CTA Tattler

CTA should really institute the "free if you wait more than 30 minutes" policy. Of course, then they'd be totally broke.

I like the disclaimer at the bottom. I wonder how easy it is to prove they were late AND to get a refund. The notion of a "Bill of Rights" is nice ... but lip service is lip service. Don't fall in love on your first date.

"1The MBTA Customer Service Guarantee is based on the following terms and conditions. If any portion of your trip is delayed over 30 minutes, you are eligible for a complimentary fare. To redeem your complimentary fare, you must submit a claim within 10 days of the delay occurrence by filling an online claim for at www.mbta.com or by mailing an On Time Service Guarantee Claim Card. Claim Cards are available on buses, at subway stations, and at the following schedule areas: North Station, South Station, Route 128, and Back Bay Stations."

I have been telling my friends/family for a while how wonderful the T is compared to the L. Sure it has it's issues too, but never once while in Boston have I been stranded at a station or a bus stop with no information or no idea when the next one will be by.

I don't know painhertz. It seems pretty straightforward. File a claim at any subway station and 4 schedule areas. I'm sure that there is a disposible fund in the MBTA budget to assist with this, but more interesting to me than a free ride if I'm delayed more than 30 minutes is the customer service mindset that the MBTA has. It seems to go beyond "if you have a problem let us know and we'll fix it" to "our job is to make sure that you don't have any problems". They are being proactive AND reactive. And, it seems, doing both well.

That's the kind of Customer Service that the CTA needs. In fact, I'd put hard cash down on the fact that you can't bring up the topic of Customer Service to a CTA line employee with out eye-rolling and exaspirated sighs.

This goes beyond the simple actions being taken by the MBTA, and demonstrates an entirely different mindset.

Info boards? Is that something akin to the scrolling marguees in select stops? I thought those were just used for jibberish and that no useful information is to be entered into the marquee. If there's a train delay, why notify anyone? If you're still standing there, you already know! Free rides? What are they, crazy?!

Seems the CTA has a lot to learn, including manners when dealing with people they so readily take money from.

The key communications issue in a delay, as Ed suggests with irony, is to not allow it to pass without comment. It's a choice between the silent pretense we get now, and saying "you're not crazy, you're not imagining things, this is not normal, there is a problem." Yes, they ought to use those marquees. And they ought to improve the PA systems and make sure everyone knows what to say and how to say it intelligibly. Every delay should be 1) acknowledged and 2) some brief explanation given of the reason why--every time. No insincere generic hypothetical regrets like you hear on the canned announcements when the train is stopped. Sorry only counts when you cop to what really happened. Right there that's one attitude change that could radically alter how we feel about the CTA overall. (I hope Mr. Huberman is still looking at this blog often enough to pick up on our little suggestions.)

I lived in Boston as a student and teacher from 1997 to 2003. For the majority of that time I was reliant on various elements of the MBTA, and I have to say that this Bill of Rights and the current (apparently) successful operation of the system is due to the shambles the system used to be in. During the late 90s I could routinely keep pace with Green Line trains along Commonwealth Avenue; if I had under two miles to go I would almost always beat the train to my destination (that's if I saw one -- green lines are above-ground trolleys at that point).

As a student teacher I lived approximately four miles from the school in which I taught. After a couple of test runs on MBTA buses I found I could not complete the trip in less than an hour. Realizing that 4mph is basically a slightly brisk walking speed for me, I bit the bullet and got a car. (Of course I came to love the rush of driving in Boston, but that's another story.)

All of this is just to say that things had to get very grim in Boston before they got better. When I first got to Chicago (fall of 2003), I was amazed by the CTA's efficiency. (I remarked to a friend that if the MBTA's green line had to travel the CTA's red line distance, it would take two days.) We all have seen how bad the CTA has gotten in the past two years; let's hope it's on its way back up.

