CTA asks citizens for budget ideas

Among American transit operators, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has done a stellar job in recent years utilizing new technology. Of particular note is sharing its live bus and train tracking data to app developers through APIs, which has resulted in some pretty fantastic mobile apps. Over the past few months, CTA has finally made the leap into social media, opening official accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Youtube.

Keeping a Web presence on the aforementioned social sites is standard fare these days (no pun intended), and CTA has been faithfully updating all of them with information about service updates and construction projects.

But what is much more interesting is they also opened an account on IdeaScale that solicits ideas from the community for their 2012 budget recommendations.

CTA's president Forrest Claypool has already made a number of recommendations in the preliminary budget, which includes departmental consolidation, an innovative approach to station renewal, and reduction of staffing to the lowest levels in the history of the agency. But major budget problems remain, and CTA will likely have to raise fares sharply and/or further cut service in the coming years.

I conducted a whole bunch of public meetings while I was at HSH, and, at least on the Eastern seaboard, they generally tend to be poorly attended, or be filled with people with agendas (or just complaints). Attracting bright minds and everyday people is not an easy task—after all, bright, everyday people have other things they need to attend to. Moving customer input to the Internet where it can be used at people's convenience is an obvious move, but it has to be done correctly.

IdeaScale is a pretty well-designed Web site. People suggest ideas, and then it is voted up or down and commented on by other users. But it will only work if people actually use it. CTA can do a few things to help:

• Advertise it. They have free ad space in their stations, vehicles, and Web site. I've seen no evidence of this, yet. 
• Reward people. Provide some sort of compensation (free Transit Cards?) for ideas that get incorporated into the budget plan. Or better yet, run contests in area business and design schools to find the most innovative solutions. 
• Talk to people. CTA managers should respond to the ideas suggested to engage conversation. Many people think public agencies aren't really listening to them. They will only be convinced to help if they think their ideas matter.   

At the end of the day, there will be no panacea for CTA's budget problems. Major structural problems exist in CTA's funding model and labor relationships. As I've written here, they need to avoid the temptation to sell their long-term worth for short-term fixes. They also need to look both to the state and to their own business models to find new sources of revenue.

But recruiting bright and inquiring minds to invest their brainwaves in the problem is definitely a big step in the right direction.