Congratulations on your Aug. 26 front-page article “As roads clog, solutions run thin,” by Rogers Worthington. I am particularly pleased with the section encouraging drivers to take public transportation (Metra, CTA, Pace) to work instead and the possibility of extending the CTA Blue Line and/or adding more Metra rail routes.
Here are additional arguments for proceeding with rail expansions:
– With huge oil and auto company lobbying, autos and roads receive massive federal and state subsidies.
– Most of the drivers are totally unaware of how much they owe to urban public transit for efficiently removing so many potential cars from the roads. Each bus removes up to 40 cars from the road; each eight-car CTA train removes roughly 350 cars!
– With reduced revenue, the CTA is forced to cut service. Trains and buses will then be slow and dirty, all of which will further lower its ridership and revenue in a never-ending negative spiral.
– A good deal of the smog/ozone/air pollution over the Chicago area is caused by auto exhaust. This is worsening many asthma cases.
– Trains are much safer than driving, so we would get fewer traffic accidents.
– Instead of concentrating on frustrating traffic jams, transit riders could read, sleep or relax on the way to work. This could greatly raise worker productivity.
A good, clean, efficient public transportation system is truly valuable for all of us around Chicago, or any large city in the U.S. We all should finally be willing to properly subsidize the many needed studies, expansions and capital improvements and also greatly increase our contribution to public transit’s daily operations.
