Chicago Doomsday 3 averted

Well the threats of a mass transit shut down here in Chicago will finally stop… for now.

The Ill-annoyed Senate and House voted Thursday, after months of flailing and haggling, to pass a $530 million bail out bill to help fund Chicago’s poorly managed mass transit system. Basically, Chicago sales tax will increase again, now to 9.25% (fuck, at this point might as well take it to 10% to keep it even), real estate transfer will increase as well, and there will no longer be threats of canceling 81 bus routes and no fare increase to $3.25. All things considered, I’m just glad it’s resolved.
But the hysteria that was leading up to Doomsday- which was going to be Sunday the 20th, mind you- was ridiculous and unnecessarily fueled by politicians and the CTA itself.

First of all, the CTA is poorly run, although they got rid of that idiot Frank Kruesi who was running it into the ground. But the system needs modified and maintained better than it is now. Schedules are never kept by buses, some bus routes are repetitive. For example, I have walked 2 miles trying to get from point A to point B before a bus shows up, and then there are three more right behind the first one. It’s senseless. They waste more money by having people sit in booths at the train stations all day long, and they do… nothing. Not even clean the damn stink holes that they are, or get up to assist a traveler in need.

Then, the whole legislative mess that kept this Doomsday scenarios looming was stupid too… and in election year? Smart move idiots. For months, they have been sitting on this issue, and piddling around trying to decide what to do. Here’s a thought… cut your fat paychecks in half and give that to the transit system. It would be a start. It didn’t help that our Governor, Rod Blagojevich, kept saying no deal to their moves. And when they finally had a solution, he ups and makes an amendatory veto… he’ll approve or the bail out, but only if seniors 65 and over get to ride for free. And he came up with this, oh, last week, 10 days before the fees would go up and the buses and jobs were cut. Great timing genius. And nice try to buy votes, but sorry, you’re as transparent as saran wrap.

Needless to say, 11th hour and the damn thing passes, so no bus routes are going away, no jobs will be lost, and whoopee seniors get to ride for free. And wait, aren’t we trying to make up lost funds, and you take away more money by doing that? Yeah doesn’t make sense to me either. Don’t get me wrong, okay so old people ride for free, yeah no big deal. Even though they can probably afford it more than me and some of my friends. But some people are crying, what about handicap passengers? Hell, three seniors get bumped from their seats for a wheelchair rider, and all buses are handicap accessible, let’s not give the farm away. People, where does it stop? How about people with bicycles, or expectant mothers? Or students? Jeez, how about everyone who rides the bus to work get on for free? Stupid, stupid, no common sense.

Which brings me to the whole idea of cutting the bus routes down, from 150 or so to 76 routes. I mean, they were going to eliminate every single express bus route to downtown, so all of us would have then had to cram on to the already slow and over crowded trains. Hell, all of the buses that take Rick to work were about to be eliminated too. Seriously, he would have had to take a cab every day to work. There would have been riots if this had all gone down. And with as cold as it is this weekend, if that had happened? I think Blago’s house would have been torched by the mob. Or even worse, someone could have frozen to death waiting for a bus that never came.

One of my coworkers insisted it was a publicity stunt, that there was no way Doomsday was ever going to happen. Maybe he was right, but it sure got too close for my comfort.