Pluto responded to Nyborg [saying that drivers complaining about gas prices chose their fates by choosing to live in auto dependent locations] thusly: “public transit riders have also elected to live where the transportation is convenient for them and their daily routes.” Well, yes. That’s because we assumed (falsely, you would say) that such services would continue into the future. In my case, I think that was a reasonable assumption — given that six generations of Chicagoans have relied on the #56 Milwaukee bus, in one form or another, since the Civil War.

By that same logic, I should immediately cease use of my toilet and use a chamber pot instead, because the good taxpayers of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District could at any moment shut off my neighborhood’s sewer lines. [After all, the sewers arrived long after the Milwaukee line.]

I’m sure that news will come much to the chagrin of my downstairs neighbors. Well, they’ll just have to grin and bear it, because it’s all in the name of Lower Taxes!

As I’ve said before, “according to AAA’s annual cost-per-mile estimates, the real cost of driving has declined 9.9% since 1998 (adjusted for inflation). Meanwhile, as of next week, cash CTA fares will have increased 59.6%. We riders are already paying far more than our share.” Even going back to 1986, CTA fares have outpaced inflation — hardly a way to encourage people to use public transit. (Yes, public transit is a good thing. It promotes clean air and water, saves farmland from urban sprawl, curbs our thirst for oil imported from unstable dictators, increases regional economic productivity, raises regional property values, etc.)

Besides, the truly scary bit isn’t fare hikes, it’s service cuts. 308,262 people a day ride the bus routes that CTA is going to cut by January. 308,262 people will have to rearrange their lives. You worried about how people would get around the collapsed I-35W bridge in Minneapolis? That only affected 140,000 cars a day. We’re talking TWICE as many people here. Even the Kennedy moves fewer than 300,000 passengers a day.

No mass transit system anywhere in the country garners 75% of its revenues from fares.* That’s a fact of life. No public school anywhere in the country pays 75% of its costs from bake sales, either. And another thing: I have been using the system regularly (not daily) for ten years, and I have never seen the overstaffing that people always talk about in these blog comments. Six employees at one station? I’m lucky to find one most of the time.

* Not the USA, but Toronto has a farebox recovery ratio of around 80%. Then again, it can cost $20 in tolls to drive across Toronto, too, and gas costs $3.75 a gallon.

“As we’ve written before, at a time when there should be more financial support for public transportation as the region increases in population and roads become more congested, our elected officials treat it merely as a legislative poker chip. Funding, as we’ve found out in this current legislative session from hell, never is a certainty.

“How can our state leaders be so ignorant about the potential consequences of their inaction? Don’t they see the necessity of public transportation? Considering that very few legislators rely on public transportation, it’s no surprise they are out of touch with the impact it has on millions of citizens. Jobs and businesses are affected, and that in turn impacts the state’s economic health.

“Springfield offers no solution. Instead we get folly after folly. It’s like the ghost of Flo Ziegfeld is controlling things down there.”

Oh yes, and just to reiterate: the city’s most bicycled street (and my bike commute route) is Milwaukee Avenue. I’m sure that eliminating the #56 bus (13,000+ riders a day, on a street with an AADT of about 15,000!) will be endlessly helpful in further “improving” this bike commuting option, especially since there just aren’t enough drivers trying to pull stupid tricks just to fight their way through the congestion.

The “150,000 new cars” statement is still a non sequitur. The point of the original piece is to say that a transportation facility that currently moves 308,262 Chicagoans every day is going to disappear soon. It should not matter if that’s 308,262 people in buses, or 308,262 people driving in 256,885 cars, or 300,000+ people aboard commuter trains — but evidently, it does matter. That’s a point worth lamenting.

—

Well, glad to know that my dusty corner of the blogosphere (averaging 40 hits a day) has gotten attention. Actually, not really, since the blog is to organize my thoughts, not to be a “fearmongering” bully pulpit.

I understand perfectly well where the routes are being cut (across the city, like half of the routes traversing my already hopelessly congested neighborhood), that not all riders will switch to driving (although most CTA riders are indeed “choice” riders), and that the effects will be distributed citywide (not like a single road closure).

I don’t see how 300K bus trips = 150K car trips, since ADT counters also count “unlinked trips.”

However, the net effect of removing current capacity that serves 300,000+ trips per day — whether those trips are made in cars or on buses — is going to be quite substantial. In particular, downtown office employment will be particularly affected by the elimination of many rush-hour routes. And honestly, I don’t see how it’s all that different from depaving roadways. The contrast between the hue and cry I hear whenever someone proposes removing road capacity (Depave LSD, anyone?), and the deafening silence that greeted CTA’s budget proposal is disheartening, to say the least.

The magnitude of these cuts is stunning, and will damage our city in ways we cannot quite foretell.

Oh yeah, and your smarmy “let’s be constructive” ending really grates on my nerves. I’ve done more than arguably any other private citizen to improve bicycling options in my neighborhood, for one. But the biggest challenge for bicyclists is safety from cars, and no amount of transit cutting will help that situation.