Transit Proposals Receive Immediate Pushback
Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) discusses a transit proposal Thursday in Springfield. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
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“Crash and burn,” is the way one top insider described Thursday’s flameout of a Senate plan to restructure and fund mass transit in the Chicago region.
The plan, authored by Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago), emerged late Wednesday night and was presented to the Senate Transportation committee Thursday and received wide ranging criticism from unions, suburban elected officials, and others.
The plan increases highway tolls, taxes rideshare services, introduces a new real estate transfer tax, and expands the Chicago-region sales tax, along with restructuring the governance of the mish mash of northeastern Illinois transit services.
“The goal is to ensure that we’re funding a system not for tomorrow, not for next year, but for decades to come,” Villivalam said in committee Thursday.
The House bill only addresses structural changes and does not include funding.
The Senate plan was panned by a wide range of groups, including Marc Poulos of the powerful Operating Engineers Local 150.
“Tollway revenues are legally designed for Tollway related projects. Reallocating these funds would violate bond convenance, jeopardizing investor confidence and inviting legal challenges,” Poulos said in Senate testimony Thursday. “This proposal is inequitable, as suburban drivers would effectively subsidize urban transit systems such as the CTA, in addition to tolls they already pay. It is unreasonable to expect public support for future toll increases, diverting current revenue for unrelated purposes.”
The Illinois AFL-CIO also came out opposed to the plan.
DuPage County Board Chair Deb Conroy, a former Democratic House member, also criticized the plan Thursday.
“The Senate plan steals $72 million dollars in DuPage tax revenue, imposes a local real estate transfer tax with no oversight from the County, and taxes suburban commuters,” Conroy wrote in a letter opposing the bill. “If passed as written, DuPage County will be forced into massive layoffs, crippling our ability to provide safe streets and neighborhoods for our nearly 1 million residents.”
We’re told Villivalam plans to introduce an amendment to the package, but we haven’t seen language yet.
