-term view of transit funding in northeastern Illinois. Any new or changed funding formula must ensure both that the CTA has the money it needs to operate efficiently and that suburban transit provided by both Metra and Pace are funded to meet current and future demand. All three transit boards must be encouraged through incentives to do things that will improve efficiency. These include privatizing service while maintaining the guarantee of being able to transfer within and between services and cutting administrative costs, among other things.

Good, reliable, safe and affordable transit is important all across northeastern Illinois. Any changes in the funding formula must be done to improve transit on a regional basis, not just to benefit Chicago, Cook County or the collar counties. It is in the best interest of the entire region that we have a transit system that gets people where they need to go when they need to get there, particularly those like me who cannot drive. That will not happen if legislators heed the CTA's rhetoric and change the transit funding formula, putting suburban transit at risk.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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By Jon Hilkevitch and Virginia Groark - Tribune staff reporters
October 17, 2004

Chicago-area commuters have long complained that the coordination between Metra and the Chicago Transit Authority is so poor they might as well be operating trains and buses in separate states.

After co-existing at a distance for more than 20 years, the two agencies no longer are peacefully passing each other's stations in silence. Metra and the CTA are in combat mode, racing full throttle toward each other on the same track. The wreck, if one is not avoided, would occur next month in Springfield and potentially over winter at empty bus stops and closed rail stations in Chicago and 40 suburbs if threatened CTA service cuts go through.

The issue is public funding--always a scarce commodity when it comes to paying for inherently expensive mass-transit services, but even more critical since the federal government phased out all operating assistance to local transit agencies in the 1990s. The CTA, encountering increasing difficulties each year to balance its budget, is now pushing hard for the legislature to re-examine a 21-year-old Regional Transportation Authority statute that subsidizes operations of the CTA, Metra and Pace. The CTA says it has lost more than $1.5 billion in state funding over the years because of inequities in the transit funding formula. But Metra, which has had a much easier time than the CTA in raising the required levels of operating revenue from the fare box and sales-tax collections in the suburbs, opposes any change. Officials at the suburban commuter railroad, wary that the state would be able to afford an overall increase in transit funding, are fearful about a money grab by the CTA, whose president is a longtime confidant of Mayor Richard Daley's.

Metra chairman Jeffrey Ladd on Friday accused CTA officials of "a pattern of misinformation . . . and uncooperative behavior" aimed at cannibalizing Metra's budget. Ladd said the CTA is jeopardizing much-needed Metra projects like the suburb-to-suburb STAR line between O'Hare International Airport and Joliet. "Make no mistake," Ladd told the Metra board at its meeting Friday. "Metra did not fire the first shot, nor the second, third or fourth." CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said the agency does not want to take money from Metra or Pace to solve its financial woes.

"The CTA has been very clear that we believe it's important to have a strong transit system for the region," she said. With less than a month to go before the legislature's veto session, it's unclear whether lawmakers will tackle the issue of the funding formula. A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan said last week that the issue is so complex, the legislature needs more time. Likewise, state Sen. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest) said a consensus is missing.

Ladd is not the only politician worried about the CTA's next move. The top elected officials in the collar counties have been meeting for months to discuss the issue, which they fear could result in a CTA raid on transit funds. "This effort is a blatant attempt to take critical transit funding from suburban services--Metra and Pace--and redirect them to the CTA," Will County Executive Joseph Mikan wrote in a letter to Ladd on Tuesday. "That is unacceptable." CTA president Frank Kruesi is threatening to pull a huge amount of service off the street starting Jan. 2--the daily equivalent of all the rides Metra provides during its morning rush period--if state legislators do not increase the CTA's funding by $82.5 million in 2005.

Kruesi insists the CTA cannot continue operating without the new funding and a permanent restructuring of the formula subsidizing transit fares to put an end to the CTA limping from deficit to deficit each year.

Kruesi pledges a willingness to go to Springfield with Metra and Pace seeking a bailout for the CTA as well as $35 million for Metra and $17 million for Pace, the suburban bus service. Officials at Pace, which is struggling to remain relevant in the car-dominant suburbs, have not taken a position. But the RTA staff has joined Metra in opposing the CTA's rush for aid, saying a more deliberate approach is necessary to handle a complex issue that, if bungled, would have severe consequences. Complicating the process is that the RTA has been without a leader since June 30 when Thomas McCracken Jr. retired his chairmanship. The post has never been vacant for so long, according to an RTA spokesman.

For the first time in state history, the legislature may get the authority to appoint a new RTA chairman if the agency's board fails to vote on new leader by Nov. 1. Under state law, the power to pick a replacement goes to the General Assembly if the board fails to act within four months. In the reality of Illinois politics, the RTA board doesn't really select a chairman. The decision is brokered between the governor, typically a Republican, and Chicago's Democrat mayor. The balance of power has contributed stability to the politics of Chicago-area transit over the last two decades. "The region is suffering because we don't have a chairman of the RTA who is making the transit agencies work together," said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation of Chicago. "It's unfortunate, because for commuters the issue is how the transit system works together and hangs together, not how the politicians at the CTA, Metra and RTA get along." But the Daley administration has held up an RTA appointment, suburban officials complain. They think the mayor is stalling because he thinks a leaderless RTA board will help the CTA's funding efforts during the veto session.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and other officials recently approached Batavia Mayor Jeff Schielke, a Pace board member who is active in transportation issues, about the RTA chairman post. "We believe Schielke would be a good choice to head the RTA and that it's important suburban interests are taken into consideration," said Hastert spokesman John McGovern. Schielke, a political independent who says he gets along well with Daley, agreed to be considered. But Daley has ignored efforts by Hastert and others to fill the vacancy, according to officials close to Hastert and suburban leaders who support Schielke. "The mayor and I are good friends and our talks about the RTA job have been very cordial," Schielke said Friday. "I understand the politics of the region and that the mayor wants to see how everything comes down [in Springfield] before he makes a decision." The apparent stalling tactics by Chicago would allow the Democrat-controlled legislature to fill the spot. It is assumed that Gov. Rod Blagojevich would rubber-stamp Daley's selection. "Until we can get the endorsement of the mayor, we just flat-out cannot elect a chairman," said Dwight Magalis, a Lake County Republican on the RTA board, referring to the two Democratic votes needed along with the seven suburban votes.

