The state of CTA is really poor and definitely unreliable these days. Buses not showing up, huge headways between trains. They are severely understaffed and Lightfoot spent lots of money on completely ineffective security. It’s a huge problem.
The city has a population, operating budget and structural complexity of a small country. Anybody on the ballot with real, practical experience running such a complex organization I don't trust further than I could throw them off a roof. Anyone whose positions I largely agree with has painfully little experience overseeing so large and complex an entity (with all the skullduggery involved). Jez, this sucks.
it's a brutal job and I don't know why anyone would want it almost to the point where wanting the job is almost disqualification for the job itself!
I line up 74% with Buckner, which I expected, but also 74% with Green, whom I know little about. Lightfoot and Vallas (lol) are around 35% each, as was Chuy, which surprised me because I had him up there with Buckner a few weeks ago. I’ve since seen some stuff that has had me cool to him, but I guess he doesn’t line up with my priorities as well as I’d suspected. I feel like the decline in the service of the CTA is intentional. Emanuel signed over Divvy operating rights to Lyft in 2019, which seemed odd at the time- Divvy was championed as a “last mile” connector to transit by some, and rideshare would seem to be in competition with that kind of service, at least for those that can take advantage of it. But it did give Lyft an “in” with the city, and two competing interests with the CTA, as Divvy can be a “last mile” connector and/or a replacement for transit for some. Obviously the pandemic didn’t help, but when I think of “who stands to benefit from public transit’s collapse?” I see a big bright pink sign in my head and start thinking about how General Motors et al where accused of conspiring to kill streetcars in major cities here. I’m guilty of it myself, too - it sucks. I went to see “Chicago” at the CIBC Theater on Saturday night. Rather than gamble with CTA reliability at 10:30p on a weekend, I took a Lyft home to Edison Park. Instead of a $5 fare for my date and I, the Lyft ran me $65 before tip. I shudder to think what Lyft would charge if public transit wasn’t an option, and have a feeling that they’ll do what they can to make it a reality.
Kam Buckner: 83% Ja'Mal Green: 83% Brandon Johnson: 74% Roderick T. Sawyer: 52% Sophia King: 52% Paul Vallas: 43% Willie L. Wilson: 39% Jesús "Chuy" García: 35% Lori E. Lightfoot: 30%
anecdotal, but I ended my divvy membership after several years when it came time for renewal a few weeks ago —$150/year member is like three times what it used to be and now that I don’t use it for my commute it didn’t make sense re:CTA, I think the biggest issue they have is lack of staff; they are really struggling to hire operators and, as I understand it, senior staff get to choose their routes, leaving less desirable routes with awful frequency and trains with headways 2-3x longer than advertised CTA officials are gaslighting the public around the real challenges facing CTA and it’s spiraling: bad service results in lower ridership results in less revenue results in worse service and so on Kam is the darling of the transit-focused voting crowd, but that’s not a strong enough base
I used Divvy for a long time but let my subscription lapse in the fall. It's just not worth it anymore, unfortunately.
While Buckner came out tops for me, too, he only came out at 57% for me. That said, I'm really intrigued by him and will continue to dig and learn.
I'm not sure I can trust me! I really thought Lightfoot would make a good mayor. She has the education and the experience. I met her at a couple of events before the last election and thought she had what it takes to be an effective mayor. I was sorely mistaken. The fact that she has been less effective than the generally awful Rahm Emmanuel is terribly disappointing. I took the quiz again: Kam Buckner: 83% Ja'Mal Green: 74% Roderick T. Sawyer: 74% Brandon Johnson: 61% Paul Vallas: 61% Sophia King: 57% Willie L. Wilson: 48% Jesús "Chuy" García: 35% Lori E. Lightfoot: 30%- a more 'trustworthy' percentage, I suspect!
Lightfoot is an example of my earlier point of someone whose positions may well be solid and maybe even honestly have the best of intentions, but she had never run a sizable, complex organization filled with people with their own agendas. It absolutely can be done well, be more often than not it doesn't end well. And yes, we do need people to give it a shot.
It does not matter who the president is. State of the Union Address is always a misinformation-filled waste of time. Watch Road Runner cartoons instead.
Both parties cater to their most extreme elements. As a result, the sane 80% of the population in the middle has nobody representing them. Unfortunately, the media supports them in this endeavor because it sells. Both sides choose beginning points and end dates for statistical comparisons which support their point of view. The actual truth is seldom shown. Major national problems such as crime, wasteful spending, immigration and government corruption are ignored indefinitely. Political “leaders” start re-election campaigns three days after election. No wonder they do not get anything done. Many government programs provide short-term help but encourage destructive long-term behavior. (This is my last post here.)
I'll play. I don't live in the city anymore, but have interests and pay close attention. Kam Buckner: 78% Paul Vallas: 74% Sophia King: 65% Ja'Mal Green: 65% Roderick T. Sawyer: 61% Brandon Johnson: 57% Willie L. Wilson: 52% Jesús "Chuy" García: 39% Lori E. Lightfoot: 30% My bump for Vallas is due to his education positions. My nephew happens to be director of charter schools in a major city. I also raised two children who are quite outside the mainstream education track and CPS offered us no viable alternatives and almost no supports. It's sad that the incumbent mayor cannot be arsed to produce a position on half of these questions. I hope she gets her ass voted out of office, but fear she may be able to game the primary and general election enough to be re-elected.
it's pretty wild how disparate the polls are from various outlets re: the mayor's race same five -- vallas, lightfoot, chuy, brandon, wilson -- all generally hit over 10% in each, but beyond that there is no discernable pattern hate that i feel the need to game theory my vote instead of voting for my top candidate -- bring on the rank-choice voting!
Mislabeling=Misinformation. Not Libertarian. Definitely not a racist. One definition of idiot is someone who is usually wrong and calls other people nasty names.