“No Capital? No CTA!” reads the headline on State Rep. Mike Tryon’s “legislative update.”
It has a wonderful train analogy to describe the effect on McHenry County of the bill to bail out the Chicago Transit Authority under consideration:
It points out that “less than one percent of those in McHenry County use mass transit.”
Then Tryon writes,
“If the sponsors of Senate Bill 572 are not willing to talk about the overall transportation needs of McHenry County, I cannot support their legislation.”
Is that a hint he can vote for the half percentage point sales tax increase?
A 7.7 percent increase in McHenry County’s sales tax. Half which would go to the RTA (read CTA) and half to the McHenry County Board with which to build roads.
Let’s read the sentence again:
“If the sponsors of Senate Bill 572 are not willing to talk about the overall transportation needs of McHenry County, I cannot support their legislation.”
And, here’s another hint for you to interpret at your leisure:
“I am committed to working with the sponsors of Senate Bill 572 to create a plan that addresses both mass transit and roads.”
This reminds me so, so much of how an eastern Illinois ex-sheriff state representative agreed to vote for the creation of the RTA when Dave Caravello, one of Governor Dan Walker’s legislative people, offered not to fire one of the Republican’s buddies, if he’d vote for the RTA bill.
The price is bigger here. I’ll grant that.
But we had state approval to build the Western Bypass and Governor Rod Blagojevich took it away.
Now, it sounds as if Tryon is willing to vote for higher taxes in order to get back what was already ours.
The legislative update does not mention in the legislative report how more roads will be financed, but increased gambling has been mentioned widely elsewhere.
The only specific road improvement mentioned is the Western Bypass. There is no mention of the Bolz Road bridge, without which the Western Bypass will not work. Local municipal and county officials seem intent on making people pay a toll to use the Bolz Road bridge (see Please Make Me Pay Twice), which means, of course, that those who don’t want to pay a toll will continue to cross the Fox River at Route 62.
Here’s the whole press release:
The scheduled doomsday for the Chicago Transit Authority has been postponed for now due to another band-aid approach thought up by Governor Blagojevich. True to form, Governor Blagojevich decided to throw cash at the problem, loaning the CTA $200 million to avoid the mass transit fare hikes promised by the CTA.
The Governor’s loan came after the Illinois House rejected the RTA’s proposal to bail out the state’s mass transit system. Although I strongly support the need for mass transit in Illinois, I adamantly opposed Senate Bill 572. The RTA, which heads up the CTA, Pace and Metra, is extremely important in servicing the state’s transportation needs. However, Senate Bill 572 would have worked well for Chicago, but not for the taxpayers of McHenry County.
McHenry County residents would have been on the fast track to nowhere if Senate Bill 572 would have passed the General Assembly. The legislation would have increased the sales tax in McHenry County by a half a cent, without offering any improvements to the mass transit services offered in McHenry. The sales tax revenue per capita in McHenry County is approximately $30; this bill would have hiked it up to $90 per person, which is almost what Chicago taxpayers are paying now. Additionally, the legislation would have restructured the RTA governing board, forcing McHenry and Kane Counties to share a representative on the board. This paints the perfect picture of taxation without representation and would have been drastically unfair to my district.
If the sponsors of Senate Bill 572 are not willing to talk about the overall transportation needs of McHenry County, I cannot support their legislation. With less than one percent of McHenry County residents using mass transit on a daily basis and half of the county without any access to mass transit services, it’s hard to justify supporting this type of legislation unless it provides funds to improve Route 47, Route 176 and Route 31 including the Western Bypass around Algonquin.
Instead of addressing the transportation needs of McHenry County, IDOT removed the Western Bypass from its five-year plan. The need to improve the Western Bypass reached the federal radar and received $20 million in federal funds, while our state’s leaders fail to even recognize it as a priority. Once again Chicago pulled rank and improvements to the Dan Ryan moved forward to the tune of $1 billion.
I am committed to working with the sponsors of Senate Bill 572 to create a plan that addresses both mass transit and roads. With 80 percent of Illinois residents driving each day, it’s crucial that we keep our roads safe and maintain our infrastructure. Hundreds of roads throughout Illinois are in desperate need of repair to support the population growth that relies on them. My House Republican colleagues and I have been fighting for a capital bill that would benefit every corner of Illinois, repairing roads, rebuilding vital infrastructure and allocating money for school construction. When it comes to mass transit legislation, I say….No Capital? No CTA!