CTA transit fare strike.

mypetrobot · December 12th, 2004, 08:20 AM

i don't know how effective this would be can't think that it would be but theres more on it here:

http://www.midwestunrest.net/farestrike/

RIDERS DON'T PAY! WORKERS DON'T COLLECT!
The CTA has slated January 2nd 2005 as Doomsday. This is the day services are to be cut by 20%, 1250 jobs are to be terminated and paratransit fares will be increased by 100%. While CTA officials claim the only solution would be extra money from the state, we have been holding CTA president Frank Kruesi and his board responsible. It is the CTA who has known this crisis was coming and has made the decision to dump it on the backs of workers and riders. They are the ones who ignored it as they built their new $119 million Lake Street office. It is also Kruesi and his buddy mayor Daley who are still talking about spending almost 2 billion dollars on a new Circle line, just so rich folks can get from their neighborhoods to the airport a little bit quicker. If there is money for such luxury, there is no excuse for cutting our service, terminating our jobs and raising our fares!

In response, Midwest Unrest has called for a fare strike starting December 15th. If no final decision to scrap these cuts, job terminations and fare increases has been announced by then, we are calling on all CTA riders to ride their routes like they do everyday but without paying. The CTA depends on us paying and collecting fares. This is where our power to pressure them lies. This tactic has been successful before, in San Francisco, Italy, France and elsewhere. In Chicago, there is widespread support for a fare strike among bus operators, many of whom have already received pink slips. They've said time and again, "It's not our job to collect the fares."

So starting December 15th, politely state that you are on fare strike when you board your buses and take your seat without paying. Until then start spreading the word. Talk to your bus operators and other riders. Download flyers from our website and pass them out. Together we can make this a success!

WHAT'S UP?
The Chicago Transit Authority is planning a drastic attack on poor and working people all over the city. This will include:

20% overall service cuts

30 bus routes being completely eliminated, hundreds of others coming less often, having shorter routes, having night or weekend service eliminated (complete list)

11% cut in operating hours of the “L”

1000 job losses, most of which are firings, not layoffs

doubling the fee for paratransit vans for disabled riders

increasing the fee for student passes by $.10 a day

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
Frank Kreusi and the CTA board say that they have a budget crisis, that they are $70-some million dollars short. They say they need more money from Springfield—and with their public hearings and add campaigns they are trying to direct all our anger into lobbying our representatives. We don’t buy it.

In 1999, they got money from the state to restore the 1997 service cuts, but the service cuts were never restored.

They just built a new office at 567 W. Lake St. that cost about $119 million.

They have already started work on the new Circle Line to connect the suburbs, which will cost as much as $2 billion.

The CTA board recently voted to increase their own pensions.

They are planning new express “L” trains that will run every 15 minutes between downtown and O’Hare airport, so yuppie tourists don’t have to mix with the local riff-raff.

They always have enough money for security cameras and GPS clever boxes to spy on the drivers… not to mention grafitti clean-up.
So the problem is not only that the CTA has a budget crisis, but that they have chosen to dump their crisis off on us—the people who depend most on public transit and who can least afford to pay more.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
The point is not to offer up different management strategies for the CTA. Lots of community groups have done this, and they have been ignored. The CTA listens to big business, not riders and drivers. The only way they will respond to our needs, is if we can put real pressure on them—if we can disrupt business as usual.

We have the power to do this. Half of CTA’s budget comes from fares. They depend on us as riders to pay fares, and as workers to collect fares. When riders refuse to pay, and workers refuse to collect, that will really hit them where it hurts. We can get where we need to go, have a free ride, and put pressure on them at the same time. If this happened on a large scale, they would move very quickly to restore services, reverse job losses and stop the fare hikes.

PEOPLE WOULD NEVER DO THAT
Not true. Fare evasion happens every day. It’s such a big problem for transit bureaucrats that transit authorities in almost every major city in the world have issued long reports condemning it. Whenever they introduce new technology into ticket-taking it is explained as a way to cut down on fare evasion. Even though they try to make consequences for fare evasion, riders continue to do it all the time. It just needs to be pushed farther.

Organized fare strikes are a common tactic:

In Italy in 1974, fare strikes were widespread, and were successful in stopping fare increases all over the country.

In some cities in France, organized fare evasion became so common, that it was more expensive to pay for police to watch all the metros and busses than to just make the transport free, which is what happened in a number of cities.

In San Francisco in 1993 a fare evasion campaign helped increase the pressure on the city to bring back transfers, which they did.

