CTA Tattler

A case of selective outrage

My wife contributes this Tattler Tale:

I board Purple Line headed south at about 7:30 p.m. on a Thursday. The train was crowded, but I found a seat among three men in their early 20s. They were gossiping gleefully about women whom they knew. For instance, they were talking about a woman from Rockford who didn’t know how to act on the Red Line. They said she was wearing jewelry that she shouldn’t have, carrying a purse and acting nervous, generally acting like a country bumpkin.

Their conversation was spiked with liberal use of both the F-word and the N-word. These guys weren’t threatening at all, they were just funny in their gossiping.

We all got off at Howard, the guys still talking about various women and their habits. On the platform I noticed a woman standing nearby with her five children, ranging in age from 10 to 2. One of the young men started describing a women he knew, emphasizing “her big ol’ titties. Once she came out without wearing a bra. She could have knocked you out with those things.”

The woman with kids turned around sharply and said, “Have some respect!” At this rebuke, the guy says: “Fuck you! I’m grown, and I pay my own bills. I can say whatever the fuck I want!” The woman interrupts, shouting: “I don’t want my kids to hear that kind of language.”

Then he reiterates: “I am a grownup. When you start paying your own way, you can tell your kids to not talk like me.”

“Have some respect!”

“Fuck you! Learn how to mind your business.”

Mercifully, the train arrives, and we all got on the same car.

Then the guy talks among his friends about the woman, continuing to berate her. The woman continues to ask for respect, jawing at the guys some more. Even the motorwoman got in on the act. She came out of her work space and told everyone to put a lid on it.

The woman got off at Jarvis, the next stop.

After her exit he said to his friends: “You notice she didn’t get mad until I mention the word tits. I was saying the whole time, ‘F-this and N-that,’ but she wasn’t offended till I started talking about some woman’s titties.”

What NTSB ruled after 2001 CTA accidents, how the CTA responded; what's next

Last week the National Transportation Safety Board very closely examined the actions of the motorman on the Blue Line train that derailed Tuesday -- just as they did five years ago.

After two different incidents of train collisions in 2001, the NTSB ruled that the "CTA's system safety program was not effective in the area of rules compliance, yet the agency's year 2000 internal safety audit found that service rail operation employees [were complying] with safety rules and S.O.P's."

The key recommendation by the NTSB was that the CTA "develop and implement systematic procedures for performing and documenting frequent management checks to ensure all operating personnel are complying with Chicago Transit Authority operating rules, including speed restrictions and signal rules. (R-02-22)"

For its part, in response the CTA increased its annual on-board "line-ride checks" or motorman from two to eight, among other changes.

It's way too early to say what exactly caused the derailment. But weekend reports said the NTSB found rails in the accident area were too far apart.

In 2001, it was the NTSB scolding CTA's lax oversight of personnel. Perhaps this time it will focus on rail maintenance failures.

Eyewitness account of evacuation; CTA chair wants input on improving communications

I just came across this first-hand, eyewitness account of the Blue Line train evacuation by fifty_percent, via LiveJournal's El community. An excerpt:

The train "had just left the Clark/Lake station. The 8th car jumped around on the track and the train came to a sudden but brief stop. The 'motorman' tried to get us underway again. The electrical current arced between the train and the 3rd rail, which caused the train itself to catch fire. The people in my car hit the emergency button and pulled the emergency door open cord. We moved into the 6th car.

"This guy behind me in the single file line kept pushing me forward and kept yelling for everyone to hurry up in a panicked voice. I told him to calm down. He said in a distinctly rational sounding voice that the train was beginning to fill up with smoke, which I immediately noticed myself...." Read more on his blog.

Tell Carole Brown how to improve communications

Also, CTA Board Chairwoman Carole Brown is soliciting ideas at her blog on how the CTA can improve communications. Good for her!

Here's your chance. The post went up on Wednesday but there were only eight comments as of noon Friday. We can do better than that!

CTA tests "Convention Pass" at Gay Games

In a CTA pilot project, every athlete in the Gay Games -- set to begin Saturday and go through July 22 -- gets a special Convention Pass that will allow them unlimited CTA rides for 10 days.

"The cards will have no value assigned to them and will be encoded with a fixed start and end date, from July 14 through July 23, 2006," according to the CTA press release. "Chicago Games Inc. will pay CTA $150,000 up front for the cards and provide a database that identifies demographic information for each individual recipient."

“Almost seven million individuals come to Chicago each year for conventions or conferences and many of them are not familiar with the public transit options available for traveling around the city,” said Chicago Transit Board Chairman Carole Brown. “The pilot will allow us to evaluate the use of prepaid farecards by attendees of the Gay Games and help make it easier for visitors to the city to use the system, as well as allowing CTA to increase its share of the visitor transportation market.”

"Following the games, CTA staff will analyze C-Pass usage to calculate the market value of all rides taken. The market value of a ride is the regular full fare that would be paid for a comparable ride by a member of the general public during the period of validity. If the market value of the rides taken exceeds $150,000, CGI will pay CTA the difference. "

Victoria Stagg Elliott, an ice skater who is competing on Tuesday, shows us her Gay Games card in the accompanying photos. Best wishes to her in the competition. She's a good pal of mine from work.

