The aldermen advocating for reduced speed limits in Chicago must exist in a universe with which I am unfamiliar.
Recently, I experienced travel times on three occasions ranging from 40 minutes to one hour and 10 minutes. The longest distance I traveled was 4 miles. I took the trips on a Saturday morning, a Wednesday evening and a Thursday afternoon. My calculations estimate an average speed of 8.33 mph. The only “calming” necessary was for me after I sat through multiple red lights and was unable to move at stop signs.
I also enjoyed a 20-minute bus ride on Belmont Avenue last Thursday. Distance traveled: 1 mile. Time: 20 minutes.
The combination of too much traffic, incessant road work, potholes the size of a Buick and an endless array of bumpouts, bike lanes, speed bumps, pedestrian crosswalks etc., often results in traffic at a virtual standstill. Yet we keep constructing more impediments while the roads themselves resemble a moonscape.
Deliberately slowing traffic to the point where drivers are stuck in endless gridlock on a daily basis certainly seems counterproductive. That leads to pollution from running engines, frustrated drivers who reach their boiling point and then start to take reckless actions and businesses losing sales because no one wants to venture into the mayhem.
Chicago used to be “the City that Works.” I now call it “the City with Potholes in the Speed Bumps.”
— Brian Hayes, Chicago
Mayor makes rookie mistakes
Mayor Brandon Johnson recently chose Ira Acree, a politically connected West Side pastor, to serve on the Regional Transportation Authority board. This, following Johnson’s appointment last month of another politically connected West Side pastor, Michael Eaddy, to the CTA board.
Both men are have no relevant transit experience whatsoever. Chalk up two more rookie mistakes to the rookie on the fifth floor in City Hall.
— Mike Rice, Chicago
Change at the top is needed
On Friday, I waited an average of 45 minutes for several CTA buses on Michigan Avenue in ideal weather when it wasn’t rush hour. Delays, chronic bus bunching and ghost buses are rampant in the system, not to mention ongoing issues with safety and cleanliness.
Now Mayor Brandon Johnson has nominated a political ally to a seat on the Regional Transportation Authority board with zero experience in rapid transit and who is admittedly clueless on issues facing the CTA, including a huge looming deficit.
Our governor is right — it’s time for a change at the top, and not just at the CTA.
— James Sturm, Chicago
Plan would shift tax burden
In his May 9 op-ed “The key to CTA’s rebound is boosting business, not taxes,” Micky Horstman says that reducing corporate property taxes will attract and keep businesses, etc. But taxing bodies will fill their budgets one way or another, and when corporate taxes go down, personal real estate taxes go up to make up the difference.
You may call that a short-term impact (five or ten years?) until business picks up, but many owners of personal property now struggle mightily just to pay their current taxes. They cannot afford to pick up the slack left by a reduction in corporate taxes.
Nice-sounding idea, but no thanks.
— Gerry Shacter, Buffalo Grove
Public transit needs subsidies
Micky Horstman apparently is unaware that no public transit systems worldwide are fully self-sustained by farebox receipts. As such, the CTA’s need for subsidies from taxes is standard, not an outlier. Streets and highways are similarly funded from many revenue sources — not only state gasoline taxes.
Farebox recovery on bus transit in many systems is less than 25% of the cost of carrying the rider. In that context, all workers who must commute to their jobs would need to have their wages doubled to afford to pay the fully accounted costs.
I doubt Horstman would support such a change, so where would he invent the funding? As with fire, police and other government functions, if the citizenry decides it wants the services, municipalities are entitled to tax citizens to provide them.
Need I remind anyone that the overly rich typically refuse to pay anywhere near their share of the cost of our society?
— David Vartanoff, Oakland, California
Chicago’s actual two seasons
Laura Washington is wrong (“The only thing I hate more than Chicago winter? Spring,” May 13). The two seasons in Chicago are winter and construction.
— Renette Frank, Frankfort
Quite the haze at Chicago park
I am not old enough to know what it was like at the 1967 Human Be-In at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.
However, after attending my sixth grade son’s school flag football match at Lafollette Park recently, I think I have a pretty good idea.
It was a beautiful day — clear blue sky, cool and sunny, the park filled with laughing young people — and the heavy smell of pot smoke wafted throughout the park as adult spectators passed joints around.
Now, I’m not saying I got a contact high, but I did blast the Grateful Dead in my car on the drive home, where I promptly ate half a bag of nacho cheese Doritos.
— Matt Carey, Chicago
Nurses’ contributions to care
At the gathering for my retirement, after I was a nurse for almost 50 years, I spoke from my heart when I said, “Sometimes what we do is holy, and sometimes where we work is a holy place.”
Thank you to Dr. Robert A. Barish for recognizing nurses’ contribution to the team of people who care for the sick. Nurses are the backbone and heart of patient care (“My first night on call educated me on nurses’ contributions,” May 11).
It has been my privilege to watch young, green interns become excellent, compassionate, gifted physicians. And the recognition that nurses helped by sharing our knowledge and expertise, mentorship and guidance in the formation of a young doctor in training is a gift to nurses during National Nurses Week.
Patient care is a bond between doctors and nurses, a partnership based on trust and respect that enriches the care of patients.
— Elizabeth Butler Marren, Chicago
Give the credit where it’s due
Am I the only one who read the op-ed “My first night on call educated me on nurses’ contributions” and found it ironic?
Here is a doctor who says he recognizes nurses’ contributions, and yet when connecting with his supervisor, he takes the credit for the nurse’s ability to identify and administer the treatment, which resulted in the patient’s recovery.
— Barbara E. Silvestri, Lombard
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