A Daley spokeswoman said no candidates have been officially presented to the mayor.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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In a move to assure development of a critically important but long-vacant downtown site, the city agreed to sell Block 37 at a loss of nearly $23 million. In a surprise revelation, Planning Commissioner Denise Casalino said that the site could one day be home to a city-run casino, in addition to the shopping center, office high-rise, hotel and residential tower that already have been announced.

The city is willing to take a loss on Block 37 because city planners see it as a keystone location. If Mayor Richard Daley wins state approval for a publicly owned gaming facility, Block 37 would be among the locations considered for the slot machines and blackjack tables, Casalino said. If casino legislation is passed, "the city needs to figure out the optimal site," she said. "This would be one of them under evaluation."

The site has easy access to CTA stations and "it's close to Millennium Park. . . . It's part of the heart of the center of the city," Casalino said. Block 37 is only the second possible location mentioned by Daley administration officials as a potential casino site. The other is the oldest and easternmost building in the McCormick Place complex. City officials say a gaming facility would represent a new source of desperately needed revenue as the city faces a $220 million budget gap for 2005.

Watch for: Additional pressure on Springfield to allow a casino in the city, even though Gov. Rod Blagojevich remains firm in his opposition.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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After weeks of lying low, Metra came out swinging Friday, labeling the CTA's plan to press state lawmakers for increased transit funding a bald-faced attempt to take money away from the suburban commuter rail agency.

An angry Metra chairman Jeffrey Ladd said his agency will refuse to work with the Chicago Transit Authority to seek more transit dollars from Springfield. Instead, Metra will focus on making "sure that what we have isn't taken away."

"We have seen here a pattern first of all of misinformation and certainly a pattern of uncooperative behavior," Ladd said of the CTA. "When we should all be thinking about a strategy to increase funding for mass transit, what we've got is one saying, `We want to cannibalize, basically, [Metra's] budget."'

CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney denied that was the case, noting the agency's officials have been careful to say they are seeking money for CTA, Metra and Pace and do not want to take money from one service board and give it to another.

"The CTA, Metra and Pace are all interconnected, and it's important that they all have the proper resources to meet the transit needs of the region," she said.

Ladd, however, said CTA officials' comments to media outlets indicate otherwise. He said Metra will hold a special meeting in the coming weeks to address the issue.

His sharp remarks, made after a Metra board meeting, reflect a growing divide between the two agencies. It threatens to throw the regional mass transit system into turmoil at the beginning of the year if the CTA makes the massive service cuts it has threatened if it doesn't get more state funding during next month's veto session.

Even in the best of times when the agencies are trying to work together, they have a difficult time coordinating service to benefit commuters.

All this points to a potentially nasty battle during the six-day veto session when CTA officials will ask the legislature to give it $82.5 million for 2005 and restructure the 21-year-old funding formula that disburses dollars to CTA, Metra and Pace.

CTA leaders have said the formula is outdated and needs to change to reflect how the mass transit agencies serve the region. While CTA contends it provides 81 percent of the trips in the region, Ladd said Pace and Metra provide 50 percent of the service when measured by passenger miles.

If CTA gets its way, it could jeopardize the creation of the much-needed suburb-to-suburb STAR line, because Ladd said, "we won't have the money to do that."

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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The CTA board on Thursday ordered a review of whether another fare hike should be passed for 2005, raising the possibility that $2 fares will be used to reduce the sting of threatened service cuts.

CTA president Frank Kruesi excluded fare increases in his 2005 budget proposals--except for disabled riders and college students.

Displeased that all options had not been fully considered, board members directed the agency's staff to go back and analyze the impact of a second fare hike in two years on riders, on service levels and on the budget picture.

The base fare was raised 25 cents, to $1.75, in January, the first increase since 1991.

Officials said all fares, including unlimited-ride passes, would be analyzed.

"We want to avoid a downward spiral of service cuts and fare increases," said Michael Shiffer, vice president of planning and development at the transit agency. Such a combination in the past has sparked massive losses of riders that took years to reverse.

The order to study the agency's fare structure came amid warnings from staff that the base fare would need to be increased to $3 by 2007 if changes are not made to help the CTA in the state formula that subsidizes transit in the region.

CTA officials project a $77 million deficit in 2005 that the agency is trying to erase with $22 million in job reductions and other internal savings and $55 million in service cuts. A 25-cent increase in the base fare next year would raise $20 million to $25 million, said Dennis Anosike, CTA vice president of finance.

CTA critics, meanwhile, view the warnings of service cuts and possible fare increases as a political ploy by Kruesi, one of Mayor Richard Daley's closest advisers. They fear the strategy is designed to pressure state lawmakers into writing a check to the transit agency.

Political leaders in the collar counties last week called for an independent audit of the CTA.

CTA chairman Carole Brown said there was "discomfort from the board" as well that all options were not fully studied before the proposed service cuts--amounting to 20 percent of service and affecting dozens of bus routes and all rail lines--were unveiled by Kruesi earlier this month.

"We need to show we have considered other alternatives," Brown said at Thursday's CTA board meeting, held hours before the first public hearing on the $55 million in proposed service cuts.

About 150 people, including at least two aldermen, attended the hearing in the auditorium of Clemente High School. Citing the need to get to jobs, doctors' appointments and church as well as the environmental ramifications of putting more cars on the road, the majority of speakers lambasted the proposal to cut service.

"The people in the community, they don't know anything about budgets. They don't care about budgets," said Ald. Ed Smith (28th). "They just want to ride the train or bus."

Kate Mayer, who has been blind since birth, moved to Chicago in 1996 because of its public transportation, she said.

"I came here specifically because I knew that would help give me more opportunities in the workplace," said Mayer, who takes the CTA to and from her job as an analyst at LaSalle Bank.

But Mayer already has noticed service deteriorating, she said during the hearing.