And be sure to visit her blog for the The Insiders' Guide to Gay Games VII Chicago 2006.

Public transit safer than car; CTA communications problems linger

That was some scary stuff that happened Tuesday night on the Blue Line. I'm glad it wasn't me trying to crawl out of that dark tunnel up a six-story ladder.

Since I wasn't there, I don't know what a survivor knows, and might feel, about riding on the El again.

But here's what I do know: Public transit is STILL much safer than driving in a car.

Lightrailnow.org reports that there's almost one death in a car per 100 million passenger miles, compared to 0.55 deaths on rail rapid transit 0.05 on commuter rail and 0.10 deaths on buses.

Again, that doesn't mean it wasn't frightening for those who went through the Tuesday nightmare. It just means that chances are at least twice as high for us to be killed in a car accident than a public transit accident.

CTA communications still a big problem

About 1,000 people on that train were directly affected by the derailment, but  thousands and thousands of other riders also were affected, and as usual, the CTA gave little to no information about what exactly was happening.

This is a long-running problem that MUST be fixed.

CTA Alerts subscribers got some information from the CTA, but they were very careful to never mention a fire or derailment.

Let's hope that finding a way to get better information out to all is yet another lesson that the CTA learns from this mess.

Lessons learned from Blue Line subway fire

So the good news is that just a couple people were hospitalized in serious condition after the fire and derailment of the Blue Line just north of Clark and Lake. About 120 people were taken to hospitals, so certainly it could have been much worse.

CTA President Frank Kruesi said the train motorman followed all procedures and acted quickly to lead passengers to safety. Excellent work.

But still there are some lessons to be learned here, and some precautions for the future.

• Familiarize yourself with the placards of trains stating what to do in an emergency
• Don't panic. Listen to the motorman. Exit quickly but in an orderly fashion. It appears passengers did just that Tuesday.
• If you're not a member now, sign up for the CTA Alerts to get wireless alerts via text message or email. We got about 20 alerts Tuesday -- from both passengers and the CTA -- with great info about what was happening.

For the CTA:

• Have a disaster plan in place that includes putting alternate transportation modes into place more quickly.
• Continue to use CTA Alerts to communicate to all passengers, but find a way to expand the reach.
• Get to the bottom of what caused this accident and FIX whatever it was. Learn from this.
• Get other cellular companies to sign on to lease subway communication lines. Obviously, an emergency is the perfect use for cellular technology.

Let's take away some good lessons from what could have been a real disaster.

Fire, train derailment close Blue Line at Clark and Lake; passengers evacuated

From CTA_HQ at CTA Alerts:

There is no Blue Line subway service bet. Damen & Washington. Customers can take #56 Milwaukee/other CTA service.

And this from lesyeux at 6:07 pm:

Heavy, thick, black smoke possibly from Thompson Center. 15-20 ambulances. People covered in soot up from tunnels.

And lesyeux gave this update at 6:17:

"8th car of a train derailed Dragging caused heavy smoke & sparks, no fire Not enough buses 4 the masses No train 2 OHare."

I'm not sure whether lesyeux is an eyewitness.

CBS2 news report here.

In an eerie coincidence, Gapersblock today published this post, referring to the RedEye's cover story on what to do in a CTA emergency:

"Your bus is aflame? Fear not."

Gives me chills.

Eastern-European Evil Eyebrow

Two 20-ish women board at Granville, obviously a couple. One shows the other her Cheetah Gym workout schedule while her mate cuddles her, stroking her ponytail. 

Meanwhile, a 50-ish woman of Eastern-European descent raises her drawn-on, pencil-thin eyebrows with disdain, giving the loving lesbian duo the evil eye.   

The Lying Celler

A guy boards the Red Line South at Granville at 7:30 am. He's half-dressed with a work shirt totally unbuttoned, a white T-shirt underneath. He's carrying a belt, his hair is mussed up, with sleepies still dabbing the corners of his eyes.

He makes a call to work: "Oh, Hi, this is Bill. We've just been delayed fifteen minutes on the train, so I'm going to be late, okay? Thanks...cheers!"

The trains were not late -- he was.  Obviously he had just fallen out of bed just minutes ago.

CTA Alerts double as news provider

I love it when our CTA wireless alerts do double duty as key news provider.

Of course, my all-time favorite was "airplane blocking 55th Street," and was the first I heard of the Southwest Airlines plan skidding off the runway last December.

Earlier this week, Thirdrail told us at 2:34 am about a "stabbing in front of Berlin" that was all over the news later that day.

Then, there are the alerts from CTA_HQ that are very informational, but leave out key facts, such as this one where they failed to mention that the street was blocked because a CTA bus had struck and killed a bike rider: "Due to a street blockage, #66 Chicago buses rerouted in both directions via Chicago, Milwaukee and Ashland."

Just a minor detail, eh?

Today, CTA Alerts told us all about Italians partying in the street after their World Cup victory: " Due to the World Cup Soccer Celebration, #90 Harlem buses are being temporarily rerouted at Addison and Harlem. "

My brother Dan, who created the CTA Alerts, has a nice riff on this event at his blog. Check it out.

You also have to check out his post about what led up to Zidane's Red Card disqualification today, just because it's a great headline:

The Nipple of Zidane.

Oh, and be sure to sign up for CTA Alerts here.