In Dublin a fare-free day was called in the summer of 2003 by bus-drivers unions as part of the ongoing fight against the privatization of the city’s bus system.

There are ongoing and successful fare evasion campaigns in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Helsinki.

The Bus Riders Union in Vancouver has called for a fare strike in early 2005 if a proposed fare increase goes ahead.

Rail Claimore · December 12th, 2004, 11:59 AM

They lost me with this one:

They are planning new express “L” trains that will run every 15 minutes between downtown and O’Hare airport, so yuppie tourists don’t have to mix with the local riff-raff.

The Urban Politician · December 12th, 2004, 05:29 PM

How about this one:

They have already started work on the new Circle Line to connect the suburbs, which will cost as much as $2 billion.

I am not against a strike--perhaps it can be effective. But they need to get their facts straight. Also, I am all for the CTA laying off workers. Why not be a bit more fiscally responsible? Chicago has a long tradition of having too many city employees and redundant jobs on the payroll. They should expecially slash jobs in management.

Chi-town · December 12th, 2004, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rail Claimore

They lost me with this one:

They are planning new express “L” trains that will run every 15 minutes between downtown and O’Hare airport, so yuppie tourists don’t have to mix with the local riff-raff.

Yeah, that's just fucking retarded.

No, it's so it doesn't take people an hour to get to the godamn airport...

geoff_diamond · December 13th, 2004, 04:04 AM

This whole write-up was rediculous. How many times do we need to explain the difference between operating budgets and capital budgets? The two cannot be mixed. End of story.

Yes, I am sick of the CTA jerking our chains, but, this is most certainly not the solution.

The Urban Politician · December 14th, 2004, 05:52 PM

Here's one for you guys:

Idea to tax parking spaces on shaky ground
By Jon Davis Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Tuesday, December 14, 2004

John Starks/Daily Herald

Imagine clothes, food and other tchotchkes at your favorite suburban shopping mall costing a bit more down the road.

Now imagine that's because the mall has to pay an annual $10 tax on each of its parking spaces - a fee aimed at pumping cash into the Chicago area's mass transit system.

That idea, for which no one is claiming credit, seems to be a trial balloon floating around before lawmakers consider new funding for the Regional Transportation Authority during the new legislative session, which begins next month.

Leaders of suburbs with major regional shopping malls don't like it, and the head of a legislative committee charged with examining the RTA and mass transit funding calls it "half-baked."

"Who would pay it? That's the first question I would ask," said state Rep. Julie Hamos, an Evanston Democrat who chairs the Special Committee for Mass Transit in Northeastern Illinois. "The mall owners would pay for transit without passing it on?

"It sounds a little bit half-baked at this point, and I would have to take a much harder look (before deciding whether the idea has merit)."

Instead, she added, the committee will look at the RTA sales tax - where it comes from and where it goes in the six-county metropolitan area - when it meets at 10 a.m. Thursday at Buffalo Grove's village hall, 50 Raupp Blvd.

The RTA sales tax ranges from 1 percent in Chicago to 0.25 percent in DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. That revenue is divvied up via a complex formula among the RTA, Metra, Pace and Chicago Transit Authority.

Ideas like the parking space tax, or raising the sales tax in the collar counties to a full 1æpercent, are premature, Hamos said. The first step is understanding whether more funding is needed, she said.

"If the answer is yes, then we look at funding sources, and I think we should be open to looking at all sources of revenues," Hamos said.

Schaumburg Village President Al Larson, whose town is home to the Woodfield Shopping Center, an IKEA store and countless strip malls, said a parking stall tax is one revenue source that should stay closed.

"Obviously, we're opposed to it, but why suburban shopping centers? Why not tax Chicago parking garage spaces?" Larson asked. "I think there are better ways to do that than taxing shopping center parking spaces. There are more fairer ways, more equitable ways."

The idea of taxing parking spaces isn't unique to Chicago.

The Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, in Vancouver, British Columbia, is implementing just such a tax as part of a broader effort to raise more money for public transportation.

The tax of roughly $30 Canadian ($24.50 U.S.) per stall will raise $70 million ($57 million U.S.) over three years, starting in 2006, said Ken Hardy, spokesman for the authority, also known as TransLink.

Even if mall owners pass on the tax to shoppers, "thirty dollars per stall a year is fractions of a penny per visit," Hardy said.

The tax also supports the idea that mall owners should help pay for public transit since that makes the movement of people, goods and services more efficient, he added.

"By applying an area tax to parking, over time we know that will encourage companies to locate near rapid transit lines," Hardy said.

