We know that real time information is important to our riders. The new e-paper screens we are piloting allow riders to check bus arrival times without using their personal devices.

reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1pn8gay/heres_who_to_blame_for_your_property_tax_increase/

Statement from the RTA: "The passage of SB2111 is a landmark moment for public transit in Illinois."

Read the full statement here or below. www.rtachicago.org/about-rta/pr...

An analysis of the first 2 months of New York City's congestion pricing policy shows that road speeds increased and emissions decreased inside and out of the congestion zone, from Cook, Kreidieh, Vasserman, Allcott, Arora, van Sambeek, Tomkins, and Turkel https://www.nber.org/papers/w33584

I think we agree on most if not all of that, but I’d add that the MMA goes too far in the other direction. I think (and certainly hope) that both the labor bill and the MMA are starting points for negotiation and the final product should probably be somewhere in the middle.

How do you think we avoid a “suburban takeover”? The way the MMA legislation is currently structured seems to open that as a possibility…I’m personally in favor of an RTA that has much broader authority over capital improvement, with service boards handling service

Agreed, though I’d argue that the CTA and mayor have done enough damage to the city’s standing in Springfield that it might be a moot point. Any new revenue will be a huge lift right now, but especially if there’s a perception it’s funding the CTA’s/Mayor’s mismanagement.

Definitely agree with your last point there. I also think your first points require lots of contextualization. I guess my general point (and I’m sure you agree) is that political considerations and system needs are frequently at odds, which leads to underfunding and funding distortions

Didn’t mean to suggest that at all, we should be increasing funding to all transit agencies, but I do think it’s irrefutable that suburban transit is better off than the CTA is, largely because of mismanagement, but in part because the CTA is more underfunded relative to need/ridership than Metra is

I agree with the point, but I think the rhetoric around it is supposed to be a reminder that the current funding formula is broken, not necessarily a suggestion that 80% of the rides should = 80% of the public funding. We should fund transit according to need, not by geographic sales tax revenue.

8 alders have endorsed #RCVforChicago to put a ranked choice voting referendum on Chicago's March 2026 primary. RCV would give Chicagoans more choices and a better election system for the 2027 mayoral race.
FairVoteIllinois.org/Chicago

#RankedChoiceVoting #Chicago #Illinois #ChicagoIllinois

And this whole argument is made even weaker by the massive property tax breaks being given by the city/state law to projects that have the quantity of affordable housing already required by ordinance.

You can make other normative arguments about the virtues of density, but claiming that we are solving Chicago’s budget issues by allowing new high-density apartment buildings seems like a huge stretch and ignores the root causes of the structural deficit.

In fact, some research has indicated that public spending per capita INCREASES with population (or at the very least levels off) when you reach a certain density (essentially diseconomies of scale).

A thought: I don’t understand the claim that building dense apartment buildings would somehow solve the city’s financial problems because of the property tax revenue they would generate. That tax money helps pay for services provided for the residents who live in those buildings.