"When I have to budget time to get anywhere, I have to budget at least an hour, and it's getting to be more like an hour and a half," she said.

The board's decision to study fare increases signaled growing uneasiness with the deep service cuts in Kruesi's "gridlock budget." Kruesi said the cuts are necessary to balance the 2005 budget if the legislature does not approve an extra $82.5 million for the CTA during its six-day fall veto session next month.

Sources at the CTA said Brown and several board members repeatedly asked Kruesi to ease the service cuts by mixing them with a fare increase, but he has refused.

"The board clearly wants to know what all of our options are, and then we will make a decision," said board vice chairman Susan Leonis, adding that a fare increase may be less onerous to some riders than waiting an hour for their bus to arrive.

Kruesi, who last year was reprimanded by Daley for failing to get pre-approval for the 25-cent increase in the CTA base fare that took effect Jan. 1, steered clear of proposing any hike for next year.

Kruesi did, however, propose doubling fares for disabled riders who use para-transit services--from $1.75 a ride to $3.50, and for a 30-day para-transit pass from $75 to $150.

Chicago-area college students whose tuition fees include a CTA University Pass will be charged 70 cents a day, up a dime. In addition, rates at CTA park-and-ride lots will rise to $2.

Another 25-cent increase in the CTA base fare would match the $2 fare paid by riders in New York City, Philadelphia and other major cities.

Meanwhile, the top elected officials in the five collar counties are concerned the CTA is trying to create an atmosphere of a financial crisis to take away state funding from Metra.

The county chairmen, who organized a group called the Collar County Partnership, last week issued a blistering position paper accusing the CTA of failing to make a strong case for more money. The suburban officials urged the legislature to retain the existing formula that funds transit operations in the Chicago region.

Kruesi and Brown contend the formula, last revised in 1983, is outmoded. They say that because of population shifts, the formula generates a higher rate of funding increases to Metra, based on sales-tax collections in the suburbs, while the CTA's funding has grown much more slowly.

During Thursday's hearing, many speakers demonstrated distain and frustration with the politics surrounding the CTA budget question, and a few called for Kruesi and the board's resignations.

"Our bottom line is we pay your salaries," said Bridget Broderick, of Chicago and part of the International Socialist Organization. "You and Daley and Springfield need to figure it out. That's what you're paid for."

Dyane Allen, who worked for the CTA for 30 years before retiring in 1999, was more direct.

"If you can't straighten up the problem, you should all leave," she told Kruesi and the board to wild cheers from the audience.

West Side residents who have gone six years without weekend rail service on the Cermak branch of the Blue Line celebrated Thursday after receiving word from city officials that trains will run on a limited basis on Saturdays and Sundays starting in January.

CTA officials said that even if service cuts are implemented, Cermak branch service will be restored by diverting some trains from the Forest Park branch of the Blue Line on weekends. That, however, would mean trains would run less frequently over weekends on the Forest Park branch, officials said.

Kruesi said no decision has been made about resuming late-night "owl" service on the Cermak branch.

"The restored service is a direct result of the pressure we have put on the CTA with the help of our elected officials," said Maurice Redd, director of the Lawndale Neighborhood Organization. "But our communities are still not on par with other neighborhoods. If there is another fare increase, people will be paying more for less."
Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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The Chicago Transit Authority insists it has no choice except to slash service next year unless the state provides extra funding, but six years ago agency President Frank Kruesi quietly devised a rainy-day strategy to keep buses and trains running in the event of a money crunch.

Kruesi's plan focused on obtaining permission from the Regional Transportation Authority to transfer some preventive-maintenance funds in the CTA's capital budget to the operating budget. "Our experience has been that in a recession, we cannot cut operating costs fast enough to keep the budget in balance. Preventive maintenance funding could help bridge such a time," Kruesi wrote in a letter dated March 18, 1998, to Richard Bacigalupo, then the RTA's executive director.

Kruesi told Bacigalupo such flexibility "might be useful in helping us manage through difficult circumstances, even if only to ensure a soft landing." CTA officials recently have balked at suggestions from the RTA to do exactly what Kruesi proposed. Instead, they are warning that across-the-board service cuts will be unavoidable in 2005 and beyond if pro-CTA changes are not made to correct alleged inequities in the state funding formula subsidizing transit in the six-county region. CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown at first said shifting capital funds to operations would be bad policy. She and Kruesi also have contended that funding agreements with the federal government for planned projects, such as the Brown Line renovation, would be jeopardized if that were done.

But Joseph Costello, chief financial officer of the RTA, which is responsible for oversight of the CTA, strongly disagreed. "The CTA has more than $800 million in unexpended capital money sitting around. Some of the projects are still on the drawing boards and none of the current projects ready to go would be put at risk by using some capital money to keep the trains and buses running," Costello said. At a hearing Thursday evening, the public will get its first chance to comment on CTA plans to eliminate and severely reduce bus and rail service in 2005--cuts totaling $55 million--if state lawmakers do not act.

There is precedent for converting capital funds to the operating budget. The RTA board in 2003 gave the CTA and Pace, the suburban bus service, the option for such a conversion. The CTA shifted $31 million in 2004--$18 million to cover part of the cost for contracting para-transit services for disabled riders and $13 million for debt service.

The transit agency also has received RTA approval to transfer a maximum of $82 million in preventive-maintenance grants from the federal government to bus and rail operations in 2005, according to RTA Executive Director Paula Thibeault. CTA officials are seeking an $82.5 million bailout from the General Assembly during next month's six-day veto session. Kruesi has proposed a "gridlock budget" that would cut CTA service by 20 percent starting Jan. 2 if the subsidy increase is not provided.

Moving capital dollars to operations would eliminate the need for any service cuts, according to RTA officials, who say the CTA is facing a financial challenge to balance next year's budget, but not the outright crisis that Kruesi and other CTA officials are portraying. "We don't like to divert capital funds to operating, but other transit agencies from New York to Los Angeles have taken advantage of the allowance as a temporary solution. They wouldn't still be in existence otherwise," Thibeault said.

