Today the CTA board met for the first time since President Huberman and I were called down to Springfield to meet with Governor Blagojevich and the legislative leaders. Since that day, the State of Illinois passed a temporary budget extension and the RTA revised its budget ordinance to require final contingency plans from CTA, Metra, and Pace by mid-August. In the meantime, we will continue to seek increased transit funding and to refine our contingency plans. Although CTA is sending out layoff notices required by federal law, I am still hopeful for the funding necessary to avert all service reductions and fare increases.
One huge step in that direction was announced late last month – an historic 5-year labor contract between CTA and its labor unions. This arbitration award would resolve our pension and retiree health care problems and lay the foundation for stable labor and retirement costs for many years to come. This award is contingent on long-term transit funding and implementing legislation for the pension reforms. We want to move beyond the cycle of annual crises to refocus our energies on providing a world-class, reliable and affordable transit system.
I also wanted to take a moment to apologize to our customers who were affected by the service disruptions on July 3rd and over the weekend. I have talked several times with CTA staff about our response to these incidents, and I welcome the important steps Ron announced yesterday to improve our performance (see last few paragraphs). As readers here know, I believe CTA needs to do a much better job communicating with our customers.
And in one final piece of news, the CTA board today approved contract items to reduce slow zones in the Red and Blue Line subways. CTA staff is also working on much more aggressive plans to address the remainder of slow zones throughout the system.
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