I also agree that it’s a shame transit is a political plaything here, but frankly transit goes through similar BS is in Philly, Boston, San Fran, and even New York, so I think it’s just the way things are the forsseable future for transit in this country. If that’s taken as a given, then I don’t see the current deal as particularly awful if it indeed brings the unions to the bargaining table, since now their interests are the same as riders (i.e. preserve as much service/jobs as reasonably possible since every other avenue is now a settled issue).

I will also propose that perhaps roads are subject to a similar sort of political gamesmanship. The winters of 2007 and 2008 resulted in wild degradation of our roadways – have you noticed how people complained about potholes nonstop for the last 2 years? And how this year, between the state finally passing a patchwork capital plan and the Feds passing the ARRA, there are major resurfacing projects all over?

That’s because there was no state capital plan after 2005, so by 2007 the lack of any investment whatsoever had taken it’s toll, and by 2009 the state of our roadways was quite bad indeed. Our traffic signals are still stuck in the stone age, when more modern ones could unlock bottlenecked intersections that not only result in excess air pollution because of cars idling, but also slow down buses and thus make buses that much less desirable (modern signals could also have transit signal priority too, of course).

I don’t know what’s more amazing, that voting-age CTA riders put up with it or that governors like Quinn (and Blagojevich before him) think it’s perfectly acceptable to put millions of transit-dependent voters through several months of psychological hell. Both parties should be ashamed of themselves.

And if Quinn thinks I’m voting for him–ever–he’s out of his farebox-pandering mind. When we booted Blago, I thought he’d actually be a better leader. Now I see the only difference is that he’s not–as much of–a narcissist.

CTA management’s proposal was basically to make up the deficit half by fare increase, and half by service reduction (remember, service reduction = layoffs). Decent starting point for bargaining with the union – you guys share half the burden, basically.

This “deal” now means that the severity of the cuts are entirely within the union’s control based on what concessions they are willing to make regarding forgoing their 2010 raise (3.5%, which will be about $30 million, or a third of the shortfall), some number of unpaid furlough days, and so on.

So the CTA will charge ahead with the $90 million cut and the ~1,000 or so layoffs it entails, and the unions will decide if they want to play chicken or play ball and reduce the impact on their brothers and sisters. The ball is firmly in their court now. In theory, if the unions make concessions not only on their raises, but also on taking a handful of furlough days and on some work rules (e.g. the number of part time shifts vs. full time shifts) it’s conceivable that the final cuts actually required will be quite small indeed.

And $3 is still cheap. There aren’t many mass transit systems that’ll take you from one side of the city to the other for that little. I’ve paid significantly more in other cities (such as London and Paris, thanks to their zone systems).

Gas prices are not always going to be as (relatively) cheap as they are now. We should be expanding mass transit (particularly rail) in preparation for the day (not that far off) when people will finally stop driving everywhere.