Children Operate Real Railroad (with video)

CTA and Alderman Moore, take notice! Apparently, running a railroad is child's play. In Hungary, kids actually work on the railroad, and they say it's "fun." This would seem to be a great way to kill two birds with one stone: Cheap labor for the financially betroubled CTA, and a fun way to put the Boys and Girls Club to run a constructive, educational activity for urban yoots. The Wall Street Journal has a fun article about the Hungarian railroad: Fun wasn't the goal in 1948, when the line was created by Stalinist apparatchiks to train future rail workers and instill political obedience in youths. Today, however, the line is a mix of apprenticeship and day camp. Children learn leadership and teamwork while playing. Though unpaid, the children are graded on their on-the-job skills. From age 14, they can oversee younger children and organize games and sports activities.... Watch the cool video below, then read the REST OF THE STORY...

March, Out Like a Lion

At Wilson CTA Red Line station in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, 5:08 p.m. today. The wind and sloppy snow were blowing hard across Chicago.

CTA Music Video

I did this for myself, but what the heck, I'll share it. Just a ride home on the CTA at sunset, a few days ago.

F the GD CTA

Imagine this scenario: You walk into your boss's office and say, "Boss, I don't know how to balance my own checkbook. You already pay me well, but I spend like a drunken Congressman and so, Boss, I need you to give me a huge raise so I can have a balanced budget. If you don't give me a huge raise, I will have to cut my work output by 13 percent." That is what the CTA is doing. Yesterday, Rogers Park Bench wondered whether the CTA's latest predictions of doom and rider hardship was nothing more than a threat (see Again?!? CTA Predicts Doom and Gloom). Today's Chicago Sun-Times front page (the print edition, not on the web), has a banner headline that asks the same question. Excerpts from today's online Sun-Times (added emphasis mine): The CTA will end the Yellow Line and Purple Line Express routes and increase fares to as much as $3.25 by mid-September unless there is new funding to balance its budget, CTA President Ron Huberman warned Thursday. More than 63 bus routes and 840 jobs also would be cut under the plan....in case state lawmakers don't come through with $110 million in extra funding to plug the CTA's budget shortfall by July 1. The CTA's latest doomsday threats came hours before the RTA unveiled a plan to raise $452 million a year in operating funds for the CTA, Metra and Pace with a quarter-percent sales tax hike for Cook and the collar counties, and a 0.3 percent increase in Chicago's real estate transfer tax. Without additional funding, the CTA will have to cut bus and rail service by 13 percent, including bus routes now offered as alternatives for North Side L tracks under construction, Huberman said. Your boss would probably tell you to grow up and go straight to Hell. And that is what we should tell the CTA.

Again?!? CTA Predicts Doom and Gloom

Didn't we recently go through CTA predictions of "hell" and painful commutes with the rennovation of the Brown Line tracks at Belmont and Fullerton? Yes, we did, and just days ago the Sun-Times ran an article telling us that the "hell" on the "L" predictions have not come true (see "Joe Moore's CTA Hysteria Derailed"). So here we go again, with another CTA prediction of doom. But the prediction this time has a dark side. CTA, you see, wants more money and the prediction of commuter hardship is really something more akin to a threat. "Give us more money or we'll do our worst," is what CTA seems to be saying. Perhaps CTA could waste less money on a bloated bureaucracy?

The CTA would eliminate 63 bus routes and two rail lines, and raise fares to as much as $3.25 a ride on trains if no new state funding is provided, CTA President Ron Huberman said today. FULL STORY at Chicago Tribune...

Joe Moore's CTA Hysteria Derailed

"The CTA is a Third World transportation system," said Chicago Alderman Joe Moore. Like many politicians, Moore was quick to quiveringly howl that there was a "crisis" brewing a few months ago when the CTA announced track closings to allow for much needed infrastructure upgrades. Today we see the stupidity of Joe Moore's silliness. Seems there was no crisis brewing. Not even a minor problem. The CTA itself gave a greatly hyperbolized prediction of what they thought would be travel time disasters. "Hell," the CTA said, it would be "hell." It ain't so, says the Chicago Sun-Times today: The CTA said it would be "hell," and L riders were warned their travel times might double. But a month after the CTA closed one of four tracks at the Belmont and Fullerton L stations, riding the Red, Brown, Blue and Purple Express lines takes about as much time as before. The track work is part of the expansion of the Brown Line. In some cases, riding the rails is even speedier. FULL STORY... What many of us can learn from this - but won't - is that predictions often do not come true, especially those made by bureaucrats seeking public sympathy or politicians trying to deflect criticism for other issues. By the way, have you heard about the Global Warming predictions of disaster and doom?