CTA Tattler

Reader provides CTA workers' perspectives on delays, suicide attempt

Bluebummer, a regular commenter and provider of good CTA alerts, was a passenger in the motorman's car of what he believes was the last train to make it into the Loop before power was shut down after the apparent suicide attempt at Wellington.

Click here for his account of conversations between the motorman and a supervisor, plus what happened on that train right around the time of the suicide try.

Passenger complaint spurs passenger complaints

Our train was stuck at Grand for about 10 minutes Thursday afternoon starting at 4:30. (I won't even talk about Thursday's morning commute). I heard no reason announced.

Finally after about 8 minutes the motorman announces: "Once again passengers, this train is being delayed due -- " (longggg pause) "due to a passenger complaint.

After the pause for that announcement, I can only surmise that the motorman was grasping for the right words to describe the situation -- whatever it was.

I mean, "passenger complaint"? You delay the train for 10-plus minutes in rush hour so you can garner a whole bunch more passenger complaints?

I asked a fellow passenger if she knew the nature of the passenger complaint. She said: "No, the guy never made any other announcement, and that's very irritating." Just then the motorman announced the train going  express to Belmont. "Now THAT is not irritating."

Pointed rants about God, the Irish and Hitler

A 20-something man keeps trying to get the attention of other riders, reaching across the aisle with broad gestures, his hands moving frantically. He makes elaborate hand signals, boldly pushing back his flowing straight long hair from his face.

Suddenly he jumps up and starts prowling the aisle, asking provocative questions of no one in particular.

"What is God like?  What is the feel? Open your eyes and feel him. He's defeated! Divide and rule!"

He gets increasingly louder and more threatening:

"Sieg heil! " Sieg heil!" Screaming now at the top of his lungs: "Do you know what that means? It means Irish!  Old habits die hard!"

Yet he never truly confronts anyone in particular. I hope he gets the help he needs.

NOTE: Some people around here don't like it when I write about those who appear to be mentally ill. This is just a reminder to them: I just write about things "Seen and heard on the Chicago Transit Authority." And last night it was this guy.

The late-night school crowd

I love the look of the Red Line train riders between 8:30 and 9 pm. There are lots of "older" students (like myself) riding home from Roosevelt, DePaul and Loyola, trying to juggle school books and bags and notebooks and iPods and handhelds and phones while pretending to study.

And I don't envy you law students with those gargantuan books.

Those of you new to this site should click here for a favorite Tattler Tale about the law student and his condom.

The crowded train crush

The first hint of trouble on the tracks comes as you see people exiting the subway platform when you know you didn't hear a train arriving.

Then you enter subway platform and see why: The platform is five or six people deep with grumbling passengers, and those who left are just trying to cut their losses.

And I second the first reaction of the guy who spied that crowd last night at Grand:

"Fuck!"

Somehow I managed to position myself properly upon the platform and squeezed on the first train to finally arrive. But the fun really begins at Chicago, where impatient passenger ruthlessly push and shove to claim barely one square foot of standing space by the door.

By the time we left Chicago my magazine was crumpled on someone's chest, I was getting goosed from behind and doing my own up-lose-and-personal rubbing to the person in front of me.

There were 21 people in the 34 square feet of space (4.5  feet x 7.5 feet) area between the doors. That is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. I counted the people and then paced off the area after the crowd thinned.

One woman just screamed out in frustration: "Oh good lord! If I'm touching you where I shouldn't be I apologize in advance."

And so it goes till Fullerton, where exiting passengers provide some much needed breathing room. 

Welcome to the mad house.

How to turn off CTA wireless alerts -- and other helpful hints

A visitor from Canada asked in a comment today how to turn off CTA wireless alerts.

Here's how (and click here for a more detailed earlier post on this subject):

Send this text message to 48802 (the group number), or simply reply to a message from group:

.OFF

Note the period in front of the word "off".

Rollin' a smoke and swappin' tall tales

I board the Red Line headed south at 7:30 am and hear the cacophony as soon as the door opens.

The scene: One 40-ish woman is rolling a cigarette on her RedEye. Across the aisle sits a Vietnam-vet-looking-guy in his mid-50s. He's got a scruffy beard and bad teeth. He's next to a barrel-shaped woman in her 50s with bad makeup.

The guy says: "So I made it to age 53 last Saturday. And I've already had a hip replacement. I have so many screws and plates in my body that I need a doctor's note to go anywhere near a metal detector.

"Hell, two Aprils ago the wind knocked me down. And I got hit in the head with a freakin' pipe!

"But hey, things have been going great since I got this job.

"Except for the days I go insane. "

Then they all get up and exit at Lawrence.

Repost: CTA VP explains photo policy

Zesmerelda, a contributor of great photos to the CTA Photo Pool on Flickr -- whose feed I feature at the right -- asks this question in one of her photo contributions:

"Today a CTA employee told me it was illegal to take pictures on the platforms & threatened to take my camera. I was unable to find anything on the CTA site about this. Does anyone know if this is true? Thanks!"

Click here for a prior post on this, Zesmerelda. It's a basic "Yes, but...."

Unlocked train window, unlocked controls?

Random admonishment from a Red Line motorwoman:

"OK, you put your head inside that window and close it right now!"

I couldn't see anything but I can only imagine that someone had found an unlocked sliding window in the Hobo Corner.

Let's hope that the control panel that opens the doors wasn't unlocked too.

Progress report on CTA communication efforts

RedEye's Kyra Kyles today tackles the oft-mentioned and vexing problem of garbled communications from the CTA.

There are the usual rider complaints about hard-to-decipher loud speaker announcements. The CTA reports that we soon should be able to hear clearly -- by the end of the year at least -- on the Purple and Yellow Lines, upon completion of newer infrastructure to carry the announcements on fiber optic cables.

Kyles reports: "Fiber optic installations along the Green, Blue, Pink and Red Lines are set to be completed by next year. Enhancements on the Brown Line are set to be completed when the capacity-expansion project ends in late 2009. In the meantime, if riders have trouble making out messages, they should let the CTA know.

"Customer assistants should be actively informing customers of delays or alternate routings at those stations where it is difficult to understand announcements over the public address system," Ziegler said. If they do not, riders should contact customer service at 888-YOUR CTA with the station where the assistant works, their uniform badge number, as well as the date and time of the incident, Ziegler said."

RedEye also notes two enterprising alert systems developed outside of the CTA.

The first of course is the CTA wireless alerts developed by my brother Dan in July of 2005. The system delivers real-time information about bus and train delays or service outages to subscribers' wireless handheld devices, whether a cell phone or PDA. The CTA is by far the largest contributor, but riders also provide great information about problem areas.

Also, since March Tony Coppoletta has been developing a "transit status" Web site. It's still in beta testing, but it's a good one-stop spot for train info pulled from the CTA's Web site and CTA alerts. He says the final version will include bus information, all of which will be available by email and wireless handheld devices.

The more info the better.