Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Train wreck
Posted by Harold Henderson on Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 7:24 AM
The business-based Civic Federation (PDF) on Illinois state legislators' ongoing carnival of errors:
"The state has provided short-term funding at the last minute to ward off 'doomsday' dates the CTA responsibly planned for.... The reprieves first borrowed from the agency's future state funding and then granted federal capital dollars to be used for operations."
Better than nothing, right? Wrong:
"Granting temporary funding at the eleventh hour is not only unfair to riders, who suffer uncertainty about getting to work and school, but also costs a good deal of money to the CTA. The agency has to reprogram its fleet and stations in preparation for new fare structures, reorganize its bus system, and place signage to warn riders. The CTA estimates that each 'doomsday' preparation costs $1.5 million."
BTW, "a new bus costs $250,000 and a new rail car costs $1.5 million."
(The Federation supports Julie Hamos's Senate Bill 572, which combines long-term funding and reforms.)
Comments (7)
Showing 1-7 of 7
That sounds like more crap from the CTA. $1.5 million every time? I doubt it. My guess is that some of the multitude of workers they have at HQ had to actually do some work and that is all. Every time you hear somebody say "This cost us so many dollars", you have to ask them to break it out. How much is in salaries? Would you have been paying these people anyway? If it actually did cost $1.5 million over and above usual operating and salary costs, the CTA is a bigger screw up than even I thought.
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Fair question. I figured CF was less likely than most to parrot the CTA line. Still, even if it's "merely" the cost of a new bus, this is no way to run a railroad.
It sounds like a CTA-generated number, and should, accordingly be viewed with skepticsm if not outright scorn. What it probably means is that the CTA has to gear up for another round of whining and crying poor, and event that seems likely to haoppen in about a year even if the Hamos bill becomes law. Sounds like a lobbying cost to me.
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