Capital Priorities | Fare Increases | Quality, Efficient and Equitable Service | Alternative Transportation
Transportation Grades
“If you want to keep this state going, public transportation is vital. People have to get to and from work.”
Mayor Daley, April 2005
At the time of Chicago’s incorporation as a town in 1837, its population was about 4,100.1 Today, its metropolitan area encompasses nearly 10 million people.2 This explosive growth is largely credited to its location at the crossroads of the United States, making it a major hub for virtually every mode of modern transportation.
“Chicagoland” and its regional influence continue to expand. It is home to the six largest railroads in North America, which, in conjunction with 14 smaller railroads, move $350 billion in goods through the region. Nearly $1 trillion in freight passes through the region each year, and the railroads jointly generate $8 billion in gross economic activity.3 Seven interstate highways service the area — more than in any other U.S. metropolitan area—and trucks driving those roads move $572 billion a year in goods.4 The Chicago metropolitan area is the only U.S. region with two major airports connected by public transportation—and Chicago’s airports handle more air traffic than any other city in the world. In 2005, more than 94 million passengers passed through the doors of Chicago’s airports - 76.5 million at O’Hare and 17.8 million at Midway.5
Yet being the nation’s transportation hub carries a heavy price for the city itself. Chicago has the third-worst metropolitan travel delay in the United States. Its citizens waste 253 million hours and burn 151 million gallons of fuel sitting in traffic.6 In a ranking of large cities with populations of 250,000 or more, Chicago was second (at 33.2 minutes) only to New York (at 38.3 minutes) for the highest average commute time in the nation.7 As gas prices remain high, and major urban areas continue to grow, the development of affordable, high-quality public transportation systems takes on a previously unrecognized urgency.
Chicago meets its transportation challenges as well as it does because of its strong public transportation system. Experts believe its best chance for improving freedom of movement and reducing congestion and air pollution lies in improvement and expansion of the current system. But things don’t seem to be moving in that direction.
Some 600,000 people in Northeastern Illinois use public transit every weekday to get to and from work,8 and more than 1.8 million trips of all types are taken on an average weekday. Pace, Chicago’s suburban bus network, serves about 130,000 riders a day. Metra, which operates trains between the city and suburbs, provides roundtrip service to more than 150,000 passengers each day. But the Chicago Transit Authority, which operates trains and buses in the city and 40 suburbs, is the workhorse of the public- transit network, providing 81 percent of the region’s daily rides. During a typical morning rush hour, more than 100,000 people take a CTA train to downtown Chicago, and more than twice that number ride buses or trains between neighborhoods. If we had to store the number of cars the CTA keeps off the road each day, it would require a multi-story parking garage covering Chicago’s entire Loop.9 All told, Chicago’s regional public-transportation system provides as many rides each year as commercial airlines provide throughout the United States—about 600 million.10
But Chicago regional transit system is being eroded by continuation of a 1983 funding formula that bases funding levels on geographic boundaries and retail spending, ignoring transit ridership and other criteria related to transit performance or needs. The CTA has suffered terribly under this formula. In inflation- adjusted dollars, receipts from regional public-transit funding declined to $397 million in 2004 from $491 million in 1985 and with its share of regional transit funding at to 59 percent in 2004, down from 71 percent in 1980.11 Service cutbacks, fare increases and heavy highway congestion that Chicago residents have experienced in recent years are largely attributable to this inequitable transit funding formula.
The CTA experienced increased ridership in seven of the past eight years— in 2005, it provided more than 492 million rides, a 3.7 percent, increase over 2004.12 Gains were especially evident on the CTA’s rail system, which recorded its highest ridership in two decades. The CTA operates 1,190 train cars that provide some 500,000 rides each day on more than 200 miles of tracks with stops at 144 stations. In addition, the CTA runs about 2,000 buses that provide about 1 million rides each day on more than 2,273 miles of road.13 In recent years, the CTA has spent millions of dollars on renovation and planning for capital improvements. Some projects, like the Douglas Branch Blue Line renovation, are desperately needed to improve track stability and services to low-income communities. Others, like the plans for the Circle Line and a Block 37 Super Station, call into question the city’s priorities.