If the CTA had to give out free fares for 30 minute or longer delays on just the #4 Cottage Grove; #22 Clark or #36 Broadway, it would be broke in a week!
Last November I waited 30 minutes for a northbound Broadway, gave up & walked home, that took 35 more minutes & still beat 6 Broadway's to Clark & Devon by a minute.
All 6 showed up in a row!

My time in Boston ended when Brent's began (birth through 1997), so I don't know what happened after I left; that sure wasn't my experience in Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, and downtown Boston. (I will add that the Green Line along that stretch of Comm Ave is similar to the street-level stretch of Brown Line service here, and as I remember, there are no crossing gates, and Green Line trains move with traffic.)

But it's absolutely a more organized, better designed, and more comprehensive system than the CTA. The suburban paratransit (PACE here) was merged into the rest of the system decades ago, as were the commuter rail lines, and an effort at coordinating them has been pretty successful.

Huberman (and perhaps even moreso the CTA board) could do worse than going to Park Plaza and hanging out at the T's command center for a week.

(Side note to Snarla: The CTA *is* totally broke! So they can implement away!)

I am not one to defend the CTA and it is frustrating, but something to keep in mind is that Boston is one-fifth Chicago's size -- so its transit service isn't a great comparison to ours.

Well, that's disingenous. The Metro Boston area reaches into New Hampshire and Rhode Island; I can't remember if MBTA services reaches into the former but it certainly does cover Providence. According to the T's site,

"The MBTA now serves 175 communities, providing transit alternatives to a population of almost 4.7 million people over an area of 3,200 square miles"

Comparisons between the CTA and the MBTA might be aided by the T's document at

http://www.mbta.com/uploadedFiles/Documents/Financials/FY06_Budget%20Book_sec5.pdf

which has detailed ridership figures.

But I think the larger point is that the CTA would be aided, in the long run, were it to ask and answer "What makes the T work so well?"

The T is a great system. They have boats that take you across Boston Harbor for easily the most economical tour of the harbor around.

That being said, Boston is much, much smaller than Chicago. Their system is also much, much smaller. Things like the Bill of Rights are great, but I suspect that they are the result of a disaster (as Brent indicated).

unindicted--not to mention the fun & games on the 80 & X80 when the Cubs are playing. I know I stood there for well over an hour one day (afternoon game, I think). Half of the WB buses were immediately pulled from the route & sent to the garage when they hit Central.

David--unfortunately, that's the way for much major change to happen. Disaster must strike (think of lifeboats [Titanic], emergency exits [Iroquois Fire], etc.--far more drastic than I hope ever happens here!)

Metra uses their marquees to announce late trains where there is a sign--not every station has one. It would be nice if the CTA could post more timely info as well.

The fact that MBTA only needs to recover about 35% of their operating costs from system revenue (fares and advertising) doesn't hurt their ability to provide quality service. Compare to CTA's 52%. They also have a much smaller system in terms of route and track mileage, so their formula capital funds, which are based on metropolitan population, go a much longer way towards keeping the system in good condition compared to Chicago, whose system is way too large and high-frequency given its funding formula.

Yes. Read all about how great MBTA is here: http://www.badtransit.com/.

The article "It’s Not Fayah" reminds me of some similar threads here about the CTA. The truth is, MBTA is more like CTA than Justin and others would like to believe.

Ultimately, a public transit system is going to reflect the political environment that it's a part of. The best transit systems have been severed from local bickering. And they don't have to run to the state capitol every year to convince farm-belt legislators how important it is to have mass transit.

But I guess if you're just really frustrated by what's going on locally, it's easy to see greener grass on the other side of the fence when you look at Boston. But the fact is, their septic tank is just full, too, even though you don't notice so when taking a casual glance.

Old school politics + antiquidated funding = ailing public transit. That's the formula in Chicago. And that's the formula in Boston, a few causual good experiences aside in both cities.

It's easy to fall in love with a system when you only ride it for a couple of days..

Yes i know you cannot fall comletely in love with a transit system wehn only riding it for a few days. please continue to read the rest of this story as it is posted. youll see i had a couple of problems with the system too! Thanks for reading.

