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.