On Tuesday, the curtains closed on last month's "Save Chicago Transit: The Comedy Show," a weekly series presented by Funny You Should Care at Second City. Meanwhile, it's now October, the month in which Illinois state legislators will hopefully pass a public transportation reform and finance bill that will rescue our region from the looming transit fiscal cliff.
The show's creator Ellen Steinke, also a Streetsblog Chicago contributor, recently spoke with me about the show, which combines sketch and improv comedy with straight interviews. "I wanted to help educate and inform people about what's going on, and hopefully, in a non-downer way, and give leaders the ability to speak and help the audience connect with the speakers," she said during our interview. "But ultimately, just bringing attention to the matter and hopefully inspiring people to take action."
As a bookend to the first night of the series, Illinois House Majority Leader Eva-Dina Delgado returned as a guest this week. She's co-leader of the House's Public Transit Working Group and has years of experience with tpublica transportation issues. She mentioned that back in 2008 Chicagoland faced a similar threat of Carmedgeddon if legislation wasn't passed to help save bus and train service.
"But guess what, folks, we're living in it," Delgado said. "There's just constantly congestion everywhere you go, all times of the day. It doesn't matter where you are, even if you're not driving. If you're on a bike and you're experiencing the congestion, it can be a little dangerous. So the idea that functional transit system only helps the people who ride transit is just a fallacy, because the more people that take the bus and the train... means that those folks who depend on driving their car – think a guy who does construction market needs... their materials and things like that. They can't necessarily take that on the bus or train... And so an investment in transit really is an investment for everybody who has to live, work, and play in this region."
The other guest for the final show was Active Transportation Alliance Executive Director Amy Rynell, the executive director of ATA. She recited a limerick: "Save transit's the call of the day. Fix it, fund it, no transit doomsday. Our mobility depends on tying up loose ends. A House, Senate, and governor three-way."
Rynell then provided a less poetic explanation of what she meant. "Our leaders need to hear from you all about how much this matters," she said. "The financial toll of losing transit is far greater than these tiny fees that might be added to things. The cost to operate a car monthly, is like 20 to 30 times the cost of a CTA pass [currently $75 a month]. The financial ramifications for average folks like us are tremendous. So let people know that you care."
Here's a video of the full interview with Delgado and Rynell, about the transit fiscal cliff, conducted by Steinke and cast member Satvika Ananth.
And this clip is the portion of the evening where the two guests got to take part in the show's improv shenanigans by participating in Mad Libs.
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