New Chicago Transit Authority President Frank Kruesi should resist the temptation to do what his recent predecessors did: Shrink the services offered by the beleaguered transit agency.
Over past decades, a fatalistic attitude toward Chicago mass transit seems to have pervaded the mentality of city administrations. The attitude that services and ridership will always continue to decline has sentenced the CTA to an endless downward spiral.
Until recent years, such fatalism pervaded not only mass transit but other aspects of Chicago’s existence. For example, it was once a fact of life that nobody wanted to live in the city and that the quality of Chicago public schools would never improve.
So who would ever have thought that Chicago’s current boom in loft developments and new residential construction would outpace suburban housing growth? Or that there is now a perception that the Chicago School Reform Board of Education is actually making a dent in improving the quality of public education?
Mayor Richard Daley’s visionary leadership in such areas as enhanced streetscapes and improved city services, as well as his visible commitment to public education, have been attracting a prodigal middle class back to a city in the midst of an urban renaissance. His proposed 1998 budget boasts of the city’s strong economy, a $200-million bond issue for infrastructure improvements in all 50 wards, and no tax increases.
In the face of so sunny a forecast, why, then, must the city’s CTA subsidy remain so tight?
Attractive mass transit is just as much a quality-of-life factor as landscaped boulevards, resurfaced streets, new water mains or competitive public education. It is now time for the mayor to exercise leadership and aim for a goal higher than merely trying to save the CTA from financial collapse.
Instead, he should aim to make the CTA shine. Rather than tell indigent riders displaced by recent service cuts to complain to the state and federal government, perhaps he and Kruesi themselves could make the case publicly and more often–and with far more impact.
The mayor and Kruesi need to cultivate a public perception that they want to lead Chicago out of its mass-transit crisis, just as the mayor and schools chief Paul Vallas have been doing on the education front.
The mass-transit crisis will not go away, for as the people Daley has been attracting move back into the city, the already trying levels of roadway congestion and wear will only increase. A cleaner, friendlier and more efficient mass transit alternative can ease a significant portion of that congestion and wear, putting yet another feather in Chicago’s ever-expanding cap of attractive, city-life perks.
It is time to reject the notion of accepting “Honey, I shrunk the CTA” as some sort of accomplishment. As Daley has learned, improving Chicago’s quality of life is a shrewd investment in the city’s financial stability.