The Douglas Blue Line serves primarily the low- and working-class communities on Chicago’s Southwest Side, including Pilsen, Little Village and North Lawndale. Renovation of the 105 year-old Blue Line began in 2001, 14 with the goal of helping riders gain better access to the UIC medical district, downtown and O’Hare airport. But Blue Line riders realized that their access to these areas was short-lived when it was announced the CTA had received permission to reallocate $33.9 million from the Blue Line renovation to rehabilitate the “Paulina Connector” that previously was used to shuttle out-of-service trains between the Blue Line and the rest of the system. This renovation became the centerpiece for the newly constituted Pink Line, devised to use a significant portion of Blue Line track as it connects the Southwest Side terminal at 54th/Cermak with the Loop. The tradeoff for this more-frequent service to downtown is a decrease in direct access to city stops northwest of the Loop and to O’Hare Airport for many Douglas Blue Line riders.15 In August 2005, President Bush signed into law a transportation bill allocating $590 million to fund capital-improvement projects including expansion of the Red Line south to 130th Street.16 This renovation of the CTA Red Line, bandied about for more than 40 years, would add new stops in the Roseland, Pullman and Riverdale neighbor- hoods to benefit 26,000 riders—Far South Side residents, living in communities with few public-transportation options, who now travel miles each day to reach the Red Line’s southern terminus at 95th Street. But despite the clear need, as well as federal commitment to this project, the CTA has deemed it a relatively low priority and put it on a back burner. For the Red Line expansion to become reality, the CTA needs $148 million in matching funds, which most likely would come from the state. But as the state is likely to fund only one major transit initiative in the Chicago region, and the Red Line project isn’t No. 1 in the opinion of CTA leadership, it may remain a topic of discussion for another 40 years.17
How does Red-Line expansion funding fit into the bigger transit picture? This question takes us back to the Pink Line, which CTA spokesmen contend has caused minimal inconvenience to riders forced to use it in place of the scaled-back Blue Line 54/Cermak trains. That may be true. But according to the Campaign for Better Transit, the Pink Line is only the first step in a plan that will divert desperately needed resources from other projects such as increasing the range of the Red Line and creating, upgrading and expanding transit lines in underserved areas.18 The CTA-favored plan, dubbed the Circle Line, was proposed in 2002 as a means of linking Chicago’s existing CTA and Metra rail lines with a single new 6.6-mile rapid-transit circle around the growing city center. It would run as far north as Fullerton, as far south as Bridgeport, and as far west as the United Center.
The Circle Line project is alarming for many reasons, not all of them related to transportation. Those concerned about displacement of low-income and working-class families from city neighborhoods believe the new route would redefine downtown Chicago, creating an area of increased desirability, higher real-estate prices and strong focus on gentrification and residential and commercial redevelopment. CTA President Frank Kruesi denies this claim, saying “it’s not a downtown-centric plan…it’s beneficial to the whole region…it connects everything to everything.”19 Yet according to a Chicago Sun-Times report, “CTA officials said the Circle Line wouldn’t just provide more options for commuters. It effectively draws a new boundary to which the downtown area could grow, serving as a huge catalyst for development…”20 This has led many to question the goals of such an expensive improvement project for an area of the city that already has many transit options—especially when compared to communities on the far south, west and north sides.
To fund the $1 billion Circle Line, CTA would need to apply for federal dollars through a grant called “New Start,” the same funding pool used to renovate the Douglas Blue Line and the Brown Line. Other projects, like the Red and Orange line expansions, are eligible for the “New Start” funding, but the Circle Line has been fast-tracked.
