CTA chair "puts brakes" on premium service to airports; Kruesi "Dead Pool"
In both her blog and a Sun-Times report, CTA Board Chairwoman Carole Brown just says WHOA to the idea of premium train service to the airports mixed in with regular service. It's no done deal.
The Sun-Times story is a follow-up on the Trib's Page 1 piece. The Sun-Times slices and dices its Michigan Avenue competitor: "CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown put the brakes on talk that the CTA would move forward with premium rail service to the city's airports, saying there needs to be a solid plan for express service that would actually save travelers time."
And this is from Brown's own blog :
"I would support premium rail service only if it brought significant new operating dollars, capital funding, or other efficiencies to CTA. It is precisely because there is a real potential for those benefits that the concept is worth exploring. We need as much operating and capital funding as we can get for our current customers.
"I should note that I’m not at all interested in non-express “direct” service absent a viable plan to do real express service. I have no intention of recommending that CTA buy expensive upscale railcars just to wait behind regular Blue and Orange Line trains."
Bravo, Carole. I've always liked her.
Meanwhile, this comment left here Thursday says that our friends at Chicagoist "have started a Frank Kruesi Dead Pool.... Feel free to leave the date you think he'll be fired or "transferred" in comments. You might win a t-shirt. Woo!"
As JackontheBus mentioned on Carole's blog, she's wrong in that the CTA *would* be obligated to provide service in 2008.
Here's a link to the report:
http://www.yourcta.com/news/motion/board/aexpress200610.pdf
Posted by: deepkid | October 06, 2006 at 02:13 PM
If true, shouldn't Brown's attempt to deceive the public on this issue be cause for her and Kruesi's immediate removal? Haven't there been enough lies and dodges from CTA management? I noticed that the report was not posted with its appendices. Assuming I didn't miss them.
I've only skimmed a few pages, but it's interesting that they are predicting that the service will increase the commute time for Blue line users by at least 5 minutes during rush periods. In my quick overview, I didn't see anything convincing in terms of proving demand. They have tons of numbers, but how reliable are the numbers when they can't show what percentage of O'Hare arrivals and departures begin or end downtown? They are also comparing rail and cabs as if they are the same thing. They aren't taking families and business people travelling together into account (They only pay $1 extra per passenger in a cab), nor does the report appear to acknowledge that cabs provide point to point service whereas one has to walk a significant distance on both ends of a train trip.
Also, the CTA union has frequently been painted, rightfully in many cases, as the villain with respect to poor operational efficiency and undue strain on the agency's budget. On this issue though they could potentially play the hero by stalling this whole stupid idea. Their approval would be necessary to allow private operators onto the rails. If they do give their approval, one might wonder what incentives they will be given in exchange. Will those incentives be factored into cost outlays by the CTA?
As it is, they are predicting this boondoggle to cost between 700 million and 1.5 billion. For a service that nobody was asking for?
Posted by: jared | October 06, 2006 at 07:29 PM
Spoke to soon. The report does acknowledge cabs as being point to point. However, it also claims cabs are less reliable because they must operate in traffic. Unless one is travelling at the height of rush hour though, this would almost never be an issue. In fact, last time I took a cab to the airport, it was about 4:30 and traffic was already slow. Still it only took about 45 minutes to get to the airport. This compared to the 40 minutes or so the el took last time I rode to OHare. That's 40 minutes PLUS the time it took me to walk to the el and then from the OHare station into the terminal. One point I thought funny was emphasizing the ability to plug in a laptop as a notablefeature. If that's the most spectacular differential benefit to this service, they are really going to have problems.
Posted by: jared | October 06, 2006 at 07:45 PM
Maybe they could work on improving service for the (primarily) South Side people they screwed over with the increased cash fare. Maybe after they extend the Red Line to 130th, I would be willing to hear them out on the plan to make sure rich people don't have to sit by icky regular Chicago residents on their way to the airport.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | October 07, 2006 at 08:03 PM