* The Southern Illinoisan belatedly editorializes in favor of holding transit riders hostage in an editorial entitled “Downstate lawmakers should have stuck together”…

As long as downstate votes were needed to OK the mass transit bailout, there was at least a chance to link the bailout to a long-needed capital improvement bill - which would fund school construction in Southern Illinois, allow the work to begin on a nearly $50 million Transportation Education Center for Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and fund highway and infrastructure improvements.

We had leverage as long as the bailout and capital bills were inseparable, and the Southern Illinois lawmakers who refused to consider one proposal without the other should be thanked for their determination and perhaps remember favorably on Election Day.

That assumes that a capital bill was ready to go by January 20th. It also assumes that a gaming bill was ready to go. Those are both false assumptions. So, what were legislators to do? Allow Chicagoland’s public transit to crash and burn?

* But now, even Chicago legislators are eager to see a capital plan, so progress is expected some time relatively soon…

While the CTA and Pace averted steep service cuts and fare hikes with passage last week of the $530 million transit funding package, slow and crowded trains and buses — commuters’ biggest complaints — won’t disappear.

The money will go to keep trains and buses operating, not to finance vital construction projects or buy new trains, buses and related infrastructure, officials said./blockquote>

* But a cleanup bill for that aforementioned transit bailout is apparently needed…

The free rides for seniors proposal was supposed to apply to all transit systems in the state, but the way the bill was drafted it eliminates any city with a population under 50,000.

* Meanwhile, my syndicated newspaper column looks back…

While I still think things will eventually calm down and Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s insistence that senior citizens be given free rides on all mass transit systems will one day be viewed as a welcomed entitlement, it’s obvious that lots and lots of Illinoisans don’t feel that way right now. […]

Blagojevich’s amendatory veto of the transit bill to insert the senior freebie resonated loudly throughout every region of the state. Legislators reported receiving dozens, even hundreds, of calls and e-mails from furious constituents urging that the freebie be rejected. Even many senior citizens were angry.

It was as if the entire state had morphed into the Illinois House, which always has a negative reaction to anything the governor does and draws together whenever Blagojevich makes one of his goofy plays.

* And ahead…

The fall from grace isn’t over yet. Blagojevich, Jones and the House and Senate Republicans risk irking voters again with their push to expand gaming in Illinois and Chicago in order to pay for a capital construction plan.

The public is not happy with this expansion plan. According to that Fako & Associates poll, just 38 percent say they back a plan for a Chicago-owned casino along with two more boats, slots at tracks and expansion at current riverboats, while 57 percent oppose the idea. The poll of 801 registered voters was taken Jan. 3 to 6 and has a margin of error of +/- 3.46 percent.

Moreover, the public is incredibly cynical about how the cash will be spent and how the new casinos will be operated. For instance, 60 percent of registered voters agreed with the statement: “Politicians in Springfield and Chicago can’t be trusted to keep their promise to actually use profits from–casinos for mass transit and infrastructure projects,” while 67 percent agreed with this: “Politicians in Springfield and Chicago cannot be trusted to expand gambling in Illinois and would be influenced and corrupted by stakeholders in the new casinos.”

Sixty-seven percent said they thought organized crime and gambling addiction would increase with expanded gaming, 72 percent said Chicago can’t be trusted to run a casino without scandals and corruption and 71 percent acknowledged that casino revenues aren’t a stable funding source.

The numbers likely show one reason why House Speaker Michael Madigan has dragged his feet on gaming expansion during the run-up to the Feb. 5 primary. This is not a popular idea. And it’s just one more public opinion bomb waiting to go off in the governor’s face.