On December 12, the CTA board held a public board meeting to hear comments on a proposed 25 cent fare hike for 2018. The rate increase represents a 12.5 percent raise in the price of a bus ticket, and will disproportionately impact poor and working Chicagoans who are already pushed to the brink by rising rents and cuts in essential services that have been championed under the current regime of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Activists from ANSWER Chicago, the People’s Congress of Resistance, CTA Riders, Free from Harm, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Democratic Socialists of America came to the meeting to make their resistance to this newest assault on Chicago’s working people clear. Wearing shirts that said “No Fare Hikes!” and with signs reading the same, the demonstrators led chants of “Fare hikes? Shut ‘em down!” which were taken up by attendees who also came to voice their opposition to the CTA board’s scheme.
Members of the public directly confronted the CTA board at the meeting. One woman spoke of how difficult it already is for poor Black workers, especially on the south and west sides to make ends meet with the current fares, and how another rate increase will only increase the burden for those facing the most hardship while asking nothing of the city’s rich.
Ana Santoyo, an organizer with ANSWER Chicago, spoke of how as a young working mother, transit is already a massive part of her budget already, and any increase could easily push her and many others into desperation. Santoyo also highlighted the hypocrisy of the city spending $95 million dollars to build a new and unnecessary cop academy, while the CTA is claiming a budget shortfall of a third of that amount that “requires” it to raise rates.
After a series of public comments taking the board to task for their proposal, activists marched around the meeting hall and out, chanting and holding signs and making it clear that this movement would continue to confront the city’s elites whenever and wherever they may be.
In a disgusting move on short notice the CTA board rammed through the fare hikes on December 13. Activists promised to remain vigilant to stop any more fare hikes or service cuts.
