Tuesday, October 05, 2004
CTA: Take it, don't buy it... If you've been reading the Tribune or Sun-Times, you already know the CTA is threatening major cuts in service if the General Assembly doesn't earmark extra funding for mass transit.
Whether or not they are serious, it's not because of the evildoers in Democratically-controlled Springfield or the evildoers in Republican-controlled Washington. It's about choices.
Choices about whether to add layer after layer of bureacracy instead of focusing on service; choices about whether to invest in large capital projects or new equipment when existing equipment needs to be maintained; choices about whether to open bidding to the lowest bidder or to the lowest minority bidder; choices about whether to continue its procurement process as is or to start soliciting bids using an expensive and bulky procurement system run by the American Public Transit Association which costs the CTA more than a million dollars and costs vendors money per year and per sale.
Mass transit funding needs to focus on operating, not capital expenses. A bus should last an agency a minimum of 20 years, not seven. Agencies should have an incentive to be self-sustaining. Governments should aspire to have a transit agency that they could sell to private investors, who would be more than willing to continue running it as is (or even expand service for the promise of more profit!).
Make this service a tax-payer not a tax-eater. (Ironically, California's transit agencies are both; they are not exempt from state sales taxes or fuel taxes, but receive considerable subsidies disproportionate to the mass transit riders there).
But don't send out your bus drivers on their routes lobbying for more state funding.
