Riders on Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses could be faced with service cuts and a fare hike as the transit agency faces yet another budget crisis.You might notice if there is news about the CTA's financial condition they always throw in the whole free rides for seniors thing. That was a part of the bailout passed by the state General Assembly earlier this year.
As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, the renovated Brown Line opened earlier this spring, with several beautiful new stations, and what is expected to be a better flow for traffic and trains that can handle more passengers.
But now, the CTA is talking about a $66 million budget hole, caused partially by giving free rides to seniors.
The agency expects to lose money in 2009, even though ridership is way up.
Last week, the CTA reported that high gas prices and a poor economy have driven ridership on the CTA up 5.3 percent compared with last year. For the month of August, ridership was up 9.5 percent compared with a year earlier.
"In hard numbers, that means that 1.9 million more bus rides and 808,000 more train rides were taken this August, compared to last August," the CTA said in a news release on Thursday.
But those prices hurt the CTA, along with lost tax revenue and labor costs. The CTA already cut staff, and now a fare increase is a possibility.
ADDITION: The Capitol Fax blog has more about the financial situation at CTA.
They should always mention the free rides mandate, since it came without any additional funding! On the same note, why did the City Council think it was OK to mandate free rides for disabled low-income people, without funding the mandate? I'm all in favor of free rides for those that need them, but our politicians need to be honest that these things cost money, and they need to clearly identify where that money is supposed to come from!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I'm still having problems with your captcha (the window that pops up to verify that I'm not a spambot). Bet you'd get more comments if that didn't come up with the image missing so frequently!