Understanding Government

There are several service gaps in the Chicago Transit Authority Map, the regional agency that runs Chicago’s “El” trains. But none is more glaring than the fact that the train’s last South Side station is at 95th street, while the city extends to 130th street.  City planning officials have sought since the 1960′s to extend the Red Line from 95th to 130th street and Chicago Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch writes that the project is poised to finally happen. It is CTA’s no. 1 capital improvement proposal and the city has received some of the federal money needed to conduct a nationally required environmental impact study.

Transit officials are hopeful that Congress will fully fund the 1.4 billion extension in the next five-year surface transportation bill. (more…)

The Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch reports that two federal transportation grants will come Chicago’s way, with the majority of the money helping an already transit-rich downtown. (more…)

Ray LaHood

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday that high-speed rail projects funded by the stimulus bill will get started in two weeks. The stimulus bill gave the Dept. of Transportation $8 billion to disburse in high-speed rail funding. DOT gave Illinois $1.13 billion to build a passenger service between Chicago and St. Louis.

Paul Merrion of Crain’s Chicago Business reports that the implementation of high speed rail projects has been delayed because the Obama administration put strict guidelines on freight rail companies. (more…)

The New York Times’ Michael Cooper reports that the Dept. of Transportation has severed ties with the contractor it hired to conduct the analysis of drug tests of employees regulated by the federal agency. Workplance Compliance evidently reviewed drug tests by pilots, train operators and other transportation employees without using a licensed physician to do the reviewing. This relatively minor incident of contracting-gone-bad raises the bigger issue of whether it’s really cheaper for federal agencies to farm out tasks like drug testing to the private sector. The “big government” of more government employees and fewer contractors could mean a more directly accountable government.

Hang on to your hats — Chicago’s central mass transit system is not being adequately funded. The Chicago Tribunes’ Jon Hilkevitch and Hal Dardick report that the Chicago Transit Authority needs the state government to bail them out — problem is, the state government itself needs a bailout:

The state, struggling against severe budget problems of its own, is considered highly unlikely to grant the CTA its second increase in subsidies in three years to help close a projected $300 million budget deficit next year.

“I would note that the last funding rescue plan that was put together (in 2008) took what, two or three years to do. So it’s not easy,” said Steve Brown, spokesman for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D- Chicago

As a result, fare hikes, service cuts and employee concessions are all on the table as the CTA looks to balance the 2010 operating budget, said Terry Peterson, who is Mayor Richard Daley’s pick to chair the CTA board.

A couple of things to keep in mind here. First, is that it is an annual rite of passage for CTA to warn of a doomsday scenario where fares are significantly raised and services rapidly curtailed. What happens instead are incremental fare hikes and service cuts and further delays in long-term repairs. So this funding shortfall is not an unprecedented problem.

But — it is unprecedented that the state is so broke they can’t bailout CTA.  Peterson, the new CTA chairman of the board, says he wants to ask for money from Washington. But, as the Trib notes, Washington stopped funding urban transit agencies in the ’90s — the Dept. of Transportation only provides grants for specific projects. Even the stimulus bill didn’t provide money for transit agencies operating budget. Mass transit is another example of the federal government not doing enough to assist in the emergency fiscal situation of state and local government.