Dorval Carter Jr., CTA executive vice president of management and performance, said Thibeault is mistaken. There isn't enough capital funding available to shift into the operations budget without violating agreements with the Federal Transit Administration and CTA contractors, Carter said. "If I use the capital money for operations, I either have to shut down the capital projects under way or wait to get sued," Carter said.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Chicago -- Perhaps Wendell Cox has a point about contracting out bus service in Chicago ("CTA: Chicago's unsustainable transit system hurts taxpayers," Commentary, Oct. 6). This does not mean, however, that the Chicago Transit Authority should be forced to cut service in order to meet an inequitable funding scheme imposed by the state.

Cox tries to link CTA management to the 20-year trend of declining ridership, but its real cause lies in the evaporation of federal mass-transit funding coupled with the continued proliferation of suburban sprawl, which discourages transit use. It is not the CTA's fault that our regional leadership continues to subsidize low-density development at the expense of more efficient alternatives.

The fact that our road agencies have made no attempt to contract out our expressways further underscores the political situation the CTA cannot control. Neither the Illinois Department of Transportation nor the CTA can simply ignore the voice of their unions, who have a say in this as well.

Cutting CTA service under the current budget system will only serve to entrench the cycle of lower ridership and, in turn, lowered funding.

The funding system must change. We cannot cut service to our residents, to many with no alternatives, just to prove a point. Cutting service is the unsustainable option.
Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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I have been following the Chicago Transit Authority budget battle stories over the last few weeks. The letter to the editor from Carole Brown, chairman of the Chicago Transit Board and a director with the Regional Transportation Authority, ("Make regional transportation more efficient," Voice of the people, Oct. 7) provided this interesting piece of information: "CTA provides 81 percent of the region's transit trips, including more suburban trips than Metra or Pace, but gets just 59 percent of the funding." Having lived in the city for several years and then moving to Evanston and then to Mt. Prospect, I have found the CTA has always done a great job and served a lot of riders. Pace, however, seems to always be running suburban routes without many, if any, riders.

It seems obvious: Give the CTA some of the Pace money.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Elmhurst -- My assignments involve riding the Chicago Transit Authority. With a transfer I can have three rides. If finances permit, I can buy a 30-day pass and ride all day.

My favorite bus is the No. 151. We ride past the ever-changing Lake Michigan and many beautiful flower gardens. If I wish, I can get off to visit Lincoln Park Conservatory, the nature museum or even the zoo. Normally I continue north to the Uptown Area.

On another day I can take the Red Line or the Green Line to 55th Street and sometimes even farther south.

I can call on friends at various hospitals on any day. Throughout the day I can visit libraries, coffeehouses and other organizations.

In cold weather the buses and trains are heated; in warm weather they are air-conditioned.

I am a senior citizen using a cane. Very often young people offer me a seat when the bus is crowded.

Why not save money, gasoline and jangled nerves by riding the CTA?

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Chicago -- Chicago Transit Authority President Frank Kruesi said that unless the CTA receives $82.5 million from the State of Illinois, he will be forced to severely cut services (Metro, Oct. 5).

I think that it is a shame that the CTA relied too heavily on federal funding for years. And when that funding failed, the CTA was left without a safety net. Kruesi is now scrambling like crazy trying to create a safety net in Springfield. Personally I think that part of the solution is the CTA needs to raise fares, and raise them soon. The current rate of $1.75 for one ride and 25 cents for up to two transfers is a steal. The rate of $75 for a monthly pass is also a steal. I, for one, as a user of the monthly pass, would gladly pay $2 for one ride and 50 cents for up to two transfers, or $100 for a monthly pass.

Anyone who complains that these prices are too high should try to take a taxicab from downtown to O'Hare International Airport.

Or to Wrigley Field.
Or to Chinatown.
Or to Evanston.
Or to just about anywhere else, for that matter.

You would be hard-pressed to take a taxi more than a couple of blocks for $2 in the city.m When faced with a choice of higher fares or losing service, there is
only one answer: Pay the higher fares. Riders of the CTA can scream and holler that they don't want rates to go up. But how loudly will these same people scream and holler when the CTA is forced to make drastic cuts in service because these same riders were unwilling to pitch in a little extra money to help save the CTA?

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Chicago -- I am writing regarding the proposed cuts to Chicago Transit Authority service, which would include the elimination of up to 30 bus routes, eliminate overnight service on the Red and Blue Lines and significantly cut service on the Brown and Orange lines, as described in the Chicago Tribune article "CTA's cuts seek to share suffering; 30 bus routes would be eliminated" (Metro, Oct. 2). Drastic cuts to CTA service will cause a transportation nightmare in the city of Chicago.

Decreased public transportation will force some people to use their cars. This will result in an increase in commuter time, aggravation, less available parking and all of the environmental effects of car exhaust, congesting the Chicago streets and the Chicago air to greater degrees.

For those who do not have a car, cutbacks will be disastrous. This also will increase commuter time, as well as limit the opportunities of travel--especially to those who may have physical handicaps.

In addition, how does Chicago expect to revitalize some of its neighborhoods without reliable and efficient public transportation?

I suggest that the CTA (and all those working with and funding the CTA) consider the importance of public transportation in our city, and the consequences that severe cutbacks will have to all commuters.

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Chicago -- I have an idea on how the CTA can increase revenue: Although I see a few advertisements on buses and "L" train cars, they could do so much more advertising to earn some cash. Some say that looking at train cars with perfume or fast-food ads would be unsightly.

I say that I would rather stare at the ads in the coming freezing weather than be left out in the cold with the CTA's proposed budget cuts.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Chicago -- Reliable, high-quality public transit service in Chicago is vital to the city's health and its economic role in Illinois and the nation. Slashing CTA service to the bare-bones levelwill affect a majority of the people who live or work in the city. Many city residents choose where they live by the availability of public transit. Thousands live without cars by using public transit, reducing traffic and pollution on our streets, as well as the number of parking spaces needed to accommodate all of those cars.

With decreased transit service, second- and third-shift workers in many areas may have no way to get to work. Senior citizens and others who do not own cars or cannot afford them will have fewer transportation options.

