{"id":28,"date":"2015-02-20T18:47:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-21T00:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/who-pays-for-mass-transit.html"},"modified":"2015-02-24T19:21:33","modified_gmt":"2015-02-25T01:21:33","slug":"who-pays-for-mass-transit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/02\/who-pays-for-mass-transit.html","title":{"rendered":"Who pays for mass transit?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This is somewhat long-winded and it takes a while to get to my point (to the extent that I have one), but please bear with me.<\/p>\n

Illinois\u2019 new governor, Bruce Rauner, presented his budget to the legislature, and the public, earlier this week. \u00a0Just as with Obama\u2019s budget, it\u2019s DOA because his party is in the minority in the legislature \u2014 but it\u2019s got, unlike Obama\u2019s tax hikes, major budget cuts. <\/p>\n

One of those is transit \u2014 or, specifically, cuts to funding the Chicago area mass transit systems Metra (commuter rail), CTA (city El and buses) and Pace (suburban buses). <\/p>\n

Per the Chicago Tribune<\/a>,<\/p>\n

The CTA, Metra and Pace would lose almost $130 million in state funding under the 2016 budget plan that Gov. Bruce Rauner presented Wednesday, potentially threatening transit services provided to disabled riders and opening the door to deep service cuts and fare increases for daily commuters on trains and buses, transit officials said.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The CTA alone would suffer a state cutback of more than $105 million, according to a preliminary analysis by the transit agency. The proposed cuts, roughly 7 percent of the agency\u2019s operating budget, would risk reversing improvements the CTA has made in recent years, CTA spokesman Brian Steele said. . . .\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In an apparent effort to downplay the impact, a fact sheet released by the governor\u2019s office said the proposed reduction equals 4.4 percent of the Regional Transportation Authority\u2019s $2.9 billion operating budget for the Chicago-area mass transit system in 2015.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So where does the money come from, in general? \u00a0Ah-ah! \u00a0\u201cThe transit system\u2019s operating budgets are based approximately 40 percent on fares, 40 percent on sales tax revenue and 20 percent on state funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

So my first thought was this: \u00a0why not have the funds for Chicago-area transit come from Chicago? \u00a0Why should downstate Illinoisians have to pay?<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not that simple, because every community of a certain size gets state funds to run its bus system, in some cases considerably more funds, relatively, than Chicago. \u00a0I tried to find some information online, and found out that, in Springfield,<\/a> the state pays 62% of the operating budget, and fares a mere 9% of the total (the remainder coming from local and federal funding). \u00a0That\u2019s a lot of state subsidy \u2014 far more than the 20% for the Chicago area! \u00a0Is this an anomaly because Springfield is the capitol and lawmakers send lots more money its way? <\/p>\n

I looked around for other smaller towns in Illinois (Peoria, Urbana-Champaign, Kankakee) but they didn\u2019t have the equivalent information on their transit websites. \u00a0But here\u2019s a document <\/a>with the details on state funding to downstate towns \u2014 Springfield gets 12.7 million in state funds and Peoria 19.3 million, for instance.<\/p>\n

Now, I thought I could do some math around this. \u00a0I pulled up the population for the six-county area that\u2019s officially part of the RTA, the regional transportation authority for the Chicago area: \u00a08.3 million. \u00a0I divided the funds allocated by the state, according to the above document, 327.8 million, and calculated that the state of Illinois passes on about $40 per person for Chicago-area transit funding.<\/p>\n

For Peoria, the county population is 188,000, so that\u2019s about $100 per person. \u00a0For Springfield, the county population is 199,000, which produces $64 per person. \u00a0Are these the right numbers? \u00a0Who knows? \u00a0Their transit systems don\u2019t serve the entire county, and only the county \u2014 and large portions of the six-county Chicagoland area aren\u2019t really served by transit, even though they pay the local sales tax that funds it.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s fair? <\/p>\n

Perhaps my first instinct of \u201cevery town\/county\/metro area\u201d funds its own transit isn\u2019t appropriate, because the state has the ability to collect more funds, via the income tax, than cities can. \u00a0But then should the state just allocate funds on a per-person basis and be done with it? \u00a0Are downstate areas \u201cneedier\u201d and should be subsidized more? \u00a0(As it is, even their bus fares are cheaper \u2014 $1.00 or $1.25 rather than $2.50.) \u00a0In any case, this patchwork of funding with special programs for Chicagoland vs. downstate, seems hard to justify, as does the current plan to cut the RTA subsidies but leave everything else intact. <\/p>\n

\u00a0And this is, of course, not even addressing the point of to what extent mass transit should be subsidized in the first place, but just who should be doing the subsidizing.<\/p>\n

Is this just a small piece of the puzzle, and not particularly interesting? \u00a0But every single piece of Rauner\u2019s budget is a matter of such decisions. \u00a0One of the other cuts is to generic revenue sharing, in which the state passes on some of the income tax revenue to local governments.<\/p>\n

And yet: \u00a0at some point in the past, the budget was in balance, and it\u2019s tempting to say, \u201cjust go back to the budget as it existed in\u201d \u2014 when? \u00a02000? \u00a01990? \u00a0 There were programs which were expanded since that point that aren\u2019t even under discussion now: \u00a0funding for children\u2019s health insurance and expansions in funding for preschool programs, to name two. <\/p>\n

No matter what, getting the budget in balance won\u2019t be as simple as waving a magic wand, and Rauner can\u2019t be a second Walker when the legislature won\u2019t vote how he wants.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is somewhat long-winded and it takes a while to get to my point (to the extent that I have one), but please bear with me. Illinois\u2019 new governor, Bruce Rauner, presented his budget to the legislature, and the public, earlier this week. \u00a0Just as with Obama\u2019s budget, it\u2019s DOA because his party is in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11,12],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-illinois","tag-transit"],"yoast_head":"\nWho pays for mass transit?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is somewhat long-winded and it takes a while to get to my point (to the extent that I have one), but please bear with me.Illinois' new governor,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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