{"id":203848,"date":"2010-01-20T13:58:04","date_gmt":"2010-01-20T18:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/?p=11562"},"modified":"2010-01-20T13:58:04","modified_gmt":"2010-01-20T18:58:04","slug":"cta-protesters%e2%80%93mostly-employees%e2%80%93hit-service-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/203848","title":{"rendered":"CTA protesters\u2013mostly employees\u2013hit service cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Protesters marched outside CTA headquarters downtown today as the transit agency put the finishing touches on a major downsizing of bus and rail service.<\/p>\n<p>A crowd of fewer than 100 people consisted mostly of CTA unionized employees. One protester of the service cuts was ejected from the agency&#8217;s boardroom after he disrupted the monthly CTA meeting by throwing papers into the air.<\/p>\n<p>More than 1,000 CTA employees will be laid off on Feb. 7 if planned service cuts go through to help eliminate a projected $300 million budget deficit. <span id=\"more-11562\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You literally are restructuring the lives of thousands of people &#8230; I think the people of this city deserve better,&#8221; Darrell Jefferson, president of the bus drivers and bus mechanics union, Local 241 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, told CTA board members.<\/p>\n<p>Jefferson and others urged the board to rescind the service cuts.<\/p>\n<p>The service reductions will eliminate nine express bus routes and increase waiting times for passengers on more than 100 other bus routes as well as rail lines, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Buses and trains are expected to be much more crowded too.<\/p>\n<p>CTA bus service will be reduced 18 percent, leading to shortened hours of operation on 41 bus routes, and rail service will be cut by 9 percent, resulting in longer waits between trains, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>The unions have refused to go along with salary freezes and unpaid furlough days that non-union CTA employees are being forced to take as a way to reduce the $300 million budget deficit caused in large measure by a dropoff in sales tax revenue and real estate transfer taxes.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8211;<a href=\"mailto:jhilkevitch@tribune.com\" rel='nofollow'>Jon Hilkevitch<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read the original article from <a title=\"CTA protesters--mostly employees--hit service cuts\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.chicagotribune.com\/~r\/ChicagoBreakingNews\/~3\/RxS5CosBB4c\/cta-protesters--mostly-employees--hit-service-cuts.html\"  rel='nofollow'>Tribune News Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/04vIRUX-PQUH8OzNsnptgETE0aM\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/04vIRUX-PQUH8OzNsnptgETE0aM\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/04vIRUX-PQUH8OzNsnptgETE0aM\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/04vIRUX-PQUH8OzNsnptgETE0aM\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.chicagopressrelease.com\/~ff\/windycitynews?a=p7hYrVh-SEQ:jSSxdfGURhE:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/windycitynews?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.chicagopressrelease.com\/~ff\/windycitynews?a=p7hYrVh-SEQ:jSSxdfGURhE:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/windycitynews?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.chicagopressrelease.com\/~ff\/windycitynews?a=p7hYrVh-SEQ:jSSxdfGURhE:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/windycitynews?i=p7hYrVh-SEQ:jSSxdfGURhE:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/windycitynews\/~4\/p7hYrVh-SEQ\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Protesters marched outside CTA headquarters downtown today as the transit agency put the finishing touches on a major downsizing of bus and rail service. A crowd of fewer than 100 people consisted mostly of CTA unionized employees. One protester of the service cuts was ejected from the agency&#8217;s boardroom after he disrupted the monthly CTA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}