Businesses will face increased difficulty in getting all the workers they need, creating a less favorable climate for these businesses to remain in the city. Car-owning residents and workers may drive more, adding to the congestion and road rage that have increased in recent years. Many bicyclists who ride for transportation may ride more to avoid overcrowded buses and trains or reach areas no longer served by public transit. Worsening traffic congestion and road rage could make conditions more hazardous for those bicyclists.

Elimination of bus routes serving local business districts may devastate businesses whose patrons depend on buses. Improvements in public transit service in the last five years have contributed to the ongoing real estate revival of many neighborhoods. Killing that transit service could have an adverse effect on property values, subsequently eroding the city's property tax base.

The impact of these cuts would be deepest on poor and middle-income people who can afford it the least, many of whom already suffer from unemployment or underemployment in the current economy. Service cuts at the extreme level proposed could begin a downward spiral that could make the city much less attractive to businesses and individuals who may consider moving here.

I urge our elected officials to work together to develop funding options to avert this disaster in the making. The future of our city depends upon it.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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By Virginia Groark - Tribune staff reporter - October 8, 2004

Tired of the Chicago Transit Authority's clamoring about funding shortages, a regional transportation official said Tuesday the agency needs to explore "creative" alternatives like leasing bus lines and transit stations before it talks about service cuts.

Such proposals may not raise the $82 million the CTA says it needs to maintain service next year, but "they certainly would make a dent on it," said Donald Totten, a Republican representing suburban Cook County on the Regional Transportation Authority board.

"And you would find much more support for what the CTA would do if they would start thinking about some of these things rather than coming back with the same `Raise fares, raise taxes, cut services' cry," he said.

Totten's remarks, which came during and after an RTA board meeting, underscore a skepticism among some suburban officials about the CTA's budget woes. CTA officials have threatened massive service cuts next year unless state funding is increased.

On Tuesday, heads of the five collar counties issued a position paper that refuted several claims the CTA has made while trying to build support to send it more state transportation dollars and change the region's transit funding formula.The CTA is reviewing its advertising contract and hiring a consultant to analyze staffing levels, but labor contracts prevent the agency from heeding some of Totten's other recommendations, said CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown, who is a RTA board member. "It's a lot easier to come up with suggestions in a vacuum," she said. "The reality is that we've got collective bargaining agreements that make it difficult to do something like privatize our bus lines."

Totten's comments were prompted by Brown's introduction of a resolution that calls for the RTA to seek legislative support to change the RTA Act, among other things. That law outlines the funding formula that distributes transit dollars to CTA, Pace and Metra. The CTA board approved a similar resolution last month. Brown, supported by the four Chicago RTA board members, hopes the resolution, or a version of it, will be voted on at the November board meeting, which falls days before the legislature's veto session.

"I appreciate my colleague's discussion about creative funding, about us being more prudent financially," Brown said. "But the reality is that the subsidies to the CTA have eroded over time, and we think it's reasonable after 20 years to ask the General Assembly to take a look at it." Totten, however, said he would not support the resolution as is, saying its "thrust" is to change the funding formula. "A redirection of the formula is not up for discussion," he said. Thursday's discussion comes about a week before a new special House committee on mass transit holds the first of at least two hearings on the RTA, changes in governance of Pace, Metra, CTA and RTA and the funding formula.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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By Jon Hilkevitch and Virginia Groark - Tribune staff reporters - October 6, 2004

The CTA has failed to make a strong case for more state money, and the legislature should not rush to change the region's transit-funding formula, a "suburban response" from five collar counties said Tuesday.

The top elected officials of DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will Counties fired back at what they perceive as the Chicago Transit Authority's attempt to raid public transit funds earmarked for suburban areas that have a larger population and their own transit challenges.

The reaction came one day after CTA President Frank Kruesi released a 2005 budget proposal that threatens to severely reduce CTA bus and rail service if the General Assembly does not increase funding for the agency by $82.5 million during the veto session next month.

In a position paper titled "Real Transportation Answers/The Suburban Perspective," the counties called for an audit of the CTA's books, questioning whether the agency is responsibly spending the public funds it receives.

"The CTA has not adequately streamlined [its] operations, boasting the highest-paying positions in public service in Illinois, a $93 million [new headquarters] and millions of dollars to support its executive-office operations," the position paper said. It also pointed out that the CTA has raised fares less often than Pace or Metra. "The CTA is very important to the region, and we want to make sure it operates as well as it can. But the CTA's approach is to cry crisis and then look for the General Assembly to fix that," said DuPage County Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom.

Schillerstrom said government agencies must look at public transportation from a regional point of view, a position also voiced but too infrequently acted on by the CTA, Metra, Pace and their parent agency, the Regional Transportation Authority. The RTA and many leaders in the collar counties strongly opposed the effort by Kruesi and CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown to ask the legislature to reopen the 1983 RTA Act, which set funding levels for the three transit agencies. They said the existing system has produced 20 years of financial stability, while the CTA contended the formula is outdated and is increasingly shifting sales-tax revenue to Metra.

"The system does have problems, but our concern is that shortfalls at the CTA don't affect the other providers," said McHenry County Board Chairman Michael Tryon. "In the end, a problem with the CTA doesn't necessarily mean that wholesale changes need to be made to the entire system," he said. Tryon also questioned why the CTA has not taken up the RTA's suggestion to use capital-improvement dollars to ease a projected $77 million deficit in next year's CTA operating budget.

"They aren't without options," Tryon said. CTA officials have said such a move would delay needed expansion projects and wouldn't fix what they called a structural problem in the region's transit funding. CTA officials declined to offer a point-by-point rebuttal of the county chairmen's five-page position paper, but an agency spokeswoman said the critical issue is funding for the entire region.

"This is not about the CTA, the city versus the suburbs or collar counties versus Cook County. It is about congestion and pollution and the impact of not having adequate funding for a transit system and the impact that can have on the region," said CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney.

She pointed out that the RTA Board, at the CTA's request, set higher funding levels for the CTA, Metra and Pace on the condition that the General Assembly appropriate the money. "Even the RTA has recognized there is not an adequate level of funding for transit," Gaffney said.

