{"id":237127,"date":"2010-01-27T13:39:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-27T18:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a818bb5a970b"},"modified":"2010-01-27T13:39:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-27T18:39:00","slug":"daley-says-cta-service-cuts-preferable-to-fare-increases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/237127","title":{"rendered":"Daley says CTA service cuts preferable to fare increases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by John Byrne<\/em> at 12:40 p.m.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Mayor Richard Daley today said CTA riders shouldn&#8217;t expect another last-minute reprieve for the service cuts planned for Feb. 7, contending fewer buses and trains are preferable to higher fares.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0 <br \/><\/br>The mayor said he doesn&#8217;t believe anything can be done to stop 1,100 layoffs and less frequent buses on 119 routes and trains on seven lines.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>&quot;No, because you have &#8212; they&#8217;ve done everything possible to go to Springfield and tell them the importance,&quot; Daley said.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>&quot;(The CTA has) a highly unionized workforce, about 99 percent, that&#8217;s it. And they have contracts, rules and regulations, and like anything else, they need flexibility,&quot; the mayor said at an event where he opened a new job training center in the Pilsen neighborhood.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<br \/><\/br>CTA unions recently rejected a proposal that they give back a 3.5 percent pay raise this year to lessen the layoffs and corresponding service reductions. Last year, City Hall workers agreed to unpaid days off and many unionized state employees just agreed to skip a pay increase to prevent job cuts.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>Daley said it would be difficult in these economic times to expect riders to pay higher fares.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>&quot;That&#8217;s hard, because, let&#8217;s be realistic, people are suffering very hard,&quot; Daley said. &quot;Any nickel they can save is something they can save.&quot;<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>These impending cuts have not engendered the public outcry of prior Chicago Transit Authority proposals to reduce service because people realize the state is in dire financial straits, Daley said.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>&quot;Everybody knows the state&#8217;s almost bankrupt,&quot; he said.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>Gov. Pat Quinn brokered a deal to prevent recent fare increases by increasing Regional Transportation Authority borrowing authority in exchange for a CTA promise not to raise fares for two years. You can read about that <a href=\"http:\/\/newsblogs.chicagotribune.com\/clout_st\/2009\/11\/quinn-floats-plan-to-help-cashstrapped-cta.html\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by John Byrne at 12:40 p.m.Mayor Richard Daley today said CTA riders shouldn&#8217;t expect another last-minute reprieve for the service cuts planned for Feb. 7, contending fewer buses and trains are preferable to higher fares.\u00a0 The mayor said he doesn&#8217;t believe anything can be done to stop 1,100 layoffs and less frequent buses on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237127","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\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}