Diverging Approach: Ceaselessly Into the Past

Breaking the summer hiatus to quickly join tonight’s chorus. I pride myself on using this blog to opine about suburban transit issues, since there are plenty of people smarter than I who are better suited to spill ink on urban transit issues.

That said though, there’s plenty of overlap in those missions. In many cases, the difference between some neighborhoods and some suburbs are nothing more than quirks of geography or politics; likewise, for the still-significant number of suburban commuters who work in the city, the two issues are often inseparable.

Or rather, they should be inseparable. The lack of connectivity and consistency in our overall network is well-documented. If I’m taking the Milwaukee West line into or out of the city – as I am wont to do on Saturdays – whether I get on at Elmwood Park (burbs) or Mont Clare (city) shouldn’t make much of a difference. Especially since those two stops are about a 15 minute walk apart, with the #90-Harlem almost perfectly bisecting that walk, running right down Harlem Avenue.

But, of course, it does matter. Mont Clare is fare Zone B; Elmwood Park is fare Zone C. Walking across Harlem Avenue costs/saves $1.25 each way, which is insane when you think about it. But moreover, as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot made painfully obvious tonight, Metra is for the suburbs, not the city. Responding to what should’ve been a lay-up of a question – does Chicago support Cook County’s pilot to lower fares and increase frequency for existing transit that serves the South Side – the Mayor decided to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors:

“I’m not in favor of it based upon the analysis that we’ve done,” Lightfoot said. “I’ve spent some time talking with (CTA President) Dorval Carter about it, and it looks like it is essentially a transfer of CTA passengers to the Metra line.

“Obviously there’s an area of the South Side where we need to have better transportation services,” Lightfoot said. “That Metra line is underserved, and I’m absolutely willing to work with Metra and the county, but this particular proposal I think causes problems for the CTA and I’m not going to support something that would have the effect of diminishing ridership at the CTA.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-metra-preckwinkle-lightfoot-20190918-cktmazbyt5fi7clhz5ruzegn4m-story.html?outputType=amp#click=https://t.co/ElHqL9S1Go

This is, to say the least, very disappointing but also very enlightening: the Mayor controls the CTA board while Chicago only has one seat at Metra’s 11-seat table, so the Mayor’s vested interest in boosting the CTA’s ridership numbers trumps supporting initiatives that, by necessity, need to be spearheaded by suburbanites even if they’ll benefit tens of thousands of Chicagoans.

While there’s plenty of obvious reasons why this is an absolutely terrible way to run a regional transportation system (and really makes you wish there was some sort of regional transportation authority that could integrate the various modes of transit somehow), as a suburban resident (Forest Park) who relies on the CTA (Blue Line), I’m personally left at a loss as to who has my back on transit issues. Plenty of Chicago mayors have made clear – but, hat tip to Mayor Lightfoot, not this clear in quite awhile – that the CTA is for Chicagoans and Metra is for the unwashed hordes beyond the city limits, leaving inner-tier suburbanites in the lurch. This manifests itself in other ways as well: 26% of the CTA’s non-accessible ‘L’ stations are suburban, even though suburban ‘L’ stations only make up 14% of the system.

I’m bringing back my favorite map from Chicago-L.org as a reminder that it doesn’t have to be like this. Back in 1937 when the city was planning the full extent of the rapid transit system, what we now call commuter rail was considered a crucial part of a rapid transit network that would serve 93% of all Chicagoans. Back when the railroads were privately owned, it made (some) sense that Chicago would be concerned about a public/private split of non-motorists, but it’s 2019. Metra is the only game in town for rail service beyond the reach of the eight CTA lines (for better or worse), but worrying about cannibalizing the transit market is not the fight we should be fighting right now as the world continues to burn and as we need to curtail our fossil fuel use. We need to be focusing on efficiency and sustainability and moving people. Whether that’s on the CTA or on Metra or on Pace, it doesn’t matter. The fact that it does matter is an indictment of our system as a whole, and that goes beyond the Woman on Five.

Mayor Lightfoot, if this somehow lands on your desk, I urge you to reconsider your position. I agree with you that Chicago is terribly underrepresented on the Metra Board considering 72 of Metra’s 242 stations are in the city proper, but passing up an opportunity to improve transit service and reduce fares to South Side residents just because the train isn’t powered by a third rail or because the feeder bus is blue instead of white is misguided at best and counterproductive at worst. I understand that you and President Preckwinkle have a bit of a history, but bolstering Metra service – especially through the South Side, potentially connecting Chicago reverse-commuting residents to growing job centers in Will County and improving neighborhood connectivity within the city proper while potentially saving taxpayers a billion dollars if the Red Line extension could be replaced with a functional Metra Electric line – is too important to play politics with.

With your guidance and support, the City of Chicago can be the catalyst to better connect our three transit agencies to serve everyone in the region more fairly, equitably, and frequently. The City of Chicago’s sustainability goals shouldn’t end at the city limits, and indeed better suburban transit service will directly improve the livability of the city as well as fewer regional travelers feel the need to drive to wherever they’re going.

But by pitting agency against agency and rider against rider, we all fall further behind. I urge you to reconsider your position on this issue, and hope you are able to see the opportunities this pilot program would offer those who live and those who work in the City of Chicago.