CTA Tattler

It's amazing to see their metrics actually printed out and stuck to a wall. They certainly lose a ton of analysis potential and visibility by not having all that stuff in a business intelligence system -- though, in government, the latter might actually be a benefit.

Perhaps I should offer my services...

I was woundering does he ride the bus or the L?

Accountability? Of managers? At the CTA? Maybe those weren't herons I saw overhead this morning on my way to work. Maybe they were pigs.

I know you've got more questions for Huberman than time, but the discussion of metrics rattled loose a memory from the cobwebs. If I recall, the CTA used to measure on-time performance based on when a bus or train started its route. So if a number 96 bus left the garage on time, that was recorded as an on-time run, even if it was 45 minutes late by midroute. I wonder, is that still the quality of measurement they're using?

Two complaints. First, the ctaboard@transitchicago.com address did not work; I could not send an email. Second, working people actually ride the CTA to work, downtown. So why is the final public hearing being held @ 9am, June 13 @ CTA headquarters? Don't you know that most workers must work at such a time? I think that a lot of possible attendees will not come because of the timing. Finally, East, far Southsiders and Hyde Park commuters did not get a hearing address.

i really hope you will/did ask about the cta's expansion priorities. block 37 and the circle line, expensive projects that serve already well-served yuppies, are on the fast track, while expansion to underserved areas like the mid-city transitway El and extensions of the red, orange, and yellow lines are stuck in the slow zones. (see this write-up: http://razetheladder.blogspot.com/2007/02/paving-over-mid-city-transitway.html )

i know immediate funding needs are the big issue right now, but once those are settled we'll be turning our attention to expansion. and the cta/daley are quietly setting up bad uses for scarce funds as a fait accompli. someone needs to hold them accountable.

jake, your idiocy knows no bounds. Indeed, the Circle Line serves only yuppies. Logic be damned.

jake:

well served yuppies?
i live in pilsen and work in bridgeport and welcome the circle line. it would take me easily to the north side / wicker park if i wanted to do shopping or going out, to work to the south, and connect to all these other routes way more easily.

there is very very little money going into analysis of the circle line project. and if money doesn't come through ever to back the project from the state to gain matching federal funds, it will go no where.

also, check the CTA website. they've already started and had community meetings on the south side to do alternatives analysis for the red line extension, which has already reached the second of three phases.

also, i would hardly call the block 37 project an extension. most of the money for that is coming from the city and the developer anyway.

the city not only needs immediate funds, and significant operational subsidies plan for coming years (which should also increase with inflation and needs) but also needs an extensive capital plan for repair and expansion. it could happen. i'm sure it's not going to happen soon. so don't worry, i'm sure the circle line will turn into the same myth that the second avenue subway became in new york till just recently. a wonderful idea, which will never happen; that is, unless you wait 40 years.

I'd like you to ask Huberman why he thinks we need public transportation. I think that would reveal a lot about what he might consider the priorities for the CTA.

it's a fair point that people other than yuppies would benefit from the circle line, but i don't think there's any doubt that the neighborhoods the circle line would serve are already quite well-served by transit. additionally, most of those neighborhoods have been gentrifying and it's likely the circle line would speed up gentrification.

the circle line would benefit both rich and poor, possibly accelerating the exclusion of poor from their neighborhoods. the mid-city transitway and red and orange line extensions would primarily benefit poor and working class people, and it's unlikely that they would facilitate gentrification.

the mid-city transitway and existing line extensions are just better uses of money, extending the system far more than the circle line at a similar cost. it's not that the circle line is worthless, it's that other projects need to be priorities first.

Jake, please do some research before posting. The only thing that is not being studied is the mid-city transit way (which by the way, I think is a great idea). Unfortunately, the study phases of any government project move excruciatingly slow. But at least the studies have been funded are being done.

As for the yuppie comments, someone on Ask Carole today said it best -- get over it! Are you suggesting that people who have worked hard and reached a certain economic place in life are unworthy of CTA service?

ChicagoJ,

I think he's pretty obviously -not- saying that--the whole point is there are groups out there with far fewer transit options who would benefit from increased service--what's wrong with that?

Although as a white male professional in his 20s, I appreciate you standing up for me; Lord knows we get -such- a raw deal otherwise.

Dimwit.

chicagoj, the question is where daley and the cta's priorities are. the circle line is most of the way thru its alternatives analysis. alternatives analyses have started for the existing-line extensions, but are a year or more behind the circle line. the pink line also has to be seen as part of the circle line, since the only reason to do it was to rehabilitate the paulina connector (that part of the line between the ashland and polk stops), which is phase one of the circle line plan. http://www.chicago-l.org/plans/CircleLine.html

the mid-city transitway and the circle line both emerged as proposals in 2002 while the 3 line extensions have been talked about for much longer. yet the circle line was moved rapidly forward while the others trail behind. unless the federal government suddenly showers us with money, there's going to be an order in which these expansions are built. all indications are that the very expensive circle line is first in the queue.

like KM said, i have nothing against yuppies using transit - in fact, i'd prefer if everyone did. but the fact is that yuppies in the city have a lot of access to the el, while people on the west and far south sides have almost none. not to mention the fact that public investment should help the worst-off before it helps the best-off.

