(The Center Square) \u2013 A former U.S. transportation secretary says Downstate Illinois residents should help fund Chicago transit, but a Metro East lawmaker disagrees.<\/p>\n
The Illinois General Assembly is expected to address a regional transit fiscal cliff of at least $760 million during the fall veto session scheduled in October.<\/p>\n
Former Illinois Congressman and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said lawmakers have to find a way to fund the Chicago Transit Authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people rely on the CTA to get to their doctor\u2019s appointments, to the grocery store, to work,\u201d LaHood told The Center Square.<\/p>\n
LaHood, who was in former President Barack Obama’s cabinent, spoke at the launch of the Fair Maps Illinois initiative in Chicago last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s incumbent upon those responsible for funding it to find the money to fund it, and not just by increasing fares,\u201d LaHood added.<\/p>\n
When asked why residents outside of the Chicago area should be asked to help fund Chicago transit, LaHood said many Downstate Illinois residents visit the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe come here. We take advantage of the public transportation system. Chicago is very important to Illinois. It\u2019s an economic engine for Illinois, and it\u2019s a part of Illinois,\u201d LaHood said.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Erica Harriss, R-Glen Carbon, said the Illinois constitution states that public transportation is an essential public purpose, but she voted against the proposed $1.50 retail delivery tax to fund mass transit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I support public transportation, I do not think that Downstate should be on the hook financially to bail out the failures within the Chicago public transit system,\u201d Harriss told The Center Square.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, said earlier this month that any funding plan would have to invest $1.5 billion and keep at least $200 million for downstate transit.<\/p>\n
Gov. J.B. Pritzker was asked about transit funding at an event in South Holland last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of work being done on it. Lots of it has come together already, but it\u2019s not soup yet is the way I would say it,\u201d Pritzker said.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, said a transit working group of House Democrats shared with him the possibility of some alternative revenue scenarios.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds like they\u2019re taking a much more moderate approach, although there will still be, it sounds like, some surcharges or tax increases within the makeup of that bill,\u201d DeWitte told The Center Square.<\/p>\n
DeWitte said the transit fiscal cliff is $770 million. He said Senate Republicans are getting ready to propose their own piece of legislation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 A former U.S. transportation secretary says Downstate Illinois residents should help fund Chicago transit,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,454,5386,1818,12084,19613,67,99829],"class_list":{"0":"post-175647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-jb-pritzker","13":"tag-public-transport","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-fiscal-cliff"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115092215756929859","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}