Lake County Board Chairman Suzi Schmidt said it is important that the collar counties have an equal voice.

"This is a huge issue for everybody, and it doesn't need to be rushed along in the veto session," Schmidt said. She said Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has appointed a committee to hold hearings on transit funding this month and that a move may be afoot in the legislature to revamp the RTA Act during the November veto session.

"We are well aware that they are going to be pushing something. We don't want to be left out in the cold," she said.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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By Wendell Cox. Wendell Cox is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, principal of the Belleville, Ill.-based Wendell Cox Consultancy, an international public policy firm and specializes in urban

October 6, 2004

Anti-car environmentalist groups regularly denounce the automobile-based urban mobility system that prevails in Western Europe and North America. They say automobility is "unsustainable." But in Chicago, unsustainable urban transport bears the logo of the Chicago Transit Authority--CTA. The CTA, as we know it, is fiscally unsustainable, and proof can be found in budget crises that have plagued the system for decades.

Now the transit agency wants even more money from the state. The agency has threatened that service will be cut, even during peak periods, if Springfield does not require Illinois taxpayers from Cairo to Rockford to subsidize Chicago-area transit riders even more than they do.

The CTA is not exactly running out of money ... but it is on its way to running out of passengers. Over the past 20 years, the CTA has lost more than one-quarter of its ridership. As a result, the public subsidy per rider has risen at least 20 percent, after adjustment for inflation. If the CTA had kept its subsidy per passenger within inflation, it would be spending approximately $100 million less per year today.

Why should taxpayers be required to pay more for less? Just as important, why should taxpayers pay more than necessary? And they surely are at the CTA.

In 1998, my colleagues and I produced a study for the Metropolitan Transit Association estimating what could be saved if the CTA began competitively contracting bus service to the private sector. This would involve private carriers using CTA buses to operate some routes; the fare and transfer system would continue and be guaranteed by the CTA.

Contracting out is commonplace around the world. Virtually all of London's famous red-bus transit system is competitively contracted. As a result, inflation-adjusted costs per mile in that system are down about 50 percent from 20 years ago. Copenhagen contracts all of its bus service, while Stockholm contracts all of its bus and rail service. In Australia, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide contract all of their subsidized service, as do all urban areas in New Zealand.

In the U.S., competitive contracting has been implemented for bus systems from the Washington area to Los Angeles and places in between. In every case, cost savings have been substantial. And, in each of these places, the principal justification for conversion to competitive contracting was a recognition that transit agencies were financially unsustainable as they were organized. The problem is monopoly. We know from simple economics that monopoly results in higher costs because customers have no choice and thus providers have no incentive to keep costs low. And we know from experience--worldwide and across the U.S.--that there is no reason for transit service to be produced by a monopoly.

Only when the CTA is reorganized to take advantage of competition will it become financially sustainable.

Soon after we submitted our study, the Regional Transit Authority, which oversees the CTA's budget, conducted a conference featuring competitive contracting experts from around the world. What has been the result? Nothing--except CTA begging for even more in taxes. If our recommendations had been implemented then, cost savings would have been at least $400 million by this time, and the CTA's $77 million 2005 budget deficit would have instead been a substantial budget surplus. Our proposal would have required no CTA layoffs, as the conversion could have taken place within the rate of employee retirements and resignations.

What Chicago transit riders need is not more money from Springfield, but more accountability from the CTA. The money that the CTA needs to preserve service levels is in its coffers today. The journey from unsustainable to sustainable begins with putting riders and taxpayers first.

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Agency calls for $82.5 million state bailout

By Jon Hilkevitch and Glenn Jeffers - Tribune staff reporters - October 5, 2004

More than one-fifth of bus and rail operations would be scrapped and customers would have to wait longer and walk farther for their rides under a "gridlock budget" the Chicago Transit Authority reluctantly proposed Monday.

Demands for the resumption of weekend trains on the Blue Line serving Pilsen, Lawndale and other West Side neighborhoods would continue to be unmet under the hardship budget.

And disabled riders in need of special-service vehicles would see transportation costs double to $150 a month, even if state lawmakers find the $82.5 million CTA President Frank Kruesi said is essential to close a budget gap and avoid "eviscerating the system."

"This is not a threat. This is a fact of life," Kruesi said at CTA headquarters, where he released two budget proposals. The one that will be enacted depends on General Assembly action during November's fall veto session.

Kruesi's preferred "regional mobility budget" envisions spending $1.02 billion on operations next year and includes service improvements such as restoration of weekend service on the Cermak branch of the Blue Line. The "gridlock budget" totals $911.7 million. It includes $55 million in service cuts that would result in an annual loss of 34 million rides, said Dennis Anosike, CTA vice president of finance. That would be the equivalent of half of Metra's rides, or Pace's entire yearly ridership.

Anosike said rising employee health-care and pension costs and increasing expenses for fuel, security and paratransit services were the primary causes of a $77 million deficit in the summer. Regardless of whether a state bailout occurs, a monthly pass for paratransit disabled customers will double on Jan. 2 to $150 from $75, CTA officials announced. Paratransit costs are spiraling out of control, costing the agency an average of $26 per trip, officials said.

In 2003 the CTA provided 1.9 million paratransit rides, which offer curb-to-curb service, and paratransit costs are expected to total $45 million this year.

Single rides will increase next year to $3.50 from $1.75 for disabled people who use the CTA's Mobility Direct, Taxi Access Program or Special Services vans.

"It's going to be a strain on me financially," said Ayonna Collins, 31, who uses the paratransit service five days a week to travel from her Rogers Park home to work as an advocate at the Progress Center for Independent Living in Forest Park.

"But what really worries me are the fixed-income people who will be forced to choose between going to the doctor or to the grocery store," said Collins, who has cerebral palsy. "I wish the CTA would take that into account." Also regardless of which budget passes, fares for the University Pass used by college students will increase 10 cents per day, to 70 cents. On the CTA's regular services, 30 bus routes would be eliminated on weekdays and 21 on weekends, and service would be curtailed on many other routes. The agency also would eliminate late-night and early-morning service on rapid-transit lines.

