Mystery Train

It's tough to be a monopoly.

Without having to craft marketing campaigns that sway consumers to your brand or sussing out new and better ways of doing things that keep you one step ahead of the competition or monitoring expenses to ensure that you remain lean and mean, what the hell do you do all day?

Calculate the extent of your monopoly? 

With obesity at epidemic proportions, shouldn't you be concerned that the sedentary lifestyle afforded you by your monopoly places you at risk? 

And so it is for METRA, the government-created railroad which operates Chicago's commuter trains.

In ways that would make Karl Marx proud, METRA is routinely unable to convert a rail monopoly in the nation's third-largest metropolitan area into profit. Despite the fact that 300,000 people pack their trains every day, it is not enough.

Students of history may recall the struggles of Cecil Rhodes and John D. Rockefeller to make their monopolies profitable.

I guess this monopoly business isn't all it's cracked up to be.

With its feckless brain trust unable to conceive of any other option, METRA looks to the private sector for inspiration. Like them, it takes the path of least-resistance: for the fourth time in four years METRA has raised the cost of a ticket. And cut service.

The fourth time is always the charm, isn't it? Or something like that. (When you operate a public sector monopoly, close is good enough. Precision and accuracy are not required.)

Besides, what are commuters going to do? Ride the competition's trains?

Back in 2011, METRA tried to get out of its own way. It hired a two-hundred seventy-five dollar an hour consultant to observe its operation and draw a conclusion or two. The consultant reported that scores of riders were riding for free, with METRA's very well-paid conductors more interested in newspapers than in the inconvenience of collecting fares.

Four fare-hikes later, I wonder if anything has changed.

As a bus driver who delivers riders to METRA stations five days a week, I am told that riding under radar still isn't the anomaly paying riders would hope. It certainly seems fair to ask what portion of these incessant increases cover conductor ineptness?

And if not that, what do they cover?

With unemployment at a twenty-first century low, ridership should be booming. METRA's cash flow should resemble the torrential flash floods seen in California. And yet it does not. Again, for the fourth time in four years METRA has its hand out.

Four times. Four years. You can't turn a profit with a monopoly? Seriously?

Having only its long-term health at heart, we the people should be demanding that METRA be placed on a low-fat diet; one rich in transparency and accountability and low in avoiding potentially unpleasant face-offs with employees and board members.

As an ardent believer in unions and mass transportation, I wince at the damage METRA does to the public perception of both.

The fraud at METRA must stop. Without the demands private sector businesses face, god knows they have the time.

Getting from Point A to Point B with Bruce Rauner

Cousin Brucie is at it again.

His latest proposal to alleviate Illinois' budget crisis is to gut government subsidies to mass transit, including the Chicago Transit Authority, METRA and the Regional Transit Authority up to sixty-percent.

Despite my fondness for public transportation, I'll be the first to admit these bodies suffer undue difficulty in making ends meet, even as they enjoy large-market monopolies as providers of their respective forms of transportation.

But crippling them isn't the answer.

All three agencies have warned that deep service cuts and steep fare hikes loom if these suggestions are enacted.

And that, of course, is the operative word—enacted.

This could be nothing more than a political maneuver, a red herring meant to divert attention. Or a stratagem designed to scare constituents and make whatever budget cuts follow appear benign by comparison.

It could also be a genuine expression of contempt for what Rauner has repeatedly called “the welfare state” of public transportation in Illinois. Of course, in light of his stated goal of creating jobs and bringing business to Illinois, it's a curious beginning.

Chicago-area job postings regularly make mention of a maximum distance the successful applicant will reside from the job, an obvious cop to the outrageous congestion and commuting times which plague the metropolitan area.

It's hard to see how making a potential labor pool less—and not more—mobile, increasing, rather than decreasing, commuter's reliance on cars and adding to the burden already shouldered by Illinois' brittle motor vehicle infrastructure will improve anything, aside from spiking gasoline tax revenues.

It's also difficult to walk away without feeling that while Cousin Brucie may well want to make Illinois business-friendly and create jobs, he is not quite so interested in people actually getting to them.