Paying for transit

Public transit buses for suburbanites in many ways resembles turnips, cod liver oil and compact cars. They’re good ideas but not many people use them or want them.

Marni Pyke of this paper’s staff reported this week that a service tax on all state residents is under consideration as a way to offset the whopping $770 million transit budget shortfall facing CTA, Metra and Pace. That’s unconscionable.

The transit agencies need to listen to their users — or lack of them — and cut service and raise fares accordingly.

A broad spectrum of citizens absolutely should not bear the burden of taxes to support excessive transit spending being performed in the interest of a few. I have yet to see more than four to six riders on the huge buses plying suburban roadways.

Hello, Marty Moylan in Springfield. Let’s listen to our non-bus-riders. No new taxes. Stop protecting the fiefdoms of CTA, Metra and Pace. Reality in transit service can be painful, but so are new taxes on the undeserving.

Dan Brown

Des Plaines