If this reported deal goes through, at least the taxes will sort of fall on the people using the service, and those benefiting from the decreased road traffic and construction.

Collar county people commuting in and out travel further than Cook County people on the system. And downstate people surely don't get much use out of the CTA. Now if we can only whack them on highway projects.

I think that public transportation is actually mostly a bargain as is, so my preference would have been to raise fares, even though my wife commutes by Metra every day. Roughly $100 a month (deductible, as it comes out of her salary pre-tax) for a ~20-mile commute each way seems like a steal to me. She'd spend that in a week driving, not to mention parking, and it's faster.