CTA Tattler

Just glad I don't work on the north side anymore. I feel the pain of all the Brown and Blue line riders

I think the slow zone between Grand and Lake is fixed. The motorman really cranked it up this morning. Definitely faster than 6 mph.

Woah. According to the Sun-Times, up to 82 bus routes could be shelved by January, with most of the 43 cut later north side express bus casualties.

30-day passes would go up from $74 to $95, rail at $3.25/ride, if all is said and done.

Talk about a chilly potential.

woops. make that up from $75 to $94. full pdf of proposed fares here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/acrobat/2007-10/33179767.pdf

With this afternoon's news release of the January 2008 cuts of 44 additional bus routes, for a total of 83 bus lines cut, I'm beyond sick and tired of the anxiety and stress of the months of nonsense that has gone on. Furthermore, the IL house has officially ended its veto session today and per Madigan they will not go back into session again this year unless Tom Cross and the Governor say they will support Julie Hamos's bill. There is ZERO chance of that ever happening. I'm now completely sure the Nov. 4th cuts will happen and probably a 50-50 chance of the Jan. 8th cuts happening. It appears that nearly ALL express bus lines, including the Lake Shore Drive buses will be completely gone. Good luck trying to cram all those people into the already crowded L trains. If all these cuts go through, I'm going to have to reevaluate living in Chicago. I chose to live in Chicago because I didn't want to have to own a car and drive. The transit situation is quite unbearable right now, I can't imagine it getting slower and more crowded. If this means I will have to move to NYC and live in a smaller apartment there, so be it. Not owning a car and not having to drive is a priority for me and I have a feeling thousands of other people living in Chicago have the same sentiment. I'm done paying taxes and contributing to a city/state/region that has basically told people like me to "piss off and drive a car!!" The best response I can give is leave and take my tax dollars and spending elsewhere. Manhattan will never be a transit desert, might be the only place in this country left that is so transit dependent that it will never cut dozens of routes.

Is $94 for a 30-day pass really that bad? Figure the average month has 22 workdays so there are 44 work-related transit trips at $2.14 per ride. This does not factor in non-work trips that could bring the average well below $2 per ride. Also if your employer offers transit deductions from pretax pay you cut another quarter or third off the cost depending on your tax bracket.

I think it would be reasonable to raise the 30-day passes to $85 or $90 even without Doomsday.

Paying more for my 30-day pass doesn't bother me that much. $94 is still reasonable for unlimited rides. What DOES bother me is that the 147 is being cut! So now my place is not 10 minutes from Water Tower its 30-40 via the Red line! The 147 is packed to the gills day and night and carries over 15,000 people on an average day. The 145/146 carries that many as well. Do you honestly think another 30,000 people will fit into already jammed Red and Brown line trains from those 3 routes alone. Now add in the 130's Lasalle expresses and the 140's expresses from Lincoln Park, you are probably taking 40-50,000 riders right there. Lake shore will have not ONE single bus route on it now, it will be filled with cars in complete gridlock for hours each day. Good job! Maybe this will finally show just how transit dependent this city is. Not only transit meltdown but traffic and parking will become intolerable.

Anyways, I know this would be highly unpopular with the folks that love to drive to downtown, but I wish there was a way to tax the heck out of parking at both airports and downtown. I think there could be enough raised to plug the CTA's funding gap. Too bad we don't have a mayor that would stand up and say "ok State screw you! we'll fix it ourselves." Parking tax to support transit sounds like a plan to me.

It's a sad poitical fight, Ed.

And on top of that the masses are ignorant and numb to the global benefits of transit.

So you won't see local government overextending any more than it has to gather more revenues for transit. If they did, state government would go "Aha! Maybe you can do with even less from us". Then federal government would echo.

More than ever, it is up to civilians to put all of government, regardless of level, in its place. It is up to civilians to recognize how essential transit is to their daily lives, regardless of whether they step foot on a bus or train.

But, I'm not holding my breath.

Sadly and increasingly, this society has to see the outline of a mushroom cloud in order to do something worthwhile.

political

The Brown Line repairs at Francisco are creating a major pain for my family. The work woke us at 4:14 a.m. today (Saturday) with the sound of heavy equipment backing down the length of the block (beep-beep), along with the sound of gravel being scooped and dumped and the clang of metal equipment hitting the pavement. CTA is causing me pain before I even leave the house!

We had the some noise a year ago when the station was closed for repairs but nothing as bad as this!

"The Brown Line repairs at Francisco are creating a major pain for my family. The work woke us at 4:14 a.m. today (Saturday) with the sound of heavy equipment backing down the length of the block (beep-beep), along with the sound of gravel being scooped and dumped and the clang of metal equipment hitting the pavement. CTA is causing me pain before I even leave the house!"

Who cares? If you decide to live next to a train station you have to realize things like that will happen.

The work this weekend at Francisco is a one-time thing. It's just this weekend, to repair the grade crossing at Manor/Francisco. While it is unfortunate that the work equipment woke you and your family up at 4am (really, that is sort of annoying), now you'll have a brand-new crossing that won't cause your car (or your neighbors'; I don't know if you own a car or not) to bottom out as it goes through the crossing. It also repairs the tracks to allow trains to travel at normal speeds.

If the CTA's contractors didn't start early and end late each day, the work wouldn't get done in one week (the single-track is for one weekend, but the streets are closed for about a week). It would take longer. And don't forget, your alderman had to sign off on the work, so if the hours bother you it's not just the CTA. CTA cannot do work like that without aldermanic approval.

These types of repairs take time and make noise. It's a fact of life, but at least it's brief this time. CTA should be appaulded for coming in and finally making these repairs.

I would really like to know the rationale on how they decided which routes to cut. I don't understand cutting the X49 (Western), for example, which is documented to carry the most riders of the X-type expresses, yet they keep the X9 (Ashland)?
And they're cutting both the 91 & the 86--can we say goodbye to the retail a couple miles south of me? I refuse to head over to Harlem or Central & take another bus back again just to get to a mall--too far out of the way for a quick shopping trip. That means there is no north-south bus for 2 miles by me. I know a lot of people who are now screwed by that, b/c of the fare hike & transfer confusion. ("what do you mean, there aren't transfers anymore?")
I did email & I did call. I got bupkis for it, except for the self-serving GOP newsletters from Tom Cross that did nothing but blame the Dems for the Legislature's inaction on everything & never offered a coherent plan of action.
Blagoytoy lives somewhere in the Ravenswood area; that's all I know, though I'm sure the info is somewhere. I'm free this Saturday; I think we can still get there via bus.

every time I looked at that list, I found another bus that affects me. Won't be able to get to my dr's office b/c the 88's on the list. Will have a harder time getting to work, since the 11's there too. I think that makes 1 active bus line going by me--and to think I moved into this city because there so many buses...!

Pardon me as I try to pull myself together; I am so MAD!