Daily Herald opinion: Real people’s lives: Transit forum emphasizes the importance of solving fiscal crisis this month

As the Illinois General Assembly’s fall veto session approaches its mid-October opening, a Chicago Democratic state representative offers one of the most important reminders about one of the most urgent issues lawmakers will face.

“These are not just trains and buses, these are real people’s lives,” Rep. Kam Buckner told a gathering at the Lincoln Forum/ Union League Club last week.

In her weekly In Transit column Monday, our senior transportation and projects writer Marni Pyke described one of those people. KC Coppel, a 47-year-old Arlington Heights man with autism and intellectual disabilities, relies on a Pace service that offers subsidized rides to his job at Meijer and other activities and events.

Deep cuts in the program take effect today as part of an effort recommended by the Regional Transit Agency to prepare for even deeper problems next year if the legislature doesn’t come up with a plan to cover a $771 million budget shortfall.

“For the disability community, this decision is devastating,” Koppel’s mother Micki said, adding poignantly, “It feels as if our families are always the first to bear the burden when budgets are tight.”

The disability community is not the only interest that will suffer if no action is taken to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff facing the RTA, Metra, Pace and the Chicago Transit Authority. Transit officials have described a variety of responses on each service, including service cuts of 40%.

We have joined a chorus of voices over the past year calling for a sense of urgency among lawmakers in solving the problem, and to be clear, elected officials have generally approached the problem seriously, led by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Ram Villivalam, another Chicago Democrat. But a wholesale restructuring of the transportation system dropped in the laps of lawmakers in the waning hours of the spring session did little to demonstrate such sincerity, and the measure failed to make it through the House after passing in the Senate.

Lawmakers now have had several months to revise and better communicate proposals to revamp the system. In barely more than two weeks, they will face the challenge — indeed the duty — to put the ideas into practice. Reminders like that of Buckner and stories like that of KC Coppel emphasize the human factor at the core of this economic crisis.

Interestingly, a suburban lawmaker, Rosemont Republican state Rep. Brad Stephens, offered the insight that may be the best hope of the transit agencies and all those people who count on them. He noted that all interests in the state have a stake in the outcome.

“This is a statewide issue,” Stephens said. “This isn’t Chicago versus suburbs, Democrat versus Republican. This is about all of us working together to solve a problem.”

Real people’s lives and livelihoods will depend on them succeeding.