"I agree that it looks great, but I'm inclined to side with Guest #2 on this. The main purpose of the CTA is to transport passengers. Generally, dollars spent on making transit pretty are dollars that aren't going towards making transit more functional, frequent, or efficient. Stephen Smith wrote about this at Forbes last fall. On the other hand, I suppose most of the funding for design work and materials came from the TIF pool rather than the grant money. TIF funds often (and, IMO, appropriately) go to things like street beautification anyway, so I guess I can't really distinguish this case from that." —Ben LeRoy [Morgan Station Now Open and Ready for Riders]
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