CTA and CITGO cover-up

[rosesaylavee]

Anyone in Chicago working on this? http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x32584

Seems the CTA has been offered a deal from Venezuela and is sitting on it. I am out in the 'burbs but can make calls into the city...

Here is a more direct thread to the story... http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1858

[mopinko]

1. my post from the other thread- hold on here, be fair.

this is not going to keep fares down. that is not how the offer can work. cta is being told that they have to funnel these savings to poor people in the form of free fare cards. so, repeat- this will not keep fares down. in order to accept this aid, the cta has to find a way to distribute the free cards to qualified recipients. so, for no net reductions in their operating expenses, they have to create and operate a bureaucracy to distribute the cards. this costs money. so, in the end, cta will spend more money.
do the math, people, and read the story. this is not the cta says no to an offer of cheap fuel. this is the cta says no to becoming a social welfare organization. not the same thing folks. details, details.

[rosesaylavee]

2. No but assistance to those that need

should be explored more or at least explained by the CTA why they chose not to pursue. There are simple applications used to verify income level that could be used for this - or they could partner with the utility department to determine need.

Yes, it would take some doing to implement but if it can save a life or two, I think its worth it.

And maybe it's not the CTA that takes the lead on it as it is not, as you put it, a 'social welfare org'. The City of Chicago should be considering it, IMO.

[mopinko]

3. save a life? what are you talking about?

this is about giving away bus cards. not about heating oil.
there is no way to do this without spending scarce dollars. there is no net gain to the system. just free pr for hugo. i love hugo, but he can pay for his own pr.

[rosesaylavee]

4. Not sure what your salary is

but have you tried to make ends meet on $560/month? Doesn't have to be about heating oil...

"This is going to hurt the poor and the minority people, like me," said Dorothy Chew, resident of Humboldt Park, where one-third of residents live below the federally recognized poverty level – currently just $16,000 for a family of three. Chew relies on the CTA to get to work and to Chicago Commons, where she attends classes daily in preparation for taking her GED. Since she rarely has money to invest in a fare card, she will be forced to pay for transfers the majority of the time.

Chew's classmate, Linda Cox, works a minimum-wage job and has been a Public Aid recipient for 15 years. She also relies heavily on public transportation.

"I only earn $560 a month and of that, over $200 a month goes to my bus fare," Cox told The NewStandard. "I have a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old who also need to get to school. If they change the prices and take away transfers, there are going to be a lot of days missed. I already see no money at the end of the month."

[mopinko]

8. i've been poor most of my life.

i'm lucky that i am not now. but when i was, i sure enough would have bought passes and saved 25% on my transit costs. one adult and 2 student passes cost $150. and the other lady who said she rarely has money to invest in fare cards- please. you can add $1 at a time.
but you are just out of line to try to link this issue with people dying. come on. i know it is hard to be poor. but to link everything that has to do with poverty with people freezing to death is just intellectually dishonest.
diverting resources in a cash strapped agency, to serve a few people, probably for a short time, would be a real disservice to all the riders of the cta, including the many poor and near poor riders who would not get a free card.
i understand the appeal of all this. i applaud hugo for trying to help the poor in this country. the heating oil thing is a great way to help. there is already a social service infrastructure to take care of that. poor people were already signed up, and evaluated, and getting assistance with their heat. i'm sure if you checked into it, you would find that that infrastructures takes thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. but there is no infrastructure here for that. unless hugo wants to give some cash, and establish some guidelines, and answer these questions, and promise to keep doing this for some reasonable period of time, like 10 years, this is just more of a burden than a gift. the cta was right to turn it down. and they kept it quiet to prevent having to argue this for the next 5 years. i do not blame them.

[rosesaylavee]

5. And as for "pr for Hugo"

does this mean that all the aid we send to other countries is nothing but "pr for the US"? Chavez has offered to help with what he has a lot of - sure there are most likely ulterior motives. But who are we to decide that that aid is not needed or wanted just because it won't benefit us directly?

I am guessing since you are the only one replying that this is not a concern of Chicagoans on this forum. Oh, well. So be it.

[mopinko]

9. maybe people are not reponding because they get it.

i love hugo, but he is getting a lot of good pr for these gifts. more power to him. but this is just too much of a burden to administer. maybe other people get this. some did in the gd thread about this.
i hope he comes up with a way to help here in chicago. he could tell citgo stations to give a discount to any customer that shows proof of welfare eligibility. maybe he could get the state to let people buy citgo gas with their link card or something.
really, viva hugo. but he has to plug into something that is already here.

