The final public Chicago Transit Authority Budget Hearing began at 4pm Wednesday, but Chicago riders signed up for the speakers list as early as two hours earlier at the Hilton Palmer House fourth floor ballroom in the Loop. The hearing was formatted similarly to the three past ones, where riders and workers sign up in the entrance of the room, and choose whether or not to speak, while the CTA Board of seven members sits at the front of the room silently, listening to each speaker's three-minute arguments. This time, however, the hearing was scheduled to be able to go as late as 9pm, two and a half hours longer than the three earlier hearings on the South Side, in Humboldt Park and in Evanston, and some of the riders made interesting use of their time.

Disabilities access groups came out in especially large numbers in the rowdy crowd that numbered over eight hundred. Arguments included South Siders frustrated with the racial bias of the cuts, workers who would lose jobs, outraged blind and wheelchair-bound riders, and downtown business leaders, and a fray broke out as two Midwest Unrest activists began expressing their opposition, leading to their forced removal from the building...[Read more]

Related Links:

Chicago Transit Fare Strike

The Campaign for Better Transit

All Routes Proposed for Complete Elimination | All Routes With Proposed Reduced Service Hours | Pink Slips for CTA Workers