In addition, customers would walk farther to reach a bus stop or elevated-train station, and frequency of service would be reduced, officials said.

Jeremy D'Souza, a DePaul University junior studying computer science downtown, said the threatened service cuts along with the fare increase on the CTA U-Pass card were too much of a burden. "I think the CTA is a little overstaffed, as opposed to the problem being government funding," said D'Souza, 19.

Despite Kruesi's contention that he was simply laying out the facts so lawmakers would take the situation seriously, transit activists whose communities have been hit hard by recent CTA decisions said they interpret Kruesi's willingness to cut service as alarming.

"It's very frustrating [Kruesi] has taken this approach, instead of asking the community to work with him," said Maurice Redd, executive director of the Lawndale Neighborhood Organization. "The CTA has known for years there is a funding problem. Why is it now coming to a point where the riders are being hijacked?"

CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown appeared less confident than Kruesi that lawmakers would act in the November veto session. "We've got no indication yet what the General Assembly will do," Brown said.

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The Chicago Transit Authority on Monday released two budget proposals for 2005. One anticipates $82.5 million in new state funding to close the looming deficit, and the other eliminates or reduces service on almost 100 bus routes and ends late-night rail service.

PROPOSED BUDGETS FOR 2005
In millions
EXPENSES WITH FUNDING WITHOUR FUNDING DIFFERENCE
Labor: $729.5 $646.4 $83.1
Material $65.3 $59.7 $5.6
Fuel $35.1 $27.5 $7.6
Power $24.5 $24.2 $0.4
Provision for $35.0 $19.0 $16.0
injuries/damages
Purchase of security services $34.8 $34.8 0
Purchase of paratransit $52.5 $52.5 0
Other $47.6 $47.6 0
Total $1,024.4 $911.7 $112.7

REVENUES
System-generated revenues $500.2 $470.1 $30.2
Public funding through RTA $524.1 $441.6 $82.5
Total $1,024.4 $911.7 $112.7

Note: Numbers may not add to totals due to rounding.
Source: Chicago Transit Authority
Chicago Tribune.

Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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One-fifth of Chicago's bus routes would be eliminated, all-night train service would end and fares for disabled persons would rise sharply if the state legislature fails to provide $82.5 million more to the CTA next year, officials of the transit agency warned today. "We have a choice. It is a stark one," CTA President Frank Kruesi said. Kruesi warned that mobility throughout the region would be compromised if the agency were forced to pass its proposed "Gridlock Budget" because of a funding shortfall.

"This is not a threat. This is a fact of life," he said. "The scary thing is that looking forward, it gets worse. It gets much worse." On top of $55 million in service cuts in 2005, the CTA's hardship budget -- which assumes no increases in state subsidies -- anticipates reductions of $34 million in the 2006 operating budget and $10 million in 2007. To plug the budget gap that would result next year if Springfield refuses to increase the CTA's annual funding, officials said they would eliminate 30 bus routes, end weekend service on 21 routes and shorten 9 routes. Among them:

- No. 11 Lincoln Avenue and No. 64 Foster/Canfield on the North and
Northwest Sides.
- Nos. 122 and 123 commuter shuttles from Metra rail stations to
Illinois Center downtown.
- No. 100 Jeffery Manor Express and No. 62H Archer/Harlem on the
South and Southwest Sides.

The agency also would curtail hours of operation on rapid transit lines. For example, service would cease entirely between 1 and 4 a.m. on the CTA Red and Blue Lines. The Brown and Orange Lines, which do not have all-night service, would see their last trains run at 10 p.m. as opposed to well past midnight currently. Equipment in service at any given time also would be reduced, resulting in longer waits for buses and trains, officials said.

Fares for paratransit -- taxi access and curb-to-curb service for the disabled -- would increase to $3.50 from $1.75 per ride; the cost of a monthly paratransit pass would double to $150 from $75.

Fares for the discounted University Pass (U-Pass) would increase 10 cents a day, to 70 cents, and parking fees would go up to $2.

Other fares would remain unaffected.

Kruesi previously has said the CTA suffered for most of the last 20 years under a state transit subsidy formula that provided declining amounts of funding. The formula, based in part on sales tax revenue collected in the six-county region, has tilted too much in Metra's favor, he contends.

He has called on the General Assembly to restructure the formula by yearend. But the proposal will likely face difficulty because of the state's financial problems and skepticism over whether the CTA has done everything it can to reduce costs.

Officials said $22 million in cuts are planned for 2005 even if the state offers a bailout.

CTA Chairman Carole Brown said she supported Kruesi's recommendations and agreed the transit funding formula for the region needs restructuring. But Brown appeared less optimistic than Kruesi that the General Assembly would act in the November veto session.

"We've got no indication yet what the General Assembly will do," Brown said. "The CTA must operate a system it can afford. If the General Assembly fails to act, it leaves us with no other choice (except cut service)."

More information about the proposed budget and service cuts are available on the CTA's Web site. The CTA regional funding briefing can be viewed at keepchicagolandmoving.com.

The CTA also has posted a list of bus routes and rail lines subject to service reductions.

Public hearings on the budget are scheduled for later this month.

- 6:30 p.m. Oct. 14, Roberto Clemente High School, 1147 N. Western Ave.
- 6:30 p.m. Oct. 19, Chicago State University -- Jacoby Dickens
Athletic Center, 9501 S. King Dr.
- 6:30 p.m. Oct. 25, Evanston Township High School -- Bacon
Cafeteria, 1600 Dodge Ave.
- 4 p.m. Oct. 27, Palmer House Hilton, 17 E. Monroe St.
Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Top staff grows despite threats of service cuts
By Jon Hilkevitch, Tribune transportation reporter. Tribune staff reporter Thomas A. Corfman contributed to this report
October 4, 2004

Read an update of this story.

Administrative jobs more than doubled during the first five years of Frank Kruesi's leadership of the Chicago Transit Authority--which on Monday will announce details of a contingency plan to cut service and lay off bus drivers and train crews to reel in a 2005 budget deficit.

