The Chicago Tribune’s Richard Wronski reports on a collective failure by both the Chicago Transit Authority and the Illinois state legislature to avoid a “doomsday” scenario for mass transit in the Chicago region. Back in Jan. 2008, during the halcyon days of the Rod Blagojevich gubernatorial administration, Blagojevich and the Illinois General Assembly decided that the majority of funding for Chicago-area mass transit should come from sales tax revenue. However, thanks to the recession, there is about $300 million less revenue than state lawmakers anticipated to run the CTA, which roughly has a $1.5 billion annual budget.

This week the general assembly had a chance to bailout CTA, averting hundreds of transit employee layoffs, a cut in bus services, as well as a fare hike from $2.25 on buses and trains to $3. But the general assembly didn’t do a thing and will now recess until January, meaning CTA will likely have to make its doomsday budget scenario a reality.The general assembly’s utter lack of urgency is revealed in not passing a bill to repeal free rides to seniors. These free rides to all people over 65, regardless of income and disability status, cost CTA $17 million-a-year. So ending them wouldn’t be that significant, but it would be a move to make mass transit a little more affordable for everyone.

The general assembly has spent the year doing absolutely nothing on important issues (see failure to pass post-Blago ethics reform and failure to write a truly balanced budget), citing concerns that the act of actual decision-making might not play well in the primaries (which are this February). The CTA, though, also deserves some blame. CTA President Richard Rodriguez says he does an uber-efficient job and that the transit authority’s woes are just due to the recession. However, it was the CTA that agreed in Jan. 2008 to tie the majority of their revenue to the economy-dependent sales tax (part of their revenue also now comes from the — gulp — real-estate transfer tax). CTA claims no one could have anticipated the recession — but the recession had actually started in December 2007, a month earlier.

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