CTA Tattler

Kevin,

I think fewer regulars to Carole's blog and Tattler will bother to remind the CTA about what they should already know after 60 years of being in the transit business.

Carole has to shoulder a lot of the blame because for various reasons she doesn't respond to those who take the time to act as voluntary field consultants to the CTA.

I'm sure she had a stack of priorities prior to incorporating her blog and asking for feedback, but I'm afraid what was potentially a great exchange between CTA brass and la raza has soured. Many simply view her blog as a remix of the CTA's press release section.

In the end, transit will never improve until the masses take a more active and consistent roll in understanding the benefits of well-funded and managed transit, put constant pressure on all levels of government to fund it and finally *using* it.

I think what I am most worried about when I think about something happening while I am on the train is that I seem to always be in a car where the PA does not work. If I don't know what station is next, how I am going to now where to go in case of emergency.

The CTA needs to improve communication around the board. I can rarely understand the non-prerecorded announcements at stations or on trains.

Carole needs something more effective than her blog ... like a complete revamping of CTA management. From reading the Crain's, to which you have a link, the union contract results in a $100 million/year deficit, and other reports indicate that the pension underfunding is another $200 million/year. Posting that the "CTA dissents" has no legal bearing. I edited a book on labor arbitration, and the dissent provides no ground for overturning the result. Since last year, Ask Carole indicated that an approximately 35% service cut was needed to close a $55 million deficit, one only knows what percentage will be needed to close a $300 million one. Maybe she ought to concentrate on that.

Bringing back conductors would have helped in more ways then you might think. When seconds count and fast action is needed, having a second employee would have allowed communications to be relayed instead of one employee having to first find out the nature of the problem, (and walking through an eight car train filled with passengers is no easy task). Police officers don't have to go into dangerous situations without some kind of back-up, why should anyone else? CTA was really lucky that there wasn't any passengers on the train in wheelchairs. How would have one employee been able to get that passenger the assistance they would have required? The employee can't assume the other passengers might help out. In times of stress when fast thinking and action is needed two heads with two sets of hands is always better than one. With everyone always worried about the threat of terrorist attacks, having a second employee would also be like having extra security if one employee gets hurt and can't help the passengers, him or herself.

I agree with Mr. Incredible. As I said in an earlier post, a conductor on each train could solve a lot of problems, including communication problems during an emergency.

How could we honestly hold the engineer responsible for not being able to communicate with 500+ panicked passengers? Even if he had an working PA system, how effective would that be in the face of riders who are fleeing from a fiery train? A PA system would have helped marginally compared to actually having another person on the ground who has been trained in evacuation and who had a handheld radio connection with the engineer.

Additionally, a conductor could help mitigate so many of the problems we bitch about regularly on this site. Conductors could crack down on the shell game, eating on the train, the "crazies", and they could be someone to toss out or report the gropers/wankers.

I'll admit I was cynical at first about this proposal. I'm afraid of adding another grumpy, unmotivated worker to the train, but, to be honest, even one of those workers would be better than what we have now and certainly more effective than a new PA system.

1. yes, i stopped reading carole's blog when it seemed apparent that she was going to respond to questions and suggestions with pat answers that read like press releases.

2. i was not happy to see that conductors were going to be eliminated. cutting employees, raising fares, reducing service and benefits for employees is NOT the solution to fixing the budget deficit.... cutting wasteful white-collar crony positions is.

You can forget about the CTA going back to conductors. They just don't have it in their budget to do so unless after raising fares higher than most would bear. I'd rather them put those employee resources to keeping the trains and buses cleaner.

While having a conductor aboard would be helpful in an accident, a fireman and police officer would be also but they're not going to ride every train nor every bus.

There would be many arguments made that having an extra employee on board a train wouldn't be warranted in most situations given the current and future budget challenges.

I'd rather the CTA continue with just the engineer (I was against this at first) instead of having the typical Securitas type sleeping in the car, drawing a salary.

Regarding the CTA's zero tolerance clean buses/trains policy:

I actually saw a bus driver walk the length of it picking up trash before we started on my journey. I don't remember the last time I've seen that happen.

While the rider certainly has the responsibility to manage their litter, it made me feel better to see the policy in action.

I was in France when this happened. The only english speaking channel we could get was the BBC. This is how the reported the situation, "A metro line that connects one of their airports to the city downtown area caught on fire and had to be evacuated through an underground hatch. Apparently they call this metro line 'the blue line' and it had what looks like 100 people on board at the time. Some passengers reported seeing smoke and thinks the train derailed. Their officals said the conductor does not know if the train in fact did derail or not."

I will tell her how to improve communications when she gives me some of her salary. Isn't this why we pay her? I don't see the chair of McDonald's asking me how to fry a hamburger. Yet another reason why I say she's incompetent and needs to head to the unemployement line.

You would prefer McDonald's policy of REJECTING all customer suggestions? (I was surprised, I must admit. Most good executives ASK for feedback from their customers).

http://mcdonalds.com/usa/contact/contact_us/faq.html

The policy on the Mc D's FAQ page is standard business practice to protect them from a ton of lawsuits from people who swear they came up with the idea for McRibs.

It's a little easier for the heads of a public transit ageny to solicit ideas as they aren't really selling a product, but a service.

And yes, just because she is asking for feedback, it doesn't necessarily make her incompetent as the CTA board chair.

Would YOU really want that job?

Dealing with Daley's longstanding hands off policy with public transit and the poor funding from the city over the years? A crumbling infrastructure that's been on life support for the last 30 or more years? The country's failure to support rail/transit for decades? No thanks.

I just expect her to be more responsive to a blog she established with said interest in communicating with those interested in helping the Chicago-area transit.

I agree that most good exectutives and companies ask for feedback and do other marketing and customer service surveys. I'm just stating that I don't think she's really asking for suggestions but is really looking for what to do. Considering the agency was running perfectly (and I'm using this term losely) without fare hikes for over a decade and they do two within five years should say that something's not being done right and citizens and lawmakers are not told the truth behind their budgets.

Is it really that difficult of a job to figure out how to improve communications....maybe have a reputable company hook up a PA system and not Krusi's uncle joe who can do it for a discounted price. How about telling supervisors and train operators to use the damn system to make announcements and make sure the information is accurate and timely. That would be a good start. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out, but CTA's higher beings are acting like they've encountered an impossible calculus equation and that's incompentence.

Sorry if I'm being a little confusing here, but I'm not saying the CTA can't ask customers for suggestions. It seems like lately they've been asking us to do their job. "report suspicous activity", "Tell us if our operators are running on time", "Tell us how to improve our PA system". I understand that it's a big transit system to handle and you will never be able to please everyone. Our system is not as big as other cities around the world and they are well maintained without all the help the CTA is getting. When they cut their bonuses in half to help with the budget crisis and help fund their projects is when I will take them seriously about their funding crisis.

What bonuses? Do you have any evidence of that?

Well one thing to strongly consider is that those other countries have very little total real estate to live with compared to the U.S. (UK, France, Japan, etc.)

They *have* to have efficient transit or else the whole country comes to a standstill.

And even with barrels of oil skyrocketing, soon likely pushing gas to over $4/gallon, people here are still wedded to their car mentalities.

This is the perfect time if any to really push for better rail and public transit options in the U.S.

But I suppose that the masses are too busy worrying about if Oprah and Gayle are lezzies to pay attention to what really matters.

The rail system could be outfitted with speakers placed throughout the various portion of the track. What sort of model or type of speaker would depend on the various international examples that exist. If there are no examples, we should create something that is both utilitarian and dependable.