From today’s Sun-Times:

Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) said Daley would have had the votes to raise property taxes, even after the furor caused by skyrocketing assessments. “There is this perception that the property tax is the most unfair. But I’m telling you that, because you can write it off on your federal income tax return, it’s really one of the most painless ways of generating revenues.”

And whoever said the sales tax was fair? Besides, as we’ve noted before, the “skyrocketing assessments” mean nothing in the end; they’re more than balanced out by falling tax rates. Please, raise my property taxes! The property tax is a more equitable, more reasonable, more stable, and more durable method of taxing than the sales tax.

Mayor Daley will reportedly opt for a 0.25% sales tax hike as part of the 2005 budget, ruling out a property tax increase. This is lunacy — most city homeowners got a property tax cut this year, so a slight property tax hike would only reduce a cut. Instead, Chicagoans will pay up to 10% sales tax on certain purchases — one of the highest, most regressive rates in the nation and another great way to push more retail sales out of the city.

Illinois more than did its part to deliver some good news on Tuesday, not just sending Barack Obama to Washington in a record-breaking landslide but also flipping one Republican Congressional district in the suburbs to the Dems. My own near-northwest neighborhood didn’t reprise the primary election’s lackluster turnout. Indeed, Obama actually got more votes in the 32nd ward than in Hyde Park’s 4th and 5th wards.

Just over one million votes were cast in Chicago, or just over 20,000 votes per ward. Local wards had healthy turnout, although interestingly it was the heavily White and Black wards (32nd, 27th, and 1st) which bested the city average and the Latino wards (35th and 26th, despite a long history of civic engagement) which had markedly lower turnout. GOTV efforts here in Wicker Park were apparently pretty successful, even with a largely young voter base. Then again, perhaps the shelf placement of the 9/11 commission report at Quimby’s says it all: True Crime.

Didn’t catch this the first time around, but Crain’s recently carried an article about the odd confluence of woman-owned retailers converging in Wicker Park and Bucktown during the recent boutique explosion. Retailing has long been one business sector where women have found success, but women own 80% of the retailers in the WP/B Chamber of Commerce — and nearly half of all WPBCoC businesses. Two factors named: cheap rents (and therefore low startup costs) and a nurturing, supportive competitive environment.

The Trib is reporting that Block 37 has arisen as a potential location for a casino, along with McCormick Place East (Lakeside Center). If anything, McCormick North is more optimally designed for a casino: a giant, windowless box. McCormick East may be woefully underused, but the monumental curtainwall of the current building should be maintained. (One good reason to not open McCormick East for 24-hour operation is migratory bird fatalities: until McPier began turning off the building’s nighttime lights a few years back, its lakeside facade lured hundreds of birds each year to their deaths. Birds don’t understand glass [why should they?] and fly full speed into the wall, breaking their necks. Good for the Field Museum, which has cabinets filled with the resulting [stuffed] carcasses; not so good for the birds.)

Of course, maybe the gaming hall could fit into the giant masonry podium underneath. I have no idea what’s inside that bunker, besides some very long ramps to ground level.

And where would a casino fit at Block 37? Underground? Casinos don’t like multistory layouts, even less than big box retailers.

Speaking of which, the frequent media complaints about few identified tenants strike me as silly. Mills has relationships with literally thousands of tenants and specialty shop space in the last proposals was already spoken for by a variety of “lifestyle” chains. Sure, a few of the bigger users–Office Depot, Barnes & Noble — have tired of waiting and found other locations on State. But being across from Field’s flagship, in the heart of the second largest office market in the country, will get tenants on board.

Finally, both Staples and Office Depot have realized that their office products superstores can fit inside the Loop. Both have operated downtown stores elsewhere for years, but have recently signed leases in the State-Wabash corridor (oddly, not the real center of office space but likely the only area with large enough retail floorplates): Staples in the old Sym’s space at Wabash & Washington and Office Depot in the Toys ‘R’ Us space on State south of Madison.

The Hyde Park shopping center originally built to keep an artist presence in the face of urban renewal (but subsequently purchased by the university) will gain two new entertainment tenants: the long promised Checkerboard Lounge, “price out” of Bronzeville (only in Dorothy Tillman’s world could that happen) and a generically named restaurant from KDK, impresario of the Randolph and Wabash restaurant districts. Together with Bar Louie and the bowling alley, the result is that Hyde Park now has more than 133% more places to drink now than it did just three years ago.