Many CTA observers are disturbed by the agency’s avoidance of community input. The CTA didn’t hold public hearings to establish its capital priorities, and didn’t make the Circle Line plans public until after it had lobbied Congress and re-directed Blue Line renovation dollars to the Paulina Connector.21
Another controversial CTA capital priority is the plan to create a Super Station for the city-owned “Block 37″ at 108 N. State. The plan calls for express trains to Midway and O’Hare airports, with fares set at $9 to $13 to Midway and $12 to $17 to O’Hare.22 Service would begin in 2008, using customized CTA trains with comfort- able seating similar to business-class seating on airplanes. A private transit company would manage the rail service to Chicago’s airports from the Block 37 Super Station. Services available on this premium-service train may include advance airline baggage check-in at downtown hotels or at the Block 37 and airport stations, and luggage racks in the train cars for riders who prefer to “carry on.” Trains also may feature headrests and outlets for laptop computers. The multi-level CTA Super Station, to be located under Block 37, is estimated to cost at least $213 million. The CTA will pay for 61 percent of Super Station construction, toward which it set aside $130 million in bond proceeds in its 2005 capital budget. The agency also applied for an additional $48 million in federal loans for the airport express service.23 In preparation, the CTA has closed the Washington subway train station to begin connecting the Red and Blue lines as part of the Super Station project. This plan raises additional questions about the CTA’s capital priorities. First, the express train would run on current Blue and Orange line tracks, meaning that its airport runs would be no shorter than those of existing trains. Second, as the plan calls for only 20 percent private financing, taxpayers would be funding a project that serves primarily tourists and downtown business interests. Third, with city officials publicly bemoaning budget deficits year after year, they nonetheless are eager to spend massive amounts on these expansion projects. And finally, the situation in underserved areas won’t change—except perhaps to get worse.
In early 2004, the CTA raised fares for the first time in a decade, from $1 a ride and 25 cents a transfer to $1.50 a ride and with a 25 cents a transfer. Another fare hike came in early 2006 but this one was structured differently. Cash customers saw their fares rise to $2 from $1.75 with no transfer available,25 but “Chicago Card” (prepaid) were unaffected by the increases. Riders using basic transit cards, now pay $2 for rail service, but still pay $1.75 for bus rides.26
The CTA has consistently threatened service cuts, and in 2005 CTA President Frank Kreusi threatened a “doomsday budget” that would have severely curtailed services and led to job cuts if certain actions were not taken. The fare increase is one of several attempts to avoid such a budget. In 2005, the state provided the CTA with a cash infusion of $54 million, contingent on no cuts, layoffs or rate increases taking place that year. Of course, a rate hike did occur in 2006.27
The CTA attributes the need for fare increases to increasing fuel costs and a decrease in public-transit funding. It is true that the agency is funded through an antiquated formula for distributing tax revenue among CTA, Metra and Pace,28 and receives only $3 million a year from the City of Chicago—1 percent of CTA’s budget. In comparison, San Francisco provides $95.4 million (21 percent of the operating budget) and Boston provides $65.2 million (6 percent of the operating budget) to fund their local transit systems in 2004.
When fares increased and transfers were eliminated in January 2006, many riders reported difficulty locating Chicago Card distribution centers. Others said the centers had run out of stock.29 In response, a CTA rider filed a suit accusing the CTA of discrimination in the policies that make fare cards available, claiming that distribution centers were clustered on the wealthier, whiter North Side, and that the South and West sides were not properly stocked.
Raising fares for cash patrons puts a heavy burden on lower-income customers who can’t afford to pay upfront for multiple trips. Eliminating transfers for cash customers essentially doubles travel costs for anyone who must ride both train and bus. In 2006, the CTA experienced a decrease in bus rides and an increase in train rides, a phenomenon the agency attributed to fewer people taking advantage of the transfer system. But most observers believe cash riders are finding ways to avoid transferring to buses and paying a second fare—some by transferring from one train line to another (at no charge) and others by walking or making other arrangements.30 The CTA reportedly prefers Chicago Cards because fares are paid in advance and in larger amounts, making the transactions easier to process.
