CTA President Forrest Claypool promptly expressed
opposition to a proposal by RTA Chairman John Gates, Jr. to have RTA take over the
power to issue up to $5 billion in government bonds for funding new facility
construction by CTA, METRA and Pace, replacing the borrowing now done by those
individual agencies. RTA’s current borrowing limit is a mere $800 million. According
to CTA spokesman Brian Steele, “This idea is simply the latest in a series of
attempted power grabs that would hurt service, make it harder to invest in the
system, and make the RTA answerable to no one.”
Ongoing
METRA scandals and rising interest rates on the CTA’s sales tax backed
construction bond issues have prompted Gates repeatedly to recommend
legislative initiatives for consolidation of regional public transit authority
planning, borrowing and spending power in RTA, as opposed to the four separate
public transit agencies now operating in northeastern Illinois. Meanwhile,
while Republican and Democratic politicians contend bitterly over control of
the planning and funding of public transit in the region, efforts
to establish commuter rail service between Huntley and Chicago for the safety
and convenience of local residents, and to ease traffic congestion on I-90
between Huntley and the Loop, languish in the earliest planning stages.
