“New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens,” known as NUMTOT, the 139,000-member Facebook group of people whom The Guardian has called “millennials who find fixing public transport sexy,” was launched here in Illinois by University of Chicago students. About 4,900 of the group’s members say on their Facebook profiles they live in Chicago, the second-most of any city. (New York is first.)
Metra’s board and staff warn that service is jeopardized by the fact that the commuter rail agency is billions short on the capital funding needed to repair and replace its aging infrastructure. With a new governor in office, a bill to provide state funding for Metra and other infrastructure projects seems more likely than it has in years. But Metra faces the daunting task of convincing legislators to fund it even as infrastructure projects compete for attention. Metra hopes to rally its riders to make the case to state government, but some riders are already skeptical that Metra needs any more money after several years of fare increases. And it must make the case for sustained investment in a commuter rail system as international cities increasingly turn to the more expansive, urbanist-preferred “regional rail” model, serving a base beyond typical suburban commuters.
Meanwhile, despite its aged assets, the system continues to run 709 trains a day, fetching commuters from the corners of the Chicagoland region and ferrying them to and from the Loop and West Loop, serving an average of nearly 290,000 passengers each weekday, making it the country’s most-used commuter rail system after the three systems serving the New York City area. The next-biggest commuter rail agency, SEPTA, which services a five-county area that includes Philadelphia, sees about only half as many daily passengers. (Metra is much smaller than its city counterpart—by comparison, CTA trains saw an average of 740,000 daily passengers last year.)
One recent setback is that the Restoring Illinois Infrastructure Committee, convened in late November by Pritzker’s transition team, included the president of the CTA and the board chair of Amtrak—but not Derwinski or any of the 11 members of Metra’s Board of Directors, who are appointed by the elected leaders of Chicago, suburban Cook County, and the collar counties.
Metra’s strategy is like “insisting that you’re going to buy a house in cash, but not take out a mortgage, but your income is not remotely close enough to ever buy a house in cash,” said Daniel Kay Hertz, research director for Chicago’s Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. “It’s a normal part of buying a house to take out a mortgage. It’s a normal part of doing massive infrastructure things to take out a reasonable amount of bonds.”
At this station, across from a Pace bus terminal, around 500 people board trains each day, according to Metra’s most recent ridership counts; nearby at 147th St/Sibley Blvd, there are nearly 1,000 riders. This makes that station among the most-used on the Metra Electric, Metra’s only electric-powered line, which travels through the south side and south suburbs. (The line’s most popular station is Hyde Park’s 55th-56th-57th Street, which sees 1,500 daily boardings.)