RTA spokesman Scott McPherson disagreed.

"If our goal is to get cars off the road ... that's a false premise there because taking them out of suburban malls won't necessarily get them onto transit," McPherson said.

More probable than a parking stall tax in the coming legislative session is a push to raise the RTA sales tax in the collar counties, he added.

"It's kind of a cat-and-mouse game being played throughout the region as to where funding is going to come from," McPherson said.

The Urban Politician · December 14th, 2004, 10:45 PM

Here's another one for you guys:

Anarchists want CTA free-for-all

By Kristina Buchthal
The Chicago Transit Authority on Tuesday said that an “anarchist group” opposed to pending CTA service cuts issued a phony news release saying fares would be free Wednesday for all riders.
The email message, sent to several Chicago media, promised a “day of free transit” and offered a false, yet sincere, apology from CTA president Frank Kruesi about possible future service cuts.

continued below

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“I personally apologize to our lower income, disabled, elderly and south side riders,” the news release attributes to Kruesi. “I apologize for not communicating more at our previous CTA public hearings.”
A CTA spokeswoman said the release was likely distributed by a group called Midwest Unrest, which is attempting to organize a fare strike among CTA riders in opposition to service cuts. Phone messages seeking comment from the group’s organizers were not returned.

On its Web site, Midwest Unrest implores CTA employees to stop collecting fares and instructs customers not to pay.

“Politely state that you are on fare strike when you board your buses and take your seat without paying,” the Web site urges riders.

Facing a $75 million budget gap, the CTA has been engaged in a yet unsuccessful campaign to get the Illinois General Assembly to approve additional transit subsidies. Without more funds, the CTA will be forced to end overnight L service, eliminate dozens of bus routes, and reduce the frequency of service on other lines, Mr. Kruesi and CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown have said repeatedly in recent weeks.

The CTA has been aware of the activist group’s attempt to organize a fare strike in opposition to service cuts. But she said the agency doesn’t expect the effort to have any impact on service on Wednesday.

“We have notified operators and the police to continue enforcing the rules,” the spokeswoman says. “We consider someone who doesn’t pay a fare to be committing theft of service.”

The spokeswoman said the CTA has referred the phony news release to the FBI, which investigates identity and impersonation crimes.