The number of employees working desk jobs at the CTA, a traditional enclave for City Hall patronage, swelled after Mayor Richard Daley chose Kruesi, a longtime Daley political confidant, to become president of the transit agency in late 1997.

CTA administrative jobs were cut by former agency president David Mosena, from 817 positions in 1996 to 722 positions in 1997, according to the National Transit Database, which is the clearinghouse for information transit agencies nationwide must report to the Federal Transit Administration. Transit agencies are required to provide an assortment of statistics to the federal transit agency to receive funding.

But in 1998 under Kruesi's tenure, general administration positions rose to 797 jobs from 722 such positions in 1997, according to the federal database. The rapid growth in the administrative-job category continued, increasing to 913 jobs in 1999, 954 jobs in 2000, 1,369 jobs in 2001 and 1,495 jobs in 2002, the last year for which the database reported statistics.

The increase in administrative jobs outpaced the overall growth of the workforce in the same period, the federal database shows.

CTA officials said they have cut 446 of those administrative jobs in the last two years and plan to slash an additional 200 in 2005. The agency also plans to hire an outside consultant to analyze agency operations, identify waste and recommend where more job cuts can be made.

But the federal data show the CTA needs to become more efficient, said Jacqueline Leavy, executive director of the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, a civic watchdog

"The CTA must start showing they have self-help measures," Leavy said. "There are so many creative ways to increase revenue. But Frank [Kruesi] insists, `Either you are with us in favor of more state funding, or you are against us and you support service cuts.' The world is a bit more complex than that." The sharp increase in administrative jobs under Kruesi and the discussion of budget cuts come as the agency on Monday opens to the public its new headquarters on 567 W. Lake St. in the Loop. CTA officials say the deal it struck with developer Fifield Companies-- made two years ago, when the agency did not face a fiscal crisis--is cost-effective, despite features that include Atlantic blue granite floors. The Federal Transit Administration's data on the number of administrative jobs, which the CTA supplied, do not reflect an accurate head count or the efficiencies made during Kruesi's presidency, CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said.

"In my group alone, there have been times we added positions, directly related to service improvements or our invigorated capital program, and there have been times we reduced positions," said Dorval Carter Jr., CTA executive vice president of management and performance. "But the overall number [of the total administrative and non-administrative workforce] has gone down" as of this year. The total number of positions will drop to 10,980 by the end of 2005, according to Dennis Anosike, the CTA's vice president of finance. According to the transit database, the CTA had 11,409 positions in 2002, the last year for which figures were available.

But Carter and Anosike acknowledged some of those positions have been vacant for some time. Eliminating them does not represent a savings in costs in cases where no jobs were eliminated. Kruesi has recently tried to reverse the tide in light of mounting red ink at the agency. A chart contained in briefing papers that the CTA provided last week to Chicago aldermen in preparation for Monday's budget announcement showed $95 million in workforce reductions since 1997.

But officials at the Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the CTA's budget, said the purported labor savings cannot be verified from the documents the CTA provided. Kruesi is warning that drastic service cuts lie ahead next year if the state does not increase the CTA's subsidy. But critics say Kruesi is obsessed with creating a personal legacy by introducing mega-projects like his billion-dollar-plus Circle Line rail service and building a new headquarters instead of focusing on fundamental transit needs.

"The CTA needs to go to Springfield with something more than seeking a handout, even though we realize the importance of revisiting how the state's transit funding formula works," said Leavy, the head of the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group. On Monday, Kruesi will release two proposed CTA budgets for 2005: one that anticipates $82.5 million in new state funding and modest service improvements to close the looming deficit, and a second "bad news" budget that eliminates or reduces service on almost 100 bus routes and ends late-night rail service on the Red, Blue, Brown and Orange Lines. During the roller-coaster staffing levels for administrative employees at the CTA under Kruesi, the number of bus and rail operators has increased. Kruesi boosted vehicle-operations jobs from 5,799 in 1998 to 6,764 in 2002, the federal records show. The head counts of CTA employees assigned to vehicle maintenance declined from 1,982 positions in 1998 to 1,855 positions in 2002. Non-vehicle maintenance jobs, including such duties as track and signal work, also fell from 1,345 positions in 1998 to 1,294 positions in 2002.

Meanwhile, the CTA's move to its own building, when completed in November, will end more than 50 years of the transit agency leasing offices in the Merchandise Mart, the hulking riverfront structure owned by the Kennedy family until 1998. The CTA board and the Chicago Public Building Commission approved a bond issue of $119 million to build the new CTA headquarters in 2002 after Kruesi's multiyear financial outlook for the agency projected fiscal stability in 2005--despite signs the CTA was headed toward fare increases and possible cuts in service. The CTA's base fare increased 25 cents, to $1.75, on Jan. 1, and up to 20 percent of service could be cut next year to help close a $77 million projected deficit, officials said.

The forecast of balanced budgets at the CTA through 2005 appeared in the Public Building Commission's document offering the bonds for sale in March 2003. "By implementing a cost containment strategy, as well as conducting special route studies, CTA was able to reduce operating expenses and improve operational efficiencies to ensure that CTA achieves a balanced budget," the document said.

Although the projections have proved inaccurate, CTA officials say owning the Lake Street property rather than renting space will save the agency $7.7 million a year over 15 years.

Renewing the lease on its Merchandise Mart offices and remodeling the dilapidated space would cost $10.2 million a year, according to a financial summary conducted by a CTA contractor. The deal on the new building at Lake Street came in at $2.5 million a year, the least expensive of five options considered, the summary showed.
Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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Years ago the Chicago Transit Authority advertised for riders with the slogan, "Why drive and cuss; ride the bus." But based on what more than 200 readers had to say when solicited by the Tribune say about their fellow commuters on the CTA and Metra rail lines, they frequently cuss other riders for being rude, inconsiderate or inappropriate. Even reading a newspaper ticks off others if it encroaches on their territory.

A CTA Blue Line rider from Jefferson Park gets so irked by newspaper readers who congregate around the exits with arms spread wide that she suggests, "If they are blocking the doors, they should be shot."