[jeffrey_X]

6. This is bullshit...

Here's another story about it as well...

http://www.alternet.org/story/30296/

I commented in another thread about how the elimination of the paper transfer (deposit $2.00 on the bus and get three total rides between buses and trains). The elimination of this transfer is going to be disasterous for the poorer communities, the people who actually NEED public transportation in the first place.

Fuck the CTA

[mopinko]

7. this debate is so dishonest. that article is so slanted.

this offer would not affect fares!!
it is to be offset by discounts to poor riders. there is to be no net gain to the system as a whole. and it costs money to find and distribute cards to those in need. you have to determine who is deserving, and figure out how to do this fairly. that takes time and that means money.
as far as the paper transfer, that will only cost you money if you do not use fare cards. the cta should make it easier to get fare cards, and you should be able to recharge them on any bus. BUT you can buy fare cards in a lot of places, they save you money. you do not have to use paper transfers. and the lady in the article that says she spends $200 a month on bus fare could save $50/month by buying passes.
this article really concatenates the effects of the fare increase with the offer from citgo, and that is VERY dishonest. even if they accept it, it is specifically not going to stop the fare increase. they are 2 different issues. completely different. and this is, as far as we know, a short term offer. it cannot not cost money to determine the eligibility and distribute these cards. and it will be a pr nightmare for the cta if it is not done perfectly fairly.
how would you distribute these cards?

[jeffrey_X]

11. paper transfers...

"as far as the paper transfer, that will only cost you money if you do not use fare cards. the cta should make it easier to get fare cards, and you should be able to recharge them on any bus. BUT you can buy fare cards in a lot of places, they save you money. you do not have to use paper transfers."

Hey mopinko...

I realize this, but most folks on the lower end of the spectrum just aren't going to do this and it's going to cost them. I was reminded of this yesterday as I was late for an appointment and had to put $2 into the bus, because I didn't have my farecard with me and I didn't access to buy one. So I spent $2 to head north and then had to put another $2 into the bus to get back downtown. Then (I realized that there are a lot of people who only take the bus. It is very inconvenient for them to get a fare card and probably more times than not, they are going to pay in cash, because that's all they have.) After my bus trip back downtown, I met my wife before her class then jumped on the brownline. I put $2 into the machine to get the temporary card (not the new one), and then I realized that I needed to put another $0.25 on the card to get the bus transfer. So a trip that could have originally cost me $3.75 ended up costing me $6.25. Now this isn't going to hurt me, but I can imagine there are thousands of people out there being affected. Sure, they can get the new cards and keep the fare protection, but I seriously doubt many of them are due to their SES and not having the werewithal to be more efficient and save money.

Just my $.02

[rosesaylavee]

10. Maybe part of the problem is that Chavez

is directing this at the CTA rather than the City of Chicago - which does have mechanisms at its disposal for determining income level.

[mopinko]

12. yep

trouble is we don't use heating oil around here.
i hear they are trying to work out a plan. i wonder if they could let people get some citgo gas with their link cards?

[Nexus7]

13. CTA isn't in the transportation business

The problem here is that the CTA, or at least Kruesi, is trying to weasel out of making any effort to make this work. He's given the most bogus excuses about foreign relations with Venezuela, buses burning low sulphur diesel, the issue of passing the savings on to low income riders, etc. According to news articles, the State Department didn't have any opinion on this matter (nor on CITGOs subsidies in NYC and Boston), so this reason was bogus. Kruesi needs to concentrate of running a passable transit system which doesn't have to resort to desperate tactics like the blackmail dring the past assembly session, to stay afloat. There are plainly evident inefficiencies in the way the CTA operates, not to mention top heavy positions like 'President' sucking away even more money for no good cause. As far as low sulphur goes, CITGO said they can supply that grade of diesel (either through swaps with other companies or making it). In any event, the CTA should get into good financial and operating condition before they begin worrying about the environment.

Some posters are worried that money will be spent on the process of allocation of the subsidy to people. However there are plently of organizations that work with the homeless, indigents, welfare recipients, etc. who can help with this. The city itself has data that will determine who can be eligible. It will take a little effort, but not $15 M worth. That is nothing but an excuse for people who are used to sitting on their asses being a purpose unto themselves.

We're talking about an issue that affects the livelihood of people. These are people who're doing 2-3 interchanges, sleeping less, getting into trouble with working hours because the CTA can't run a world-class operation. And Kruesi is worried about foreign relations? Fire him, and get someone who will take less pay and run the CTA like a transit agency with customers as the beneficiaries.