Yes, you've heard that before. Talk about mass transit budget crises has become like background noise from "L" cars screeching around a turn. Are their pleas valid this time?

Local sales tax revenues, which provide the bulk of funding for the CTA, the Metra rail system and Pace suburban bus system, have generally been healthy. While mass transit ridership in the Chicago region has been roughly flat for the last decade, mass transit sales tax revenues have gone up 42 percent.

Recent years have been leaner, though. Sales taxes took a dip in the wake of the 2001 recession. Revenues in 2003 barely topped the figure for 2000. Farebox revenues have seen tepid gains. And -- most damaging -- federal funds for mass transit operations disappeared in the late 1990s.

Those are the reasons why the transit system is squeezed. The CTA is nearly $90 million in the hole for operations in 2004; the suburban agencies also face some problems. So they're going to Springfield with this message: We need money.

There are some ideas kicking around.

RTA officials say that the CTA should dip into money set aside for repairs and improvements -- its capital funds -- to cover the operating deficit. That's a bad idea. If the CTA has a structural, ongoing deficit, it shouldn't mortgage its future to pay to get by today.

There are whispers that the CTA wants the Democratic-controlled legislature to hand it some of the suburban bus and commuter railroad revenues. Again, bad idea. It makes no sense to rob from suburban transit when that's where the population growth is heading.

It's not going to be enough for the CTA simply to tell the legislature to cough up some of the state's largesse. Last we looked, the state's finances were more plug-ugly than the CTA's.

There are some people who will be inclined to tell the CTA and suburban transit agencies to manage with what they have. We suggest those people take a ride on the Eisenhower Expressway at 4 p.m. today. They'll have plenty of time -- perhaps 50 minutes from the old Post Office to Mannheim Road -- to mull why Chicago has to preserve and promote its public transit.

Transit officials need to suggest a funding source, one that is tied to the regional economic interest in unclogging Chicago's highways and getting people to work in a timely fashion.

One more thought: There's talk that Chicago Democrats also want to ram a reorganization of the RTA through the legislature in the six-day veto session coming up.

Last April, the Regional Transportation Task Force offered a proposal to combine suburban bus and rail operations into Metra and give more power to the head of a reconstituted RTA.

The idea has a lot of merit, but it needs to go through the full legislative process. It can't be jammed down the throats of suburbanites; that will create suspicion and distrust toward the Chicago Democrats who run the House, Senate and the governor's office. The legislature should find a way to shore up the CTA, but the reorganization should wait 'til next year.