A lawsuit in a federal court charges that Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which distributes funds to three different transit agencies, has systematically discriminated against minorities when it allowed the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses and trains (which are mostly used by blacks and Latinos) to decline while it kept up on and expanded suburban Metra commuter trains (which are mostly used by whites). This case is similar to a suit in Los Angeles that was settled when the transit agency agreed to restore bus service to minority neighborhoods, and an on-going suit in the San Francisco Bay Area (third item down).
Many Chicago elevated lines are poorly maintained.
Flickr photo by Ateller Teee.
Civil rights attorney Robert Bullard calls transportation policies that favor white suburbanites over inner-city minorities “transportation apartheid.” But a conservative blogger suggests that the Chicago lawsuit may be just “a racist shakedown perpetrated by the Victim Industrial Complex.” Which is correct?