Some answers to Chicago’s transit problems are obvious—the Illinois General Assembly needs to re-examine the formula for transit-funding formula, and the City of Chicago should contribute more to the CTA’s general operating budget. As long as this isn’t happening, however, CTA leadership almost willfully refuses to explore other, responsible, long-term solutions, instead toying with overly-ambitious plans that tie up funds needed funds—and then ignoring true priorities, threatening service cuts and touting doomsday budgets. The end result? Higher fares and poorer service for the city’s most vulnerable residents and communities.
Quality, Efficient and Equitable Service
Perhaps the most critical job of an urban transit system is to provide services that meet the needs of its customers. Train and bus service must be dependable, equitable and safe.
More than a million riders, a full three-quarters of the agency’s total ridership, use CTA buses daily.31 Despite this, a majority of CTA resources is allocated to rail service, while regular, reliable bus service continues to be a problem. A major complaint is “bus bunching,” in which more than one bus arrives at the same time, resulting in buses passing each other on their routes. In 2004, the Campaign for Better Transit conducted a study of bus service to address a claim made by the CTA that their buses were reliable more than 90 percent of the time. By surveying 15 percent of key routes and 15 percent of supportive routes, a total of 14 routes, CBT found out that six out of every ten buses, on average, ran irregularly and off schedule. In addition, four out of every ten buses arrived bunched together.32
Equity of service continues to be a large concern, as illustrated by service cuts. In 1997, the CTA trimmed service across the board, but stopped weekend and night service only on the Douglas Blue line, which serves a predominantly low- to moderate-income African-American and Latino population. By closing the Douglas L on weekends, the CTA hoped to save $1.3 million a year (of its then-$790 million budget). The CTA claimed the Blue Line tracks were too old to handle continued use and that ridership was too low, and that service would be reinstituted after track rehabilitation in the early 2000s. the. But a 2005 study by the Blue Line Transit Taskforce determined that the Douglas Line cuts were discriminatory, as its ridership was comparable to that of other lines that served more higher-income and Caucasian riders.33
Community frustration with the CTA continued during Blue Line construction, as promises to hire from the local community were disregarded and safety problems persisted. And it was soon discovered that the CTA had no intention of reinstating late night and weekend service. Only through strong efforts by organizations like the Blue Line Transit Taskforce and local political support were these communities able to force the CTA to restore service in January 2005.
In June 2006 late-night and weekend service on the Douglas Blue Line once again was cut back. Trains are coming less often (every 30 minutes) as compared to the frequency of trains prior to the re-establishment of services in January 2006. The CTA is offsetting the decrease in Douglas Line services with the new Pink Line service.
In some cases, the CTA map itself tells a tale of inequity. The Red Line in many ways is Chicago’s backbone, connecting the North Side to the South Side, but there are yawning gaps between north and south in terms of CTA service. The South Side has 10 stops, averaging 9.2 blocks apart. The North Side, in comparison, has 21 stops that average 3.1 blocks apart. But it is Chicago’s West Siders who experience the longest gaps between stations on the Green Line—1.5 miles from Clinton to Ashland and another 1.5 miles from Ashland to California.
At the same time the CTA was cutting back the Douglas line, it eliminated the Washington Boulevard and Lake Street bus routes, creating hardship for even more West Side residents, senior citizens, and workers. CTA argued that ridership was too low to justify their cost—although Lake and Washington buses together served nearly 4,000 riders each workday. Today, the CTA operates more than 40 bus routes with the same or lower ridership figures the Washington and Lake routes had when they were taken out of service.
That CTA leadership prioritizes and funds projects such as the Circle Line and the Block 37 Super Station, designed to serve out-of-towners and residents of already well-serviced areas, while subordinating a desperate need for transit services in Chicago’s underserved neighborhoods indicates a failure to serve the entire Chicago community. Chicago riders are not unlike t heir counterparts in other cities t hat have seen poorer public-transportation services in minority and lower-income communities. Such was the situation in 1996 when the Bus Riders Union won a class action lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority for cuts in bus services in underserved communities.34 To avoid such community actions—but primarily to discharge their authority equitably and appropriately—CTA leaders must address issues of inequality throughout the city, and especially on the South and West sides.