The City of Chicago has won three awards for governmental openness. Coming soon: online bribing, er, bidding for government contracts.

CTA has released its “doomsday” budget, appropriately named the “gridlock budget.” $55 million in service, cutting rail service by 11% and bus service by 21%. All rail lines and most bus routes would be affected; service after 10pm would largely vanish. As CTA puts it, “service standards would be suspended,” which is code for “expect craptabulous service!”

Some quick points:
– In the first year, transit usage will decline by at least 39 million rides — equivalent to shutting down the entire Pace suburban bus system.
– By 2007, CTA will carry 59 million fewer riders. This is the equivalent to shutting down Denver’s Regional Transit District, the nation’s, or the PATH system, the nation’s 7th largest heavy rail system.
– Paratransit fares in any case will double. Predictably, this has already raised outcries from disabled riders, who seem to not comprehend that the service costs an average of $26 per ride but receives zero operating subsidy.

More details from the media: Tribune 4 October and 5 October, WBEZ 5 October. The choice quote from the Trib: “It’s very frustrating [Kruesi] has taken this approach, instead of asking the community to work with him. The CTA has known for years there is a funding problem. Why is it now coming to a point where the riders are being hijacked?” — Maurice Redd, executive director of the Lawndale Neighborhood Organization

However, Jacqueline Leavy from NCBG claims (of course) that the service cuts are biased: “55% of the bus cuts will affect communities of color.” Well, sure, but that’s because “communities of color” are about 2/3 of the city, and account for many of the city’s lower population density, lower ridership neighborhoods. Indeed, the cuts disproportionately hit the far northwest side — the last bastion of white ethnics in Chicago — which will largely be ceded to Pace. Similarly, bus bunching is easy to complain about but a whole lot harder to actually fix.

Strangely, the story merited a Page 3 mention in the Sun-Times and no mention in either Red Streak or Crain’s web edition. Strange, because the Sun-Times’ readership relies heavily on CTA to get to work and because Crain’s readers rely on CTA to get their employees to work. Late-shift work (the original reason for the extensive 24-hour network) didn’t die with manufacturing: waiters and bartenders, currency traders, and red-eye flight attendants are all integral cogs that keep the global city working.

Meanwhile, Pittsburgh is also threatened with severe service cuts — no weekend service, no nighttime service, a 43% base fare increase — if Pennsylvania doesn’t come through with extra funding.

Just got back from Philadelphia, where SEPTA has announced:

• 25% fare hike, to $2.50 base fare in town
• No more weekend service
• and 20% weekday service cuts on all lines, mostly by combining express/local runs on commuter lines and cutting evening/midday service sharply (maybe to once an hour on many lines)

…unless the state bails out their $60 million deficit. The talk there is that emergency funding this year is likely, followed by a restructuring next year that will fold SEPTA, the ports, the airports, etc. into a superregional agency with new funding. As a general principle, I support regional solutions — especially where opportunities to cross-subsidize transit arise (as in the obvious solution of using road tolls to pay for transit) — but the super-agency could exacerbate the current situation where the suburbs get to control Philadelphia’s transportation priorities.

Transit will continue on its death spiral without solid new funding sources. The currently appalling level of service in Philly — half-hour headways and $5.50 fares for a 20-minute ride to the airport, one subway line already abandoned on weekends — surely has had much to do with its downtown’s inability to maximize labor force accessibility and thus compete as a central employment hub.

Part of our argument here in Chicago should draw upon the Chicago Central Area Plan‘s finding that transit is the #1 economic draw for businesses to the central area, and that downtown Chicago is the powerhouse of the Chicago region’s economy. Without a vibrant and lively central city, Chicago is just another rust belt relic — and without transit, central Chicago will choke on traffic. Our entire region’s economic competitiveness hinges on adequate city transit.

The CTA also makes a pretty good case (large PDF) that its structural deficit is merely one symptom of a broken funding mechanism.

