RTA does well to keep pressure on for capital plan
No one denies the need for a capital projects budget in Illinois. The lingering question has been whether state political leaders can stop squabbling long enough to find a way to pay for the work.
Last week, the reconstituted RTA board brought renewed emphasis to this growing crisis -- and in the process provided a reminder of what an important place public transportation holds in the equation.
By rights, the board's activities should have been dominated by suburban members wielding the new clout given them by the addition of three new seats on the board. Instead, they, and the entire RTA board, were left to lament that if something doesn't happen soon, there won't be much for them to wield clout for. Both the suburbs and the city will suffer from deteriorating facilities and neither will see the development of important projects envisioned for the future.
Key for the suburbs is the proposed STAR commuter rail line that would link the North, South and West suburbs. This project has been in the "planning stages" for 10 years, and under the best of circumstances won't be operational for another 10.
But as RTA members complained last week, it will be even longer than that if money doesn't become available soon to undertake the next phase of the work. Of course, the STAR line proposal is concurrently at risk because of the uncertainties about whether it can be included in Canadian National Railway's plans if CN ends up purchasing the EJ&E track on which the STAR line had been slated to run.
But those uncertainties can't be allowed to create even more delays in the thinking and planning for the STAR proposal, just as the state's political infighting can't be allowed to further delay the evolution of public transportation in the Chicago region.
Gasoline prices will hit $4 a gallon this summer. Can anyone even hazard a guess at what they'll be a decade from now? The area's so-called expressways are sluggish and unreliable, packed nearly 24 hours a day with single-occupant cars and trucks converting all that $4 gasoline into smog and pollution -- not to mention driver irritation.
We cannot afford to lose interest in finding a better way.
At present, we have at least Gov. Rod Blagojevich's $25 billion proposal on the table. The RTA -- which oversees Metra, the Pace suburban bus system and the Chicago Transit Authority -- wants $10 billion for a host of system and infrastructure projects. Those include STAR line planning, the extension of the Union Pacific Northwest line to Johnsburg, $99 million for replacing outdated Pace buses, and more than $1.5 billion for CTA track and station improvements.
Public transportation is a key component of effective planning in the suburbs. The RTA was right to keep the pressure on lawmakers to find a way to develop and fund a capital projects bill that remembers the mass transit needs of Chicago and the suburbs. Let's hope that soon we are cheering suburban representatives' increased influence in that planning, rather than just hoping the process continues at all.