Public transit is only a part of Chicago’s transportation picture, albeit a critical element. Throughout the city, buses and trains have been joined by bicycling and car sharing as affordable ways to get around. This year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors gave Mayor Daley the 2006 City Livability Award for Chicago’s bicycle program, and the city’s avid cyclists believe the award is well deserved. Chicago has established more than 100 miles of bike lanes, installed more than 10,000 bicycle racks, and begun successful programs to market safe bicycling and integrate cycling into transit systems.
Chicago’s current status as a bike-friendly city and its vision for the future are articulated in the Bike 2015 Plan, which reflects significant involvement from a citizen advisory committee and a technical advisory committee. The plan is practical, visionary and rigorous.
The Bike 2015 Plan set two categories of goals: 1) to encourage bicycle use to the point that 5 per- cent of all trips less than five miles are by bicycle, and 2) to reduce the number of bicycle injuries by 50 percent. A primary goal is to create a 500- mile network that will include many innovative features. Other goals include having bicycle usage incorporated in all streets improvements and streetscapes, better enforcement of traffic laws to protect bicyclists, quicker response to crashes involving bike riders, convenient connections with public transit, improved conditions for bicycle couriers, and attention to short- and long-term bicycle parking security.35 Work already has begun on many of these recommendations; several were completed before the plan was officially released.
Measured against great bicycling cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, Chicago has a long way to go. However, bicycling levels are up in the city. Careful attention to crashes, traffic conditions and marketing should see those numbers grow. But challenges remain in terms of coordination among city agencies, particularly communication between the Department of Transportation and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications and consideration of bicycle use in city development projects. Another means of affordable transportation is the relatively new program known as car-sharing, which involves several people sharing the same car by scheduling usage times and paying a monthly fee. Although car-sharing has been popular in Europe for more than 15 years, it is a recent introduction to the United States, where New York and Los Angeles already have seen success with their car-sharing programs.36
More than 100,000 people participate in U.S. car-sharing programs. Studies and surveys have found that 11 percent to 26 percent of car-sharing participants sold a personal vehicle, and 12 percent to 68 percent postponed or canceled plans to buy a car.37
The two major programs in Chicago for car-sharing are I-GO Sharing, created by the non-profit organization Center for Neighborhood Technology, and Zipcar, a nationwide program that recently entered the Chicago market. The city has been very supportive of car sharing programs—the City Council, with the support of Mayor Daley, has approved an exemption to the city’s car-rental tax for shared cars, and has been marketing the program on its website.38
Capital Priorities
Precedence has been given to projects that benefit mostly white-collar workers and tourists, while most Chicago neighborhoods and workers, particularly those most under-served, are not seeing their needs adequately addressed.
Fare Increases
The combination of fare hikes, the institution of the Chicago Card system, and the discontinuation of the transfer policy has placed an excessive financial burden on low-wage workers and those reliant upon the bus system—with no improvement in service to validate the fare increase. Indeed, the quality of service in many areas seems to have declined.
Quality, Efficiency and Equity of Service
Despite wide coverage, the bus system is inefficient and unreliable, and changes to the rail lines have disenfranchised certain neighborhoods of the city.
Alternative Transportation
The city has done an excellent job of creating opportunities to use alternative modes of transportation, as seen in the Bike 2015 Plan and encouragement of ride-sharing.
The Chicago Transit Authority has an extensive bus, L and regional transportation system which, given enough time and money, can take a traveler nearly any where in the city. It is also a system that receives a tremendous amount of money and is rife with complications, and the CTA decision-making generally lacks transparency. Massive capital investment is being made but isn’t targeting communities that need them most. This disparity is also seen in fare increases and the elimination of transfers, which strongly affects lower-income communities. The bus system is inefficiently managed and the train system inadequately serves poorer neighborhoods.
However, Chicago is doing an excel lent job of embracing alternative transportation models, such as biking and car-sharing.
The City of Chicago earns: C
Aside from a few signs of progress, our transportation system appears headed towards a troubled future. The CTA needs to refocus its priorities on equitable distribution, responsible management and fiduciary accountability.