We were going to save the environment by passing the RTA referendum.
That was the argument that the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers bought into in 1974.
I introduced an amendment that would buy everyone in the sic-county area newspaper subscriptions because it seemed to me that railroad commuters’ reading of newspapers was the real reason for the endorsements.
(My amendment and others were killed after 50-60 were considered with only Bill Maher’s amendment to require reapportionment of the RTA Board every ten years being accepted.)
Now comes the Tribune with the same tired argument that punishing car drivers is a good idea, that it will discourage driving, which is a good idea:
“..we ended up with a solution that earmarked $860 million generated by the state gas tax and another $200 million from interest on that road fund for transit — a total of $1.1 billion. The trade-off for trade unions that would have objected to snatching road-improvement money for trains and buses is a toll hike that will generate $10 billion for road projects over a decade.
“Fair enough. A modest disincentive to drive makes good sense for the Chicago region. We can live with that.”
I’m guessing the folks who wrote those lines does not drive to work from the suburbs.
Ray Hanania did the math on the toll tax hike:
“Motorists will be forced to pay 45 cents more per toll on Illinois Tollways, a 60 percent hike for drivers.”
As to counter its support for tax hikes on motorists, the Tribune writes,
“The people who actually use the CTA and Metra should have some skin in the game, rather than making everyone pay through a [33% suburban] sales-tax increase on top of the tolls and gas taxes.”
Seems like that should be the first revenue source.
The CTA has not raised fares in ten years, the editorial says.
