| « Hole at the CTA | EFCA In Chicago » |
Education Tue Jan 27 2009
Greg Hinz: Huberman Is Pretty Good WITH TRANSIT
Greg Hinz says:
In shifting Mr. Huberman, Mayor Daley candidly admitted he believes that educating kids is more important than getting people to jobs.
"The most imporant aspect of life is a quality education," he replied when I asked him if having both good schools and good transit wasn't important. "Education is the answer to all the ills."
I don't know if you can interpret that as Daley prizes education above transportation. Transportation is crucial for a city to function, and a fool our mayor is not. He's on the money earlier in the same piece:
At the CTA, Mr. Huberman wasn't perfect but he was a breath of fresh air.
Unlike his immediate predecessors, he recognized that the CTA is in a consumer business, a business in which good service is required. Thanks to him, those slow zones on miles and miles of el lines are gone. Articulated buses get fixed fast, rather than breaking down every day. The amount of service has increased. And, while fares went up, the system's basic finances are in the best shape in decades.
Even bigger were his dreams for the future, dreams of clean, high-tech service like other cities have on existing and new lines. At least some of those dreams were starting to come into focus with the prospect of billions of dollars in federal aid under President Barack Obama.
Is it too much to ask to keep the somewhat competent people in the places where they actually are competent? I'm going to channel Daley right now and say "yes."