December 12th, 2004, 08:20 AM	#1
mypetrobot Registered User Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 194 Likes (Received): 0	CTA transit fare strike. i don't know how effective this would be can't think that it would be but theres more on it here: http://www.midwestunrest.net/farestrike/ RIDERS DON'T PAY! WORKERS DON'T COLLECT! The CTA has slated January 2nd 2005 as Doomsday. This is the day services are to be cut by 20%, 1250 jobs are to be terminated and paratransit fares will be increased by 100%. While CTA officials claim the only solution would be extra money from the state, we have been holding CTA president Frank Kruesi and his board responsible. It is the CTA who has known this crisis was coming and has made the decision to dump it on the backs of workers and riders. They are the ones who ignored it as they built their new $119 million Lake Street office. It is also Kruesi and his buddy mayor Daley who are still talking about spending almost 2 billion dollars on a new Circle line, just so rich folks can get from their neighborhoods to the airport a little bit quicker. If there is money for such luxury, there is no excuse for cutting our service, terminating our jobs and raising our fares! In response, Midwest Unrest has called for a fare strike starting December 15th. If no final decision to scrap these cuts, job terminations and fare increases has been announced by then, we are calling on all CTA riders to ride their routes like they do everyday but without paying. The CTA depends on us paying and collecting fares. This is where our power to pressure them lies. This tactic has been successful before, in San Francisco, Italy, France and elsewhere. In Chicago, there is widespread support for a fare strike among bus operators, many of whom have already received pink slips. They've said time and again, "It's not our job to collect the fares." So starting December 15th, politely state that you are on fare strike when you board your buses and take your seat without paying. Until then start spreading the word. Talk to your bus operators and other riders. Download flyers from our website and pass them out. Together we can make this a success! WHAT'S UP? The Chicago Transit Authority is planning a drastic attack on poor and working people all over the city. This will include: 20% overall service cuts 30 bus routes being completely eliminated, hundreds of others coming less often, having shorter routes, having night or weekend service eliminated (complete list) 11% cut in operating hours of the “L” 1000 job losses, most of which are firings, not layoffs doubling the fee for paratransit vans for disabled riders increasing the fee for student passes by $.10 a day WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? Frank Kreusi and the CTA board say that they have a budget crisis, that they are $70-some million dollars short. They say they need more money from Springfield—and with their public hearings and add campaigns they are trying to direct all our anger into lobbying our representatives. We don’t buy it. In 1999, they got money from the state to restore the 1997 service cuts, but the service cuts were never restored. They just built a new office at 567 W. Lake St. that cost about $119 million. They have already started work on the new Circle Line to connect the suburbs, which will cost as much as $2 billion. The CTA board recently voted to increase their own pensions. They are planning new express “L” trains that will run every 15 minutes between downtown and O’Hare airport, so yuppie tourists don’t have to mix with the local riff-raff. They always have enough money for security cameras and GPS clever boxes to spy on the drivers… not to mention grafitti clean-up. So the problem is not only that the CTA has a budget crisis, but that they have chosen to dump their crisis off on us—the people who depend most on public transit and who can least afford to pay more. WHAT CAN WE DO? The point is not to offer up different management strategies for the CTA. Lots of community groups have done this, and they have been ignored. The CTA listens to big business, not riders and drivers. The only way they will respond to our needs, is if we can put real pressure on them—if we can disrupt business as usual. We have the power to do this. Half of CTA’s budget comes from fares. They depend on us as riders to pay fares, and as workers to collect fares. When riders refuse to pay, and workers refuse to collect, that will really hit them where it hurts. We can get where we need to go, have a free ride, and put pressure on them at the same time. If this happened on a large scale, they would move very quickly to restore services, reverse job losses and stop the fare hikes. PEOPLE WOULD NEVER DO THAT Not true. Fare evasion happens every day. It’s such a big problem for transit bureaucrats that transit authorities in almost every major city in the world have issued long reports condemning it. Whenever they introduce new technology into ticket-taking it is explained as a way to cut down on fare evasion. Even though they try to make consequences for fare evasion, riders continue to do it all the time. It just needs to be pushed farther. Organized fare strikes are a common tactic: In Italy in 1974, fare strikes were widespread, and were successful in stopping fare increases all over the country. In some cities in France, organized fare evasion became so common, that it was more expensive to pay for police to watch all the metros and busses than to just make the transport free, which is what happened in a number of cities. In San Francisco in 1993 a fare evasion campaign helped increase the pressure on the city to bring back transfers, which they did. In Dublin a fare-free day was called in the summer of 2003 by bus-drivers unions as part of the ongoing fight against the privatization of the city’s bus system. There are ongoing and successful fare evasion campaigns in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Helsinki. The Bus Riders Union in Vancouver has called for a fare strike in early 2005 if a proposed fare increase goes ahead.

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December 12th, 2004, 11:59 AM	#2
Rail Claimore Registered User Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Huntsville, AL Posts: 1,171 Likes (Received): 2	They lost me with this one: They are planning new express “L” trains that will run every 15 minutes between downtown and O’Hare airport, so yuppie tourists don’t have to mix with the local riff-raff.

December 12th, 2004, 05:29 PM	#3
The Urban Politician The City Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 5,968 Likes (Received): 0	How about this one: They have already started work on the new Circle Line to connect the suburbs, which will cost as much as $2 billion. I am not against a strike--perhaps it can be effective. But they need to get their facts straight. Also, I am all for the CTA laying off workers. Why not be a bit more fiscally responsible? Chicago has a long tradition of having too many city employees and redundant jobs on the payroll. They should expecially slash jobs in management.

December 13th, 2004, 04:04 AM	#5
geoff_diamond Live from the Loop Join Date: May 2004 Location: Chicago Posts: 1,578 Likes (Received): 0	This whole write-up was rediculous. How many times do we need to explain the difference between operating budgets and capital budgets? The two cannot be mixed. End of story. Yes, I am sick of the CTA jerking our chains, but, this is most certainly not the solution.