"Two complaints. First, the ctaboard@transitchicago.com address did not work; I could not send an email. Second, working people actually ride the CTA to work, downtown. So why is the final public hearing being held @ 9am, June 13 @ CTA headquarters? Don't you know that most workers must work at such a time? I think that a lot of possible attendees will not come because of the timing. Finally, East, far Southsiders and Hyde Park commuters did not get a hearing address. "

Bonita:

There are 4 public hearings. Three of them are in the evening. You are complaining about the one that is in the morning. You may not know this, but many people do work at other times besides the usual 9-5 schedule. Obviously the CTA had one meeting during the day so that those people who work in the evenings could attend. I don't know why so many people always assume that something does not make sense just because it is not beneficial for them personally. And I have no idea what you mean by " East, far Southsiders and Hyde Park commuters did not get a hearing address." Everybody is welcome to attend any of them. You don't have to live in the area to go to the meeting. Do you expect them to have four dozen or so meetings so that they could have one in every neighborhood? Or perhaps you think they should have one on every block?

jake, I think you're not seeing causes and effects correctly. It's not that the L goes where the yuppies are, it's that the yuppies go where the L is. The L is a benefit that increases the value, and therefore the cost of living, of the neighborhoods it serves. If it weren't for the ingrained anti-black racism that persists among Chicagoans, the Green Line would be a condo corridor end to end; probably the only L extension that could be done at this point that would benefit the poor rather than drive them elsewhere would be to incorporate the Metra Electric.

Catbus,

No question gentrification's an issue, and one we haven't really found any kind of solution to, but what you're saying is a little demented--are we to limit services to poorer neighborhoods lest they end up on yuppies' radar? Perhaps we should only supply power south of 18th St. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, lest it become too attractive to high-end condo developers.

The Pink Line was not the only reason to rehabilitate the Paulina Connector. The Connector is the only link between the Blue Line and the rest of the system. Without it, the Blue Line would be cut off from the rest, including the heavy maintenance shop at Skokie. The Connector was extremely deteriorated -- Kruesi once said that walking on it pre-reconstruction was one of the scariest things he'd ever done -- and needed to be replaced regardless, or the Blue Line would have been isolated. If you're going to rebuilt it, you might as well do it as a double-track line that could be used for revenue service for just a little more money (as opposed to a single-track line, which I suppose is all you would have minimally needed for car transfer purposes).

Also, stop citing that Chicago-L.org page about the CTA's intentions. That Chicago-L.org page discusses a *conceptual* plan, not any final plan, and clearly states this. It's all pre-Alternatives Analysis. It's not some kind of gospel about what's going to happen or what the CTA's motives are.

but isn't it revealing that, despite the show of public consultation, the evolving circle line proposal is evolving closer and closer to that conceptual draft?

re: yuppies, they not only want el service, they also want to stay away from poor people and run-down neighborhoods, and they prefer to be close to the loop. so the mid-city transitway and the orange and red line extensions would be unlikely to encourage gentrification, while the circle line will almost certainly speed it up. in this case, the el is going where the yuppies are or will soon be.

nerd hired gun: It's much more powerful to see paper on a wall than clicking through screens in a BI system. How do you know where they got the charts from?

What's all this yuppies talk? Is this the 1980's? Are those people who are "not" yuppies the truly disadvantaged among us? If so, how do they get internet access?

It's great if Huberman's system works, but there are somethings so glaringly obvious that if the managers behind them don't know of the problem, they should be gone already. Example - "customer service attendants" at stations like Grand and Chicago on the red line, where a HUGE number of the passengers are tourisst and convention goers who add a tremendous amount of $$ to the city, many of whiom have NEVER ridden rapid transit before, much less purchased a transit card. Why on why are the customer servie people always ignoring the long lines of confused patrons who can't figure out the machine, and why were three of the customer service people standing and talkign amonsgt themselves while a line snaked up the staircase on friday, due a large crowd heading to Sox-yankees game?

We need repeat tourists and conventioneers, though the Che T-shirt crowd will say we shouldn't. Can we actually hire people at these stations who will take the job seriously?

Thank you, joeyb, for reminding us of the real issues. We are in your debt.

I would ask him:

Why are bus drivers constantly running red lights? And I'm not talking about slipping through the yellow - so often a bus will be sitting at the intersection, letting passengers off - the light turns red, and THEN the bus goes! Yesterday at 6:10 a bus crossing Clark on Foster nearly killed a man walking across the street. It angers me no end to see them flagrantly ignore traffic law - I'm sure they're trying to keep on schedule, but it should never be at the expense of safety.

