(The following report appeared on the Chicago Tribune websit eon April 1.)
CHICAGO — With state lawmakers set to return to Springfield next week, Chicago Transit Authority officials tried Thursday to put aside their differences with Metra and Pace on transit funding changes being debated for the Chicago region.
But officials from Metra and Pace were not invited to participate in the news conference at the Loop’s Thompson Center. The event was arranged by the CTA and the Regional Transportation Authority to erase the widespread public perception that the transit-funding issue pits Chicago against the suburbs in a competition for scarce state dollars.
About 20 municipal, business and religious leaders–mostly Democrats from Cook County–joined CTA Chairman Carole Brown and CTA President Frank Kruesi at the news conference. Larry Huggins, appointed to the Metra board by Mayor Richard M. Daley, was the only Metra representative in the group, but Huggins did not speak.
Brown unveiled several “core principles” aimed at winning General Assembly approval of additional public subsidies for the capital and operating needs of the CTA, Metra and Pace. Brown said that no transit agency should gain a funding advantage at the expense of the other agencies.
The CTA alone faces massive service cuts in July to balance its 2005 budget if no new state funding is approved.
Metra and Pace officials are concerned about losing funding if the CTA persuades state lawmakers to restructure the RTA formula that distributes transit subsidies in the Chicago area.