Just in case you need an update from Boston - these are from today:

How perfect: Park Street fire erupts just in time to ruin evening commute
http://www.universalhub.com/node/10745

'It really looked like Charlestown was under attack and was being forcibly evacuated'
http://www.universalhub.com/node/10736

And here's a set of photos of passengers liberating themselves from a broiling hot Red Line train after they'd been trapped on the Longfellow Bridge between Boston and Cambridge for an hour during yesterday's Red Line shut down:

http://bostonfaces.blogspot.com/2007/10/longfellow-bridge-passengers-abandon.html

And don't forget - the T shuts down service around 12:30-1 AM. What do you think the reaction would be if the CTA switched to that schedule?

Seems like a pretty pro active stance by the transit authorities there.
I like the 30 minute guarantee. If the CTA had this policy, I'd be at least $20 richer!

Dominos used to have a 30-minutes or it's free gaurantee, too. That didn't make it any better than Pizza Hut.

Gaurantees are marketing tools. They are not indicators of a better product, or even better service. And what gaurantee do you have that collecting on the gaurantee isn't going to be the most frustrating part of all?

If the CTA had that policy, you might or might not be $20 richer only if you spend a couple hours of your time documenting, filing, appealing, and tracking down all the individual claims you have to file. Your time may be worth more than $20 if you really have a life.

Yeah, yeah. I get it. The CTA sucks more than any other agency in the world. Damn any objectivity. All the others are so much better, and the CTA will never be as good as any of them.

I don't care if you go to Milwaukee, Portland, or New York. As a visitor who's used to the CTA problems, all you'll see is how this other city doesn't have those same problems that the CTA has. What you won't notice is the problems that they do have.

Portland, OR has a really great system, but when visitors from Portland come to Chicago, and ride the CTA, they're always impressed at how well the CTA does things. They go back to Portland singing "why can't TriMet be more like the CTA?"

I have no doubt that as the story goes on, Justin will reveal more problems. And had he stayed there longer than a few days (weeks?), he could grow to hate it as much as the regulars do. I'm not defending the CTA, or saying that the CTA doesn't have any problems. I'm just saying that it's not as simple as "MBTA good; CTA bad".

(Although if the CTA can't get some stable funding sources, and if "doomsday" ever happens, perhaps we can even start looking at Milwaukee with envy even without putting on rose colored glasses.)

i moved to boston a month ago and have had good experiences on the subway so far. the red line runs very frequently and leaving a red sox game on the green line was a model of efficiency. the bus system has been less satisfying. i ended up waiting 45 minutes for one of the main bus lines (posted to run every 10 minutes), then half an hour coming back.

as others have noted, it's important to remember that the MBTA system is much smaller than that operated by the RTA, and the entire subway closes by 1230am. despite periodic inconveniences i've always thought the CTA did a good job under conditions of severe underfunding, and so far i'm inclined to judge the T similarly.

They don't actually update their service updates though. They have an escalator/elevator hotline that you can call before going to a station to make sure it's accessible. About once per week the thing says it was updated about 5 minutes ago and my station is fine, then I get there and they're servicing it. I tell the MBTA inspector standing there the hotline doesn't say anything about this station being out of service. Inspector knows nothing about elevator hotline, doesn't know who was supposed to have called it in, etc. I'm signed up to get texted if certain stations are out of service. I've never once gotten a text.

Also, it's not too helpful to spend five minutes of my time complaining about delays, only to get a free T fare in the mail in about a month. I have a monthly pass, so it's not worth the hassle to get this free thing that only does me any good if I have out-of-town visitors or somesuch.

The core MBTA customer base buys monthly passes or has them purchased through work. A coupon for a free ticket does *nothing* for them.

A friend of mine and I were complaining about bus service: she once waited for a bus for two hours. At the start of the bus line. In the middle of the day. For a bus which is supposed to run every 20 minutes.

I should note though that the Silver Line is pretty great. Not as good as a real train, but pretty great nonetheless. Cuts the time from Cambridge to the airport in half.