• Suburban Cook subsidizes money-losing long-distance Metra and Pace service in the collar counties. Each collar county transit trip receives over $3 in public subsidy, even while residents of the collar counties pay almost nothing for transit ($0.0025 on the dollar). Indeed, 52% of subsidies for collar county Metra service come from suburban Cook. It’s not just city vs. suburbs — the inner suburbs are getting fleeced as well. In an ideal world, Cook’s five million residents would be able to speak up for ourselves and beat back exurban free-riding, but alas, Springfield doesn’t work that way.
• CTA and Pace would be in okay financial shape if not for ballooning (and unsubsidized) paratransit costs. Hence, paratransit-free Metra has enough cash to pad its capital budget for extensions to the open countryside beyond exurbia, while CTA and Pace go beggaring.
• the RTA funding formula was broke from the beginning; transit ridership has steadily fallen (by 30%!) since it (and its strict farebox recovery ratios) was instituted. Most other states fund transit at a state or regional level, not at what’s effectively a city level.
• Transit must grow to properly serve the region; the TTI congestion study estimated that regional transit ridership must grow by 241,000 customers a day — almost the equivalent of increasing CTA rail ridership by 60%, or Metra ridership by 80%.
• The Loop would truly choke without CTA, which has 34-39% market share of inbound traffic from the west/northwest/southwest (remarkable considering the relative youth of the Orange Line) and 66% market share headed from the north lakefront. Market share along the south lakefront is a paltry 18%, which could be markedly improved if Metra and CTA didn’t both feel the need to offer duplicative (and inferior) services along that corridor.
• CTA funding has lagged inflation by 29% — but overall regional transit funding has lagged by 9.7%. Of course CTA is missing out on the sales tax boom in the suburbs, but overall, the sales tax is not keeping pace with economic growth in the region. Consumer goods and services make up the same proportion of the economy as they did in 1980, but the “goods” part of that (which pays sales tax) has fallen by over half. The “services,” which don’t pay sales tax, have increased substantially. Thus, sales tax receipts are stagnant even while the economy grows. (See CTBA’s report.)
• No one seems to have remembered that federal operating subsidies — once to the tune of $200 million in current dollars a year — have disappeared.

Sadly, of course, all of this nuance will be lost on CTA riders and probably even on the General Assembly. All they will do is yell at CTA.

LPCI has placed Westinghouse High School on its annual Chicagoland Watch List, saying that CPS intends to demolish this giant former candy factory for playing fields once the replacement school (now under construction) is complete. Of course, never mind that there’s plenty of other open spaces in half-vacant East Garfield Park, that Chicago School loft buildings are almost priceless in some neighborhoods, and that rehab has begun filtering their way around to Franklin and Sacramento Boulevards.

Sure, converting a 400,000 square foot building is a daunting prospect — two or three hundred lofts, perhaps — but selective demolition of the additions could improve feasibility. It has fantastic surviving architectural details and a shallow, T-form plan that’s a great improvement over the too-deep floorplates that plague many current loft conversions.

Ironically, the new Westinghouse school is being done to LEED specifications. Doesn’t LEED supposedly promote reuse of existing buildings?

Vincent rented “Road to Perdition” last night to see the direction. I just wanted to see the locations:

• Factory exteriors: Pullman Wheel Works, blast furnaces along Little Calumet River or in East Chicago
• Entering Chicago sequence: along Columbus Drive past Hutchinson Field ballfields (note the maintenance shack). Reflections in car windows of Michigan Avenue streetwall were digitally added in post-production. Car enters over LaSalle Street bridge. Watch the last few seconds of the reflection carefully; the perspective gets screwy as the reflections begin to run perpendicular to the actual scenery. At the last moment, cobra head streetlights from Columbus Drive appear in the reflection, just as the focus shifts to the actual buildings.
• Busy sidewalk: in front of Rookery.
• Lexington Hotel (with the second-floor gallery and large elevator bank): Palmer House Hilton. The Lexington stood at Cermak and Michigan, where the Lakeside Bank is now; it’s most famous now for having been ransacked by Geraldo on live TV in search of Capone’s hidden treasure.
• Newspaper reading room with green marble: Couldn’t figure out immediately, but of course it’s the G.A.R. Hall at the Cultural Center, n�e the central library.
• “L” tracks: Initially didn’t know, but the three pillars across (one of which was added later, with different trusses) and the concrete inserts below point to the South Side Green Line, with its former express track and post-construction raising.
• Catholic church on a square: St. Sylvester’s, on Palmer Square

The narrow streets are, of course, a Hollywood “New York City” set — note the sunken building entrances, ridiculously narrow street proportions, and 3/4-scale buildings.