Northeast Illinois is in desperate need of additional funding. On September 4, 2007 the Illinois House of Representatives voted on bill SB572, which would have raised $400 million for operating costs for the CTA, Metra, and Pace. But the bill was not passed.
Here’s a map illustrating who voted for or against the bill. There are 119 districts in the Illinois House. Roughly 64 are in Northeast Illlinois. 63 are the rest of Illinois. Sounds like the bill should pass, right? Well. You got the stupid “collar counties” of Illinois who think they don’t want to be part of the sales tax increase in the area, cuz they don’t use public transit.
Listen up collar idiots reps, of the $400 million to be raised by this bill, Metra gets the most out of every ride:
New Operating Money Per Trip
CTA: $0.48
Metra: $1.46
Pace: $1.03
How did I get those numbers? (actually, I got them first from sicktransitchicago, but I double checked them against the 2006 stats. I think he’s pulling his numbers from the 2007 projected).
The 2006 Annual Ridership is:
CTA: 497 million
Metra: 82.3 million
PACE: 38.9 million
Distribution of New Operating Money:
CTA – 60% ($240 million)
Metra – 30% ($120 million)
Pace – 10% ($40 million)
Divide that new money by the number of rides per year, and you see how much money each division gets per year. Metra. You got a lot more operating money on your hands. Collar county Representatives, your peeps use Metra! It’s time to support it.
So anyways, here’s the maps showing who voted for what in the initial vote:
Notice that even the Democrats down south didn’t vote for this bill. Uf.
And for kicks, let’s overlay the Metra map on top of this. It’s very rough, but you get the idea.
It’s also worth noting that anything off this map was pretty much a vote for No. Crazy.
Tommorrow, I give an actual idea for how people can help out.
thanks for sharing this. really cool idea.