CTA

CTA: The Chicago Threatening Authority (November 13, 2009)

Becky Sarwate2 Comments

cta

I seriously cannot believe the gall of these people.

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/11/cta-board-approves-budget-with-no-fare-increases-but-service-cuts.html

This is not an exact figure but I think the last few days represent roughly the 10,000th time in the last two years that the CTA has threatened a “Doomsday” scenario without the aid of some immediate cash. Of course this bloated, corrupt, inefficent and retarded agency would never once consider pulling its head out of its ass as a cost saving measure. Do they truly think anyone would pay $3 for the “privilege” of riding that rickety, undependable shit in the first place? I know the good citizens of Chicago depend, in many cases, entirely on public transportation, which only makes this continuous extortionist chain yanking the more criminal. Be that as it may people, the time is upon us when we must declare “enough! We will endure no more!”

Where I ask you, does the hard earned cash that so many of us spend on fare cards even go? Does anyone actually work for the CTA anymore? Ah yes, I remember: as the #30 South Chicago bus driver Richard W. Linn, a 25 year veteran of the outfit (word used purposely), told me, upper management is so packed with Daley patrons, there is little left in the till for full-time, trained staff. You know, the kind that actually give a shit when you have an issue and don’t just yank your 30-day pass two days early (I remain fumed about this incident at the Damen Brown Line stop)?

What I love the most about this farce is that our fine Mayor would have you believe that despite the department being named the CHICAGO Transit Authority, rather than the State of Illinois Transit Authority, the City is in no way culpable for this mess. There is nothing the King does better than blame shift, and he is ever ready to place the villain’s mantel on Governor Pat Quinn. Our highly educated leader had this to say about the two year fare freeze compromise:

“They don’t permanent fix too much in Washington, D.C. or Springfield. They don’t permanent fix it.”

Um what? I am not even going to touch upon the rampant illiteracy of that statement. It’s fish in a barrel. Getting past that however, I actually have to give Pat Quinn a small hand. The two year fare hike at the very least gives us a 24-month reprieve from any more blackmail about hitting transit riders harder than they already are. And Governor Quinn accomplished this without yanking the free ride privilege from seniors, which if I may, was one of the few things ex-Governor Blago did right. Daley and his cronies were ready to charge Granny and Gramps full price again as long as the wheels continue greasing. Sickening.

This is a rhetorical question of course, but why is the answer never to fix the way the goddamned CTA operates? This fare freeze has not silenced the agency a whit when it comes to service cuts and layoffs. I say, let the layoffs start at the top. Let’s start with Daley.

Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I Smell a Good Pout (October 22, 2009)

Becky Sarwate2 Comments

This morning, around 10 AM, I and my partner Sam were aboard the #30 CTA bus headed for the far South Side neighborhood of Hegewisch. Sam is my partner for the duration of my stint as a Field Researcher with the Chicago Office of Tourism. Initially, upon learning I was being paired with a 22 year-old male, I rolled my eyes as far back in my head as they would go. I had visions of a Viagra Triangle fraternity moron dancing in my head. Instead, to my surprise, young Sammy is the most idiosyncratic, salt and pepper graying, yoga class going, would be writer that I have ever encountered. His is a nerd supremo, rather than a randy idiot crushing beer cans against his skull. In other words, Sam and I are peas and carrots – a perfect match.

So anyway, we’re on the bus, the same one at roughly the same time that we have ridden the three days prior, while exploring East Side and Hegewisch. Our driver, a lively, witty and informed man by the name of Richard W. Linn, noticed our continued appearance on his route and struck up a conversation with Sam and I. It’s an hour’s ride from the 69th St. Red Line station where we boarded, to 135th and Brainard, where we alighted. Richard was kind enough to let us into the soon to be lost world of the salt of the earth, blue collar lifer with the CTA.

