If the trend for decreased ridership is nationwide then….
- Caused by “progressive work from home policies”
- Decreased labor force participation post covid
- Jobs eliminated by AI
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Metra those that live in Illinois call it the 3rd most corrupt agency in the state when it comes to the leadership level. 1st is the state legislature the lobbying rules there are considered a joke. You literally can lobby for your employer or clients and be a legislature member. 2nd is Cook County and Chicago as a whole don’t even ask about the property tax abatement court system there.
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You are a retired HS teacher as I recall. A friend who taught English in a top-tier HS as well as my former colleagues felt there was a decline in writing skills over a 20-30 year period.
Empirical studies show declines in math and language.
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So the only gainful employment in the United States is via an employer than makes you work in an office downtown? Think you might want to review some stats in that regard. Small business formation from pandemic forwards as well as internet websites where you can do work at home contracting (Upwork, Inc). Gig economy is increasing fairly rapidly. It’s not always employees working for some large entity as a remote employee at home. A chunk of people got tired of working downtown (METRA Is a great incentive to work locally…ha-ha) and found alternative income sources and some have developed them very nicely in which they can live off them as well as save money after retirement. I have more than once income stream. After, I retire I fully intend to persue other income genearating possibilities. Not because I have to because it is pretty darn easy these days.
On the RTA/Metra financial crisis:
[Trib] “The RTA also pointed to what it described as decades of underfunding as a contributor to the looming budget shortfall. Illinois funds 17% of transit operations, while New York covers 28% and Philadelphia covers 50%, the RTA said. The state also reimburses only 4% of the cost of paratransit services and 14% of the cost of free and reduced-fare programs for seniors and disabilities, the RTA said.”
Many small town and rural downstate folks in Illinois always complain about corruption and waste of their taxes in Chicagoland. Of course they receive more funding than they give in taxes!
RTA sales taxes:
- 1.00 percent sales tax on general merchandise in Cook County
- 1.25 percent sales tax on qualifying food, drugs, and medical appliances* in Cook County
- 0.75 percent sales tax on general merchandise and qualifying food, drugs, and medical appliances* in Du Page, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties
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Nobody is denying that Metra provides a very needed service to and from the suburbs to keep Chicago traffic at a more reasonable level however some of their spending decisions make you go what are they thinking. That entire warehouse in Harvery their decision to rebuild SD70s into passenger engines. They’re still waiting for their first new replacement cars that they voted for in 2014 expected delivery in 2027.
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Gig economy such as media influencers or you tube creators created diminished ridership or nearly empty large corporate office space?
“So the only gainful employment in the United States is via an employer than makes you work in an office downtown?”
I don’t think anyone said that
No it is a factor along with other areas like small business formation. A large section of the population is retiring demographically as well. I was attempting to broaden your list of causes which seemed a little too focused for me. That one sentence was in a larger paragraph.
Also, do not see a lot of jobs eliminated by AI except for the very menial call center and data entry jobs. AI needs to mature more. Starting to use Google Gemini with voice which basically reads text to conversational speach. Yeah it cuts time but it needs more work and it is garbage in garbage out. If the text under it is not well structured the verbal part wanders as well (AI still does not bridge the gap completely). AI inferencing is starting to get pretty good but more work there as well. You can get prompt AI to write a book outline and then most of the book but you will still need a human proof reader (lots of idiots are doing that on Amazon now, hawking AI generated books and skipping the proof reader step).
The list of decreased ridership causes cited were:
- Work from home policies
- Reduced labor force participation post Covid
- Lost jobs due to AI
Add gig economy?
Gig or gag economy . 
Empty office space = decreased ridership =tax increase/fare box increase/decrease in service
I never understood why someone would want to. Time is the commodity you can’t ever get back. If you didn’t need the money, I could think of so many better ways to spend the time.
MAybe it’s just me.
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The best earlier decision I made was to go into consulting, over 750k FF miles and saw a lot and a lot of times extended my stay over the weekend, took a sabbatical in my early 50’s. Done a lot of volunteer work already. Work life balance has been really good most of my life. So I am running out of ideas. The bottom line is as well I like to participate in business.
CMStnP: I think that’s great.
Some folks prefer their time away from their job (work to live) while others love their career. I was fortunate to have a passion for mine as a professor and clinical psychologist.
And that person on the other side of the world, wouldn’t probably be seen with the cat or kids crying in the videoconference background.
What’s wrong with a cat?
Fair enough.
I look forward to seeing your name on here soon: https://metra.com/metra-leadership
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I’m honestly not related to any of those folks. 
Not so fast!!
The 2014 order failed to get bidders for the outdated gallery car design thankfully.
Instead Metra will get 500 modern bilevel design cars from Alstom, delivery delayed until August 2025 at the earliest.
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