CTA Blue Line

P: I've been leaving the house at 7.45a every day, getting me to the train 15-20 minutes earlier than normal. I used to skate out the door between 8.05 and 8.10 to get to work by 9. I just got here. I can’t imagine what time I’d get here at my old schedule. Lousy Blue Line.

D: I'll complain about the CTA when I need to use it more often, otherwise I've got no problems with it at all.

P: The CTA sucks. They don’t renovate and upgrade, they do patch work. And like all patchwork it catches up and needs a major overhaul. They have no money to work with, and have p--- poor workers. The bus drivers are dangerous. The train engineers are reckless. And the station employees have grapenuts for brains. The pattern has to start somewhere. 1. Fix your tracks. 2. Hire able workers. 3. Then get new trains. The buses themselves are great, but their drivers are going to destroy them.

D: Which all starts with 1a) raise fares.
Then people flip out. We'll see if the Brown line improvements start to make any difference in the way the system works. Hopefully if the price of gasoline continues to stay high it might change the transportation patterns of city residents, but so far the prices have continued to rise and consumer patterns have yet to change. In europe gas is way more expensive, hence they have better public transportation. Until the masses actually make a shift in the way they move there, the CTA isn't going to have the money to make significant changes to the way their system operates.

P: I was not opposed to raising the fares. There are too many agitators keeping the wrong and not accepting the right. You have a**hole news reporters who live in Streeterville and River North who walk to work, but fill their columns with how the CTA shouldn’t raise fares. As far as gas is concerned, we cannot be expected to change our lifestyles because of the price of gasoline. We should, but we shouldn’t be expected. We can slam Exxon for posting 11 figure profits per quarter, but our govt won’t tap it’s own reserves?
Raise the fares. Raise the transfers. Shave 1 car off of each train and add one extra arrival. There is a simple way to do everything.