December 14th, 2004, 05:52 PM	#6
The Urban Politician The City Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 5,968 Likes (Received): 0	Here's one for you guys: Idea to tax parking spaces on shaky ground By Jon Davis Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Tuesday, December 14, 2004 John Starks/Daily Herald Imagine clothes, food and other tchotchkes at your favorite suburban shopping mall costing a bit more down the road. Now imagine that's because the mall has to pay an annual $10 tax on each of its parking spaces - a fee aimed at pumping cash into the Chicago area's mass transit system. That idea, for which no one is claiming credit, seems to be a trial balloon floating around before lawmakers consider new funding for the Regional Transportation Authority during the new legislative session, which begins next month. Leaders of suburbs with major regional shopping malls don't like it, and the head of a legislative committee charged with examining the RTA and mass transit funding calls it "half-baked." "Who would pay it? That's the first question I would ask," said state Rep. Julie Hamos, an Evanston Democrat who chairs the Special Committee for Mass Transit in Northeastern Illinois. "The mall owners would pay for transit without passing it on? "It sounds a little bit half-baked at this point, and I would have to take a much harder look (before deciding whether the idea has merit)." Instead, she added, the committee will look at the RTA sales tax - where it comes from and where it goes in the six-county metropolitan area - when it meets at 10 a.m. Thursday at Buffalo Grove's village hall, 50 Raupp Blvd. The RTA sales tax ranges from 1 percent in Chicago to 0.25 percent in DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. That revenue is divvied up via a complex formula among the RTA, Metra, Pace and Chicago Transit Authority. Ideas like the parking space tax, or raising the sales tax in the collar counties to a full 1æpercent, are premature, Hamos said. The first step is understanding whether more funding is needed, she said. "If the answer is yes, then we look at funding sources, and I think we should be open to looking at all sources of revenues," Hamos said. Schaumburg Village President Al Larson, whose town is home to the Woodfield Shopping Center, an IKEA store and countless strip malls, said a parking stall tax is one revenue source that should stay closed. "Obviously, we're opposed to it, but why suburban shopping centers? Why not tax Chicago parking garage spaces?" Larson asked. "I think there are better ways to do that than taxing shopping center parking spaces. There are more fairer ways, more equitable ways." The idea of taxing parking spaces isn't unique to Chicago. The Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, in Vancouver, British Columbia, is implementing just such a tax as part of a broader effort to raise more money for public transportation. The tax of roughly $30 Canadian ($24.50 U.S.) per stall will raise $70 million ($57 million U.S.) over three years, starting in 2006, said Ken Hardy, spokesman for the authority, also known as TransLink. Even if mall owners pass on the tax to shoppers, "thirty dollars per stall a year is fractions of a penny per visit," Hardy said. The tax also supports the idea that mall owners should help pay for public transit since that makes the movement of people, goods and services more efficient, he added. "By applying an area tax to parking, over time we know that will encourage companies to locate near rapid transit lines," Hardy said. RTA spokesman Scott McPherson disagreed. "If our goal is to get cars off the road ... that's a false premise there because taking them out of suburban malls won't necessarily get them onto transit," McPherson said. More probable than a parking stall tax in the coming legislative session is a push to raise the RTA sales tax in the collar counties, he added. "It's kind of a cat-and-mouse game being played throughout the region as to where funding is going to come from," McPherson said.

December 14th, 2004, 10:45 PM	#7
The Urban Politician The City Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 5,968 Likes (Received): 0	Here's another one for you guys: Anarchists want CTA free-for-all By Kristina Buchthal The Chicago Transit Authority on Tuesday said that an “anarchist group” opposed to pending CTA service cuts issued a phony news release saying fares would be free Wednesday for all riders. The email message, sent to several Chicago media, promised a “day of free transit” and offered a false, yet sincere, apology from CTA president Frank Kruesi about possible future service cuts. continued below Advertisement “I personally apologize to our lower income, disabled, elderly and south side riders,” the news release attributes to Kruesi. “I apologize for not communicating more at our previous CTA public hearings.” A CTA spokeswoman said the release was likely distributed by a group called Midwest Unrest, which is attempting to organize a fare strike among CTA riders in opposition to service cuts. Phone messages seeking comment from the group’s organizers were not returned. On its Web site, Midwest Unrest implores CTA employees to stop collecting fares and instructs customers not to pay. “Politely state that you are on fare strike when you board your buses and take your seat without paying,” the Web site urges riders. Facing a $75 million budget gap, the CTA has been engaged in a yet unsuccessful campaign to get the Illinois General Assembly to approve additional transit subsidies. Without more funds, the CTA will be forced to end overnight L service, eliminate dozens of bus routes, and reduce the frequency of service on other lines, Mr. Kruesi and CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown have said repeatedly in recent weeks. The CTA has been aware of the activist group’s attempt to organize a fare strike in opposition to service cuts. But she said the agency doesn’t expect the effort to have any impact on service on Wednesday. “We have notified operators and the police to continue enforcing the rules,” the spokeswoman says. “We consider someone who doesn’t pay a fare to be committing theft of service.” The spokeswoman said the CTA has referred the phony news release to the FBI, which investigates identity and impersonation crimes.