Thursday, August 2, 2007

Political Hectoring: Metra Edition

Observed on the scrolling message sign at the Metra station this afternoon:

SUPPORT SB 572, NEW FUNDING FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT. VISIT RTACHICAGO.COM AND SEND A MESSAGE TO SPRINGFIELD TODAY

For the reasons set out in yesterday's post, this kind of explicit call to mass political action by a public agency is unseemly. In addition to the tough job of fulfilling their statutory responsibilities do public agencies now have to compete with each other through campaign-style political organizing? Is this how we want our public agency leadership to spend their time and our money?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was this on the BNSF line?

Anonymous said...

Since Metra doesn't collect half its fares, does it matter?

Eric said...

Didn't catch that one. I did catch the commuter RR's impromptu weekend bike ban. I guess they're going to be so overwhelmed carrying suburban kids in for Lollapalooza that they can't handle the bikes. Or that was the best excuse they could come up with on the spur of the moment.

Anonymous said...

Is it interesting that Metra and Pace urge support for SB572, but CTA never mentions it, and just asks support for funding?