"i would hardly call the block 37 project an extension. most of the money for that is coming from the city and the developer anyway."

in fact, most of the money is coming from the cta: 3/5 of the total costs are being paid by the cta, for a total of $130 million. that's slightly less than the amount of money needed to get the red line extension off the ground. in 2005 the federal govt authorized $600m for the red line project if the city or state could come up with $148m. http://www.chicagoreader.com/pdf/060217/060217_works.pdf
but to daley and the cta, setting up the outside possibility of saving business travelers 15 minutes between o'hare and the loop is a bigger priority than helping poor people.

Why are they joining the dearborn and state st subways? When they are connected, will both trains (blue/red) be running through one subway. EX: jackson blue line stop would also be serviced by red line trains?
I just dont understand why they are joining the subways except for the stupid airport express deal.

jake,

you can do yourself a big favor and not believe everything that ben joravsky says. on that "$600 million" for the red line -- that was a complete fabrication told to ben by a community activist. there is no such money -- never has been. but ben never took the time to question his source. if it's an activist it must be true and if it's anyone somehow affiliated with daley it must be a lie. right? come on. if cta had a $600 million grant that would be the biggest news in mayor daley's career. the city has never received a grant that large for anything ever all at once. but the lie served ben's purpose (smear daley) so he printed it and suckers like you believe it and use it to support your arguements.

personally, i think that the red line project is a clever scheme by all those activists down there who support it to raise their property values so that they can become real estate millionaires when the roseland and west pullman neighborhoods gentrify because of the new train line.

Interesting discussion here on the Circle Line and Mid City Transit Way. I thought I would add a comment about the way transit projects are funded. It might help readers better understand the decision making process for big transit projects.

First, agencies or municipalities almost never have enough money to fund transit projects on their own. That's why transit agencies do an alternatives analysis. This analysis shows the federal government (the FTA - the Federal Transit Administration) that the project is well thought out, that environmental factors have been considered, that the project has enough ridership, that there will be positive economic or social effects, that it will cut down pollution, etc... These are the kinds of things the FTA looks for when determining who receives funding. An Alternatives Analysis is required for federal funding and federal funding is a competitive process.

Completion of an alternatives analysis does not mean you get funding. Rather, the alternatives analysis allows you to compete with all the other transit agencies in the country for a piece of the pie. (simplified version - there are diffent categories of funding, new starts, smalls starts, CMAQ, etcc...)

Because the process takes so damn long - from a concept, to somethign more defined, to an alternatives analysis, to funding to project completion - one needs to plan many years in advance for something that will come to fruition in 10-20 years after the concept.

Transit agencies don't randomly select which projects to choose. If they want federal funding, they must show demographic data/projections, population projecitons, vehicle traffic, traffic projections, etc... Maybe it is useful to think of the Cirlce Line and other projects in this light?

We Black folk down here on the South Side just want fast, comfortable transit so we can get to work, be it CTA or. Metra. We're not worried about gentrification because our neighborhoods generally don't go through that (white yuppies don't move to Black neighborhoods). Oh, and we're not all poor down here, thank you. Too assume that is racist. Pill Hill, Chatham, Rosemoor, Avalon, Highland, Ashburn, etc are already middle class. Never heard of these places? Then you need to actually visit south of Roosevelt. We don't need white yuppies to improve us thank you.

With the use of the magnet fare card and chicago card the CTA should be able to slap data into a OLAP database and figure out the best schedules and routes of CTA trains and buses. The CTA can easily figure out what beginning and ending points and the times a user uses the CTA. But I really have not seen any changes. The routes have been very fixed for years.

Ron, if you do read this, having 13 or so buses stop at the same bus stop like Michigan ave causes buses and normal traffic to back up. The CTA really suffers as I would call it Amtrak-itis, making sure that every bus stops at every intersection. This just create traffic bottlenecks. If you toss in the right and left turns a bus does in the loop, it might take 25 minutes to go 1 mile in the loop. Try to make some routes straighter and go semi-express thru the loop. Use other street so you don't have a billion buses going down state and Michigan. Use Franklin (one way north), Wells(one way south), lower wacker to get from the south and west loop to the north and east loop. Treat the downtown as 6 zones and have express buses to each of the zones. Having buses lazily go through the loop make everyone unhappy. Having people stop every block for ten blocks is not fun. I just feel sorry for those who work in the west loop area, they have no choice but deal with bad routes. It is not hard to figure out how to get a better system, you should have numbers on time between stops. You should know how many people get on and off at stops. But we know what the easy thing is to do nothing and pass that bad commuting to the customer.

PS
Creating a train platform type of stop for buses on the both sides of lake shore drive will make an excellent place to transfer to other buses to go other zones. Logic places would be a little south of north avenue. This would allow the CTA consolidate routes (136,135,134 wacker entrance and 144,145,146,147 Michigan ave) and expand routes to be express to other zoned in the loop lower wacker, Wells and Franklin and Monroe and Jackson.

Всем привет!
Хорошая погодка нынче
:)