I have to preface this by saying that since Forest Claypool was installed as the head of CTA by Emanuel, many very positive improvements have been made to the system (and more still are in the works). The Daley administration had let the CTA, especially the El trains and tracks, go totally to seed. They were becoming unfriendly, ugly, and dangerous. In just two years the new administration has put a lot of money and effort into upgrading the system:
• Remodeling of crumbling, horrible old stations
• Purchasing of new train cars that are more spacious, cleaner, and much much quieter
• Repair to tracks that was way overdue: mainly the Red Line to the South Side, which underwent a 5-month total overhaul, and has made service to this most underserved of communities much better.
That said, Ventra has been a disaster. We had a very good system with the old magnetic-stripe Chicago Cards. Supposedly, the impetus for the change was to integrate the RTA and PACE systems into one, with one card. Meh.
Part of the culprit is the company. But the other culprit is technology. Sorry, but new technology is not necessarily better. This RFID stuff is causing mayhem--when you swipe your Ventra card, if you have any RFID credit cards near by it's been taking fares off those, too.
I live near the Ventra "Customer Service" center. I walked over a few weeks ago to see if the two cards they sent me could be combined into one. I didn't want to lose the $25 that was on one of my old cards and I now need only one. I should have lost the $25. It was instructive to stand in line--for an hour and a half (and this the line that exists is all day, every day)--and listen to everyone's stories. People are pissed, and having to take hours of time off work to go fix things is unconscionable.
That said, and even though they couldn't combine my two cards into one, they did activate them for me, and so far it has worked in the machines. Like the Obamacare federal website, things seem to be getting slowly better.
The only saving grace is that the city has refused to pay the vendor until the system is fixed. BTW, this is the same company that runs the Washington D.C., London, and Sydney, Australia fare systems. It's the first time they've tackled a "contactless" system however.
Which brings me back to the beginning: the technology is the biggest culprit here, not only privatization itself.
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