CTA’S CAPITAL GAINS
Mayor plans for ride- hailing fees to bankroll $ 180 million in transit- system improvements
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to raise ride- hailing fees by 15 cents per ride next year, and another nickel in 2019, will bankroll $ 180 million in capital improvements to speed commuting times and bolster security, a top mayoral aide said Thursday.
CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. beat the drum for Emanuel’s controversial plan to collect another $ 16 million from Uber, Lyft and Via and ship the money to the CTA, as aldermen got a breakdown of the projects to be financed by the new revenue stream.
Many of those projects are outlined in the capital plan that the CTA can’t fund itself because it’s been years since the Illinois General Assembly approved a statewide capital plan.
They include track, structure, signal and power upgrades to shorten commuting times and improve reliability on the south branch of the Green Line; the Lake Street branches of the Green and Pink lines; the Blue Line’s O’Hare and Con- gress branches; the Red and Blue Line subways, and the northern end of the Brown Line.
Also in the works are additional security cameras and high- definition replacements for older analog cameras at nearly every one of the CTA’s rail stations and all 110 CTA- owned bus turnarounds. New lighting is also planned.
Without the city money, Carter said the CTA would limp along just like its trains do through their many slow zones.
“We’re not going to be able to move forward with some of the capital projects that will provide improved service to our customers,” Carter said.
“We haven’t had a state capital program in many years and, as such, we have not been in a position to really make the type of capital investments we would like to make. Which is reflected in the fact that I’ve got a $ 13 billion unmet capital need.”
Carter argued that raising a tax and shipping the money to the CTA was not unprecedented for City Hall.
The City Council raised the real estate transfer tax to bail out the CTA and created a tax increment financing district that’s bankrolling the Red Purple Modernization project, “the biggest capital project in the history of CTA,” Carter said.
Even so, downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly ( 42nd) remains concerned about the precedent Emanuel is setting by assuming more financial responsibility for the CTA, particularly without giving the City Council oversight over that agency.
“I’m not suggesting that the CTA couldn’t do great things with the money. I’m just concerned that a $ 16 million request could be $ 50 million three or four years from now and, who knows, $ 100 million 10 years down the road,” Reilly said.
“The city has made a lot of tough choices in the last several years to . . . get our structural deficit under control. But we’re not out of the woods. We have some big pension liabilities coming down the pike pretty soon. I don’t believe the city is in a position to be giving money to other agencies, especially when the City Council has no control over how they’re spending that money.”
Ald. Gilbert Villegas ( 36th) said he’s working with the mayor’s office on language that would require the CTA and the Chicago Public Schools getting another TIF surplus for school security to make semi- annual or even quarterly reports to the City Council.
Villegas has also met with Carter to discuss his demand for changes in employment practices at the CTA, where Hispanic employees make up just 13 percent of the workforce.
“The CTA has been acting in good faith right now. And that’s why that accountability part is so important — so that we’re not giving them the money and we never see them again,” Villegas said.
“I DON’T BELIEVE THE CITY IS IN A POSITION TO BE GIVING MONEY TO OTHER AGENCIES, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE CITY COUNCIL HAS NO CONTROL OVER HOW THEY’RE SPENDING THAT MONEY.” ALD. BRENDAN REILLY, expressing concerns about the precedent for CTA spending