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LOCAL Announcement :: Urban Development

IMPORTANT! Easy to Read Facts About the Fare Hikes on the Working Poor and the Disabled

Enclosed are two easily digestible facts sheets regarding the inequity of the CTA and Paratransit fare hikes. This information would be very valuable and important to those who would like to try and organize against these hikes, or who are just interested in learning more.
Below are two facts sheets made available at the 2005 Community Transit Summit hosted by the Neighborhood Capital Budget Groups Campaign for Better Transit.

Learn and distribute this information, it puts the inequity of these hikes into a very clear format. I will also attach these same files into Word format, for easy distribution. Please feel free to contact me for more information, my number and email are listed above.
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Equal Access to Fare Card Outlets?

To avoid the fare increase approved for the 2006 Budget, as high-ranking CTA officials have asserted, cash-paying riders should simply purchase a fare card from CTA's fare card sale outlets.

CTA staff has made several assumptions about moving cash paying riders to fare cards:

• Cash-paying riders have enough cash flow up front to purchase a fare card.
• Cash-paying riders know where to go to purchase a fare card.
• Cash-paying riders can get to CTA's sales outlets easily and at convenient times, prior to their regularly scheduled commute.

We are deeply concerned that CTA staff have little or no data to support these assumptions.
When NCBG's Campaign for Better Transit mapped the current locations of CTA fare card sales outlets, we discovered that in over half of Chicago `s 77 community areas, CTA has 5 or fewer outlets at which the public could purchase CTA fare cards prior to their commute. In 12 community areas, CTA has only ONE fare card sales outlet.

Of the “Top 10” community areas with the most outlets at which CTA fare cards can be purchased, 9 are in the Downtown or North Side areas:
1. The Loop 30
2. Near West Side 26
3. West Town 22
4. Lakeview 21
5. Logan Square 20
6. Near North 18
7. Austin * 18
8. Belmont Cragin 16
9. Lincoln Park 14
10. North Center 14

* The Austin community area, on the City's far west side, is also the City's largest community area by acreage.

Nine of the 12 community areas with only one CTA fare card sales distribution outlets are located on the City's south or far south sides, and are predominantly African American. The other three community areas with only one sale outlet for CTA fare cards are on the City's northwest and far northwest sides. NCBG's Campaign for Better Transit mapped the locations of CTA sales outlets as listed and made available on its website.
Planning for Equal Access and Just Transportation?

In reviewing the CTA's proposed 2006 budget, we cannot find any detailed program description or budget allocation addressing how CTA plans to redress these stark inequities in access to fare card sales outlets. Nor does the CTA budget document provide details as to how much of the proposed $10 million for the Communications and Marketing Dept. will actually be dedicated to increasing public awareness of and access to fare card sales outlets.

We acknowledge that CTA issued a press release on October 11th, announcing a $4 million purchase of machines that will allow Chicago Card customers to add value to and check balances on their Chicago cards at potentially 61 new locations. These locations have yet to be identified. Neither CTA's press release nor its proposed budget indicate how CTA operating budget resources will be allocated to inform the public of this new service, what criteria will be used to select the new locations for maximum impact, or pay for notifying the public once the new locations are in fact added to the sales outlets distribution system.

The 2006 proposed budget anticipates the CTA will collect an additional $17 million with the fare increase and transfer increase for cash riders. This assertion is not supported by any detailed empirical analysis in the 2006 Proposed Budget document. But if CTA's sales outlets continue to be located in such an inequitable and disparate fashion, if riders do not in fact know where to go to purchase card, and if indeed many cash-paying riders do not live within safe walking distance of a sales outlet, then indeed, CTA may get more revenue from those riders. They will continue to pay in cash and they will pay the fare increase, while losing their “privilege” to transfer for a quarter. How many of those riders will be the people in our communities who are least able to afford to bear the burden of balancing CTA's budget?

We fear that the CTA really has no idea.

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STATEMENT BY EQUIP FOR EQUALITY

Presented at:
NCBG’s Campaign for Better Transit
Community Transit Summit – November 12, 2005
“BUILDING ACCOUNTABLE AND EQUITABLE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION”


As the Governor-designated Protection & Advocacy organization for people with disabilities and a long-time advocate for accessible, affordable public transportation, Equip for Equality strongly opposes the CTA Board’s decision to double the fares for its paratransit customers to $3.50. Paratransit service is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), our civil rights law, to provide equal access to public transportation for people who are unable to use mainline bus and rail service, due to a physical or mental disability.

Of course, paratransit service is costly and it will remain so, even with improved efficiencies, increased accessibility of fixed-route bus and rail service and other initiatives. However, it is a cruel trick for the CTA to provide substandard and limited paratransit service for years, in violation of the ADA requirements, and then improve and more fully fund its service, as required by the ADA, only to limit access again, except now only for people of limited means.

Who are the people who will be most affected by this unjust and misguided action? In the CTA’s “2004 Paratransit Services Customer Satisfaction Survey,” it gave this information about its paratransit customers:

 81.7% have an annual household income below $20,000
 69.9% have an income below $15,000
 47.6% have an income below $10,000
 The largest percentage, 31.5%, have incomes between $5,000 and $10,000
 16.1% exist on a household income below $5,000
 77.8% have no household vehicle
 58.4% are 65 years of age or older
 80% are African American; and
 43% live on the South Side of Chicago.
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For the information about access to fare card distribution points
Equal_Access_to_Fare_Card_Outlets.doc
Equal Access to Fare Card Outlets.doc (28 k)


For the statement by Equip for Equality about the paratransit hikes
EQUIP_FOR_EQUALITY_11_12_05.doc
EQUIP FOR EQUALITY 11 12 05.doc (23 k)


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