Why will this be lost? Well as Richard explains it, our terrific Mayor (and those of you who are regular readers know I mean this in NO way) has completely padded the Chicago Transit Authority with oodles of his cronies (the shock!!). Years ago, where Richard and his fellow shiftmates answered to one guy, they now owe allegiance to seven. These paper pushers mill around all day, and in order to give them something important to do, King Daley has deputized some of them with the authority to write parking tickets to violators on CTA property. That’s right. The next time you don’t pay your dollar at the Kiss N’ Ride, your fine may be issued, not be a uniformed police officer, or even a meter maid, but instead the guy who is in charge of writing the repetitive “Doomsday” press releases declaring imminent CTA death. Of course. And now we’ll pay $3 a ride to keep all these managers on the payroll. Best of all, the CTA has almost entirely stopped hiring full-time bus drivers and train conductors. This is because they can pay part-time workers half the hourly rate, without the expense of those pesky other perks like health insurance which would put a crimp in all the kickback payments. This cost saving measure might explain the higher incidence of train accidents in recent years, as high turnover and poor training, coupled with a lack of personal investment, lead to lazier job performance.

So anyway, this line of conversation was enough to get my blood boiling. The CTA clearly has its head irretrievably up its ass, compromising service to passengers while wallowing in enough graft and corruption to make Al Capone blush in his grave. I was both thrilled and appalled to be getting this insider information. Richard, a 47 year-old, 25 year veteran of the CTA with three young children, bears the King nearly as much ill will as I do. We bonded.

From these issues, the dialogue turned to some of the King’s other glaring transgressions, that to my everlasting frustration, citizens of Chicago seem to have a bottomless stomach for. How else to explain why there has never been a serious challenge mounted to set term limits or toss this a-hole?

But now we get this:

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/10/mayor-richard-daley-to-unveil-budget-this-morning.html#

I am not playing semantic games with the King. To invoke fiscal responsibility as his motivation for anything is beyond the pale. He has robbed City coffers illegally, and cancelled Venetian Night for good measure out of nothing more than power hungry, vindictive spite. I am now convinced that this man can do anything he wants. I think he could bonk midgets on the head, and trip old ladies right in the middle of the Thompson Center and no one would utter a word.

So King Daley can’t bring the Olympics to Chicago? We’ll he’ll show us and the world dammit! He’s gonna, gonna, gonna…cancel Venetian Night, a beautiful festival that everyone enjoys. Yeah, that’s the ticket – just because he can. That 1.1 billion that was supposed to sit in a reserve for the next 99 years while this shitty parking meter lease plays out, just in case we ever really need it? We’ll let’s just pull a third of that out before a year is even up. Why? Because Chicago is struggling man. Mayor Daley, if you indeed feel so emasculated by your undeniable show of international powerlessness that you must needs destroy something, please do not make it the Windy City’s financial future.

Meanwhile, crime rates are shooting through the roof in disgruntled, impoverished communities, children are killing children and the rest of us, the ones without Daley as our last name, watch OUR City slip away from our control a little more each year.

Please Chicago readers. Comments? Questions? Concerns? Anyone willing to run for Mayor this next round? Little C? Richard W. Linn?

Back in Love Again (September 23, 2009)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Ever since the start of the Brown Line reconstruction project a few years back, I have turned into a Metra snob. I live equidistant, more or less, between the Damen Ravenswood Line stop on the CTA, and the Ravenswood Metra platform of the Union Pacific North Line. I deemed the el necessary for some destinations, but wherever the Metra/Chicago Water Taxi option was available, I was doing it, particularly during rush hour. The Metra offerred a cleaner, smoother, less riff raff filled journey downtown, and I was in no mood for anything else.

But recently a funny thing has happened. My August trip to London, where I fell in love with the Tube (Underground), left me with a new appetite for the el upon my return home. This, and the awareness of a waning summer that will quickly turn into cold weather, renewed my desire to stand in the open air of the elevated train platforms and absorb the wind, re-embrace the local color and activities aboard the CTA, rediscover my roots. Time was, in the 90s, when I knew my way around the whole of Chicago on every single line. Now they have new entitites, like the Pink Line, and my former autopilot ability to change trains to get where I needed to be has gone rusty.

So in the last few weeks, I have taken the Brown, Red or both lines to Pilates class, theater performances for the Edge, job interviews, bikini waxes, and happy hours with Little C. My old Metra 10-ride pass is crinkling in my wallet with unuse, but for the moment I can’t see myself going back. I will admit my rediscovered adoration of the public train has been buoyed by the fact that I have not had to take it during rush hour. I am suspicious that the standing room only crowd, the B.O. of some of my less than fresh commuters, and the constant stops, jerks and delays might break the spell.