jfrey40535 wrote:1. Has the separation of rail and transit in Chicago allowed Metra to flourish, retain its railroad identity and quality of service?
For the most part, yes. One of the biggest advantages that Metra gained from the split was the ability to directly negotiate the various contract, or trackage rights agreements with the host railroads apart from the routes they eventually owned and operated directly. In pre-Metra days, RTA dealt with the host railroads directly, which was often a complex, and frustrating task, due in no small part to well-documented financial problems of the Rock Island and Milwaukee Road at the time. In fact, the NIRC (Metra's RTA predecessor) was initially formed by the RTA to receive the commuter rail assets (or the remaining decent parts of it) of the Rock Island, and to relieve CNW of running the service, which had reluctantly did so initially after the Rock quit. And until the 1984 reorginazation, the Rock was the only railroad NIRC directly operated; other railroads either continued to deal with the RTA directly or with the various mass transit districts (like NORTRAN, WSMTSD, etc.) that were set up in Lake, DuPage, and Will counties primarily as a conduit to receive funds for new cars, locomotives, and buses.
Since Metra became a seperate agency, commuter rail service has been enhanced by extensions, newer and/or remodeled stations, more new equipment, and expanded services. If the old setup had continued, all of these improvements would have occurred eventually, but likely have taken longer to become reality...
jfrey40535 wrote:2. Is there a problem with competition between services, say subway-bus vs. commuter rail?
The lobbying between the agencies for a larger share of the transit pie from the RTA used to be very cutthroat and ruthless, especially during the first two decades or so after the split. And the only real reason it's died down in recent years is because the state is broke, so there isn't much to fight over nowadays. For all that though, I've never observed any real efforts from one agency to "steal" riders from another, and I'd say that's because each agency serves a certain clientele; some riders use a combination of the three, but the majority use just one mode; and most transfers are between CTA bus and rail...
jfrey40535 wrote:3. How are compatibility issues handled, i.e. fares? If one is a regular rider of commuter rail and bus, how difficult is it to combine fares, passes etc?
Last summer, Gov. Quinn signed legislation that requires the three agencies to come up with a universal transit fare card by 2015. Metra has started accepting credit cards as forms of fare payment, and have also recently introduced TVM's at the downtown stations, but there's still the whole deal of how to resolve Metra's open, distance-based fare system with the relatively closed systems of CTA and Pace. That remains a major hurdle yet to be figured out...
jfrey40535 wrote:4. Would Metra function as a stronger agency if it was rolled up into RTA with the transit operators?
It's hard to say, but politics has a long history of being a disruptive, and divisive force in this town, so I have my doubts. Like that old song goes '"...you gotta keep 'em seperated..."
jfrey40535 wrote:5. Should other struggling passenger rail operators in the U.S. consider the Metra model? Why, Why not?
Perhaps. It won't work everywhere of course, but Caltrain in the Bay area runs a pretty impressive operation, and has a similar setup to Metra, in both type of equipment used and the composition of its board; which is comprised of members from the counties that it serves. Metra has a six member board, one from each county, and I believe Caltrain has a nine member board, with three each from the three counties in its service area...
