This post is sponsored by The Bike Lane.
Oh, unintentionally hilarious motorheads at the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, don't ever change. On second thought, please do change, because your often-wrongheaded, car-centric opinion pieces are having a bad influence on decision-makers.
In recent months, Streetsblog Chicago had mercilessly poked fun at the editorial board members for their windshield POVs on sustainable transportation issues. Here are some examples of our brickbats:
• "Tribune’s ridiculous editorial against creating a less car-centric DLSD: “Won’t someone please think of the drivers?"
• "Tribune fact check double-header: Exactly which bikeways did they say replaced car lanes? And did suburban Metra fares really go up last year?"
• "Never mind the [Tribune] naysayers: NYC-style congestion pricing would be great for Chicago"
• "As City expands speed camera program, Tribune claims there’s no 'legitimate proof that it’s improving safety.' Nope, here’s the data."
This spring, the local transit agencies sounded the alarm that lawmakers if failed to plug Chicagoland's upcoming $770 million transit budget hole, the result would likely be roughly 40 percent service cuts and 3,000 layoffs.
On April 27, the Trib editorial board members said to readers, "Don't believe the hype." And they condescendingly told public transportation professionals and advocates to calm the heck down. "Chicago’s transit agencies want you to panic," they stated disdainfully. "They don’t explain the whole truth."
I'd like to imagine that whoever composed that editorial might have been typing from the back seat of a Lyft, stewing in a driver-created traffic jam on the Ike. They wrote that the agencies claimed riders should be "frantically lobbying Springfield for $1.5 billion [the preferred amount to allow for upgrading service] in additional money to prevent the so-called fiscal cliff." You read that right: The editorial insinuated that the predicted transit funding disaster might not actually be real.
Other haughty language in the editorial included statements that people who cared about the problem were "panic stoking" and "begging legislators for money." This kind of garbage surely didn't encourage Illinois Generally Assembly members to take the impending disaster seriously.
That may have contributed to the depressing outcome when the spring legislative session ended after midnight on May 31, aka "The Night Transit Funding Didn't Go Down In Springfield." That is, the state senators and representatives went to bed that morning without allocating money to save public transportation.
Let's keep our fingers crossed that action is taken during an emergency lawmaker session this summer. Otherwise the transit agencies will be required by law to slash schedules and issue pink slips this year, with dystopian results in 2026.
Yesterday, nationally known transit planning guru Jarrett Walker tweeted that the newspaper deserves some blame for the political apathy that led to last weekend's fiasco. "Two months ago, the Chicago Tribune Editorial board didn't think that the transit fiscal cliff was real," he noted. "So now, they are as responsible as anyone for the massive service cuts that must now be planned."
But Hallelujah! In the wake of the Saturday night train wreck, the folks at the Tribune appear to have seen the light. On Tuesday, the editorial board published a piece I interpret as a bit of a mea culpa, titled, "Strapped for time, Springfield punts on transit funding and reform."
Here are some passages from the editorial indicating the board no longer believes the calamity is a "so-called transit fiscal cliff." Instead, they seem to accept that we have an honest-to-goodness emergency on our hands.
• "The fiscal crisis the Chicago-area’s public transit agencies are facing"
• "Following the end of the session, [Governor JB] Pritzker and legislative leaders said the General Assembly likely would take the unusual step of acting over the summer on the issue. That’s good. For the sake of commuters and the region’s economy, they should act well before what would normally be the next opportunity — the fall veto session in November."
• "Everyone has known for over a year that a transit overhaul and rescue needs to happen." Really, so the transit fiscal cliff wasn't just "so-called"? But let's let that slide.
• "The transit agencies' $770 million budget hole." Ditto.
• "Safe and reliable public transit is critical to the region and the state. And the need for more revenue is inescapable." Let me get this straight – so it's not a "so-called transit fiscal cliff" after all? (Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
• "Congestion pricing in support of public transit can be defended on grounds that the two are related." Whoa, so you folks are also admitting that your previous statement, "New York’s solution clearly won’t work here in Chicago" might not actually be true? Lord, this is like [insert winter holiday] in June!
So I'd like to think that Streetsblog Chicago's tireless razzing of Tribune editorial board members might be helping nudge them out from behind the steering wheel, towards a more progressive attitude on walk/bike/transit matters. Call us missionaries for the livable streets movement.
Read the April 27 Tribune editorial "Chicago’s transit agencies want you to panic. They don’t explain the whole truth" here.
Read Streetblog's response "Transit agencies, expert clap back at Tribune editorial calling the looming budget crisis a 'so-called fiscal cliff'" here.
Read the June 3 Tribune editorial "Strapped for time, Springfield punts on transit funding and reform" here.
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