Integrating the CTA and Metra is smart move

Kudos to Ed Zotti for understanding and embracing Cook County’s proposal to bring transit to Chicago’s South Side and suburbs by integrating the CTA and Metra.

While working together we have brought hundreds of jobs and new residents to the Roseland/Pullman area, the lack of affordable, convenient transportation remains a challenge that impedes both employment and development in our city and in the south suburbs.

While we have advocated for (and will continue to do so) an extension of the CTA Red Line past 95th Street, that’s a long-term project, while the process of integrating Metra and the CTA could begin now.

When Mayor Harold Washington first proposed integrating Metra and the CTA, he was met with fierce opposition by the then-suburban-dominated Metra board.

Luckily, today’s Metra’s leadership understands the intertwined destinies of the city and the suburbs and supports Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposal.

As to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s legitimate concern about the potential loss of CTA ridership, there are two possibilities.

One, overall ridership may actually increase as better integration and lower prices get people out of their cars — and the county has already said it would make up for a monetary shortfall should that occur.

In either case, integration is a bargain compared with the multibillion-dollar cost and multi-year process of extending the Red Line.

The South Side and south suburbs of Chicago have long faced the greatest challenges.

Unlike their North Side and some north and west suburban counterparts, more than 1 million Chicago and south suburban residents — most of whom are African American or Hispanic — have no access to the CTA.

The proposed integration of the CTA and Metra provides new opportunities for these residents and also possibly new investments in the communities that have been out of reach.

Creating an integrated, affordable public transportation system for the South Side is not only a good idea — it is also what equity actually really means.

Anthony Beale, alderman, 9th Ward

Public parks provide Chicagoans with an escape

Thank you for your editorial decrying the privatization of national parks. Your arguments against the horrid attempts to commercialize the country’s national parks are strong and clear.

You bring out two issues: the use of public spaces for private profit and the despoiling of natural areas.

All of us have a deep, if not fully recognized need and desire to experience from time to time a bit of nature as an escape from the noise and stress of the city.

Very close to home, our public city parks provide this on a more intimate scale than the great national parks.

They are not the place for private commercial ventures that lock out the public.

Rebecca Wolfram, Lawndale