Other people's transport pains

It seems that it's not necessarily to be an ex-Communist country to have stupid low quality public services and incompetent politicians. My dear Romanian pessimists, be happy: there are Americans who suffer too, not only us, here, in this Videanu-ridden Bucharest :)

Courtesy of The Economist. Since it's not quite long, I'll paste in its entirety.

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Chicago's public transport
Off track

Jan 3rd 2008 | CHICAGO
From The Economist print edition

Most commuters are miserable, but Chicago's may be the most beleaguered

THE city's average commute is not quite America's longest (that honour goes to New York), but in one respect Chicago is unrivalled: the bitterness and passion of the argument surrounding its public-transport system.

If the Illinois state legislature does not act by January 20th, more than half of bus routes in the city will be eliminated, some 2,400 transport workers will be sacked and fares will be raised. Suburban rail and bus lines face cuts as well. Commuters will be forced to drive on already crowded roads or walk to a distant bus or train—this in the depths of winter, with pavements icy and kerbs surrounded by lakes of frigid slush. As America grapples with traffic, high fuel prices and climate change, public transport is often suggested as an antidote. But, as Chicago proves all too well, innovation in public services can easily be stymied by old-fashioned bickering.

There is hope that Illinois's legislators will be more productive in 2008 than they were last year, but this is not saying much. Last March the state's auditor published a bleak report about greater Chicago's transport network. Over the previous five years operating costs had risen faster than revenues—6.5% each year compared with 2.2%—and pensions for the city's transport workers were only 34% funded as of 2006. Lawmakers spent most of 2007 bickering over how to raise more money, in vain.

Now commuters face severe reductions in service. They were already threatened with two such “doomsdays” last autumn, but each time the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, used a quick infusion of cash to let the argument drag on. It is unclear whether he will be able to do so again.

Through all this, there has been a ready solution. Julie Hamos, a state representative, proposed a bill that would raise Chicago's property transfer tax and increase the sales tax in the metropolitan region's six counties. Her bill also includes reforms to the pension system and the Regional Transportation Authority, resolving some of the problems that helped create the mess in the first place.

But this sensible bill has been stalled by the usual in-fighting. The governor opposes a sales-tax increase and favours diverting the sales tax on gasoline from the general fund. (Congestion pricing, raising the petrol tax itself or getting the private sector involved are not even part of the debate.) And in the Illinois state legislature, many senators and representatives from rural and suburban districts have refused to help unless they get something in return. Politicians are now fighting over how to expand gambling to pay for capital projects, a brawl that seems likely to drag on for some time.

Ineptitude on this scale comes at a heavy price. Hacking away at the public-transport system, America's second-biggest, will not help Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. And failing to invest in transport could be costing the region $2 billion a year, argues Chicago Metropolis 2020, a civic group. At a hearing in November, parents described how service cuts would force their children to walk to school through dangerous areas. Others explained how hard it would be to get to work. If Illinois's politicians were trying to demonstrate how not to tackle a serious issue, they could hardly do better.