CTA Tattler

I got off at Sedgwick yesterday on the way home because I wanted to see the results first hand, and let me say I was very impressed. While they may have had to scale back the scope of the work, it is a very nice station, and should hopefully last for many, many years. It is so weird being in a CTA station that is so brightly lit, as you expect it to be dark and dingy.

Since Ron reads this, we should have a post that is just, "Ron, the readers want to ask some questions!"

And let us post away.

I am very impressed that Ron is reading this board and responded on something that affects thousands of people each day. I am one of the two people that posted yesterday about the Sheridan-Wilson slow zones. It really helps me tolerate the slowness each day when I have an idea of when the speed will return to normal. I'm also thrilled to see that Bryn Mawr is getting a new roof. I hope Berwyn is coming soon as well too. The roof over the stairways leak water for days after it rains and it can get really slippery.

He probably just reads the stories, not the comments.

I've pretty well come to the conclusion that the mentality of the CTA is so much on Doomsday and funding, that they refuse to look at places that they can save money "cause it just doesn't matter".

Well, Ron, it does matter if you are reading this...and if you can employ 5 people to sit a desks and tables in the CTA headquarters 1st and second floor, then you can afford to cut. You always tell us about how high a percentage that labor and pensions and stuff are, so put your money where your mouth is...

I had actually hoped that doomsday would happen...maybe some of those people laid off wouldn't come back. I'd bet that you could lose about 30-40% of your administrative staff without affecting any of the train or bus service...and like I've said before, when the CTA is lean and efficient, I'd be more than happy to support funding efforts at the state and city level.

You could probably cut some people at the customer service dept too...since they don't really do anything but take messages, you could probably get a big voicemail box to do that...and since its unlikely that you actually get a call back if you have a complaint, you could start downsizing managers too since they don't have to be accountable to the people who ride.

I often wonder how much a year you spend for all the printing of schedules that you don't adhere to, the doomsday full color posters and brochures that you are always handing out. It has got to be enormous.

So, Ron, read this and see if you can make some real changes...and stop whining about Springfield.

KevinB

Hey KevinB, you're right...the state should really come in and audit the CTA before they ask for money.
/sarcasm

What bothers me most about that slow zone is where it ends if you're going northbound. Since I get off at Bryn Mawr, I generally ride in the next-to-last Red Line car, so I can exit right at the stairs. The northbound slow zone ends when six cars of the eight-car train have passed the bend right over Montrose Ave. That means the seventh and eighth cars have a whip effect when the operator suddenly speeds up on a turn. And I've seen elderly people go flying, seen people drop heavy packages, all the effects you'd expect at that point. It's really nasty; it can be uncomfortable even if you're just seated reading.

Frankly, as long as that slow zone exists, I'd love to see the northbound slow zone *extended* by the length of two Red Line cars, plus a little margin to compensate for overeager operators. If Mr. Huberman really does read the comments and does commute on the Red Line, maybe he can slip into that next-to-last car and get a feeling for that whip effect.

They've done an audit which was a mixed bag.

What they haven't really done is an exhaustive operational audit to determine what size of workforce they need and where they can start cutting.

It would be nice to see one of those done and the recommendations enacted..but as long as we have CTA board members getting people jobs that shouldn't have them (like the one who was stealing all the credit card numbers) there isn't going to be a chance of a change.

And to top it off we have Ron trying to downplay the CTA board member who went to the jail to try to talk to the person he got hired and who was stealing CTA customers credit cards and the police calling Ron and telling him to get the guy out or they were going to call a press conference. http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com for more sordid details about that incident.

Also, Rons mantra has been "accountability" and can't say that I've seen alot of that either.

In my book, any manager who does not address complaints/problems directly should be terminated. There is no real accountability from the customer service agents, to the buss drivers, to the rail operators, to the managers, to the top, including Ron and the CTA board members. Carole blamed the former pres for all the problems and in my book, she was as much to blame as he was for letting him do such a poor job.

No manager is going to get fired for not addressing complaints and neither are the rank and file either. If you have no penalty for incompetence, then you just plainly don't have to worry about it.

I'd start with a clean slate of CTA board members and I'd make sure that at least a couple were just plain folks who ride the CTA everyday.

KevinB

Wow so much good CTA news in two days. I am thrilled that the El stop near my Trader Joe's is going to open again soon! Now I won't have to take weird bus combos to go grocery shopping. For some reason I thought that station was going to be closed for another year. Also, I had no idea that the southbound Sheridan-Wilson slow zone work was going to be fixed so soon. Excellent!

Why all the hate for Ron? Personally I think he's doing a bang up job. I take a few different rail lines all over the city each week for a strange job I have and I have noticed a great deal of improvement in how the staff at stations treats customers. I've also noticed a huge cut down of Securitas employees which I couldn't agree with more. From what I see there major improvement in customer service particularly on the purple, red north and orange line.

Also, the blue and red slow zone work is unreal. Even now some parts of the subways and grade level feel like the train is gliding along on smooth ice. Its very impressive.

He's ok in my book.

It's always easy for the new guy to get a lot of good reviews, even if (or perhaps especially if) there were a lot of people who doubted his credentials.

The secret? Find out what things the guy before you did poorly, and focus on those things.

The things your predicessor did well can usually operate on cruise control for some time, so you don't have to worry about them too much. Besides, if you focus on those things, you open yourself up to direct comparisons.

But if you focus on the stuff the last guy didn't do well, all the people who were frustrated with him will think you're the greatest. And they won't even notice that you're not doing those other things well, because you're addressing their immediate concerns.

This isn't just true for the CTA. This is true everywhere. And professional politicians understand this better than anyone.

Ron has done a good job of being "the new guy". That's not the same as doing a good job.

If you actually are reading this Ron, then do something that your idiot predecessor never thought to do.
Use eminent domain & buy up all the property needed to turn the S curve at Sheridan into two 45 degree turns & put the new, single platform station, just like Addison & Sheffield, on the angle section & rename it Irving Park & Sheridan. Since you're going to have to replace it someday, at least do it correctly, which hasn't been done at Howard, Sedgwick, Fullerton or Belmont!

Well yea Ron is new. Certainly nobody can prove they are an effective leader in a matter of months. Lets see how things are progressing a year from now, two years from now, etc. I am confident that even some time down the road Ron will be a much more responsive head of the CTA than Frank Kruesi or David Mosena was. What is very sad is clearly the CTA doesn't have nearly enough money to run a modern world-class transit system, but how about the time and energy the board, management, including Ron, are spending to fight for funding? Clearly they would all have a lot more time to keep day to day things running smoothly if it weren't for the fools in Springfield that can't seem to do anything to fix a dire situation.

I've rode the EL for several years and my station and the Red line trains have never been cleaner than they are right now. If Ron can pull off fixing nearly all the slow zones AND make problems with interval of trains and random delays a rare event, I'll be one happy CTA rider.

Unindicted, that's a huge waste of money. With a stop being right there either way you slice it, trains need to slow and stop anyway, so there's no need to spend literally millions aquiring property to straighten the track. Why?

This is a great idea in a section of track without stations, say at North Ave and Halsted on the Brown Line, or doing the long-discussed Brown Line flyover at Clark Jct. Those are much more worthwhile uses of $$.

Josh, you don't understand the basic economics of running a railroad & neither have the fools running the CTA.
1. By straightening out the tracks, there is less wear on the rails & wheels, both last longer. That's right! Rail used on tight turns had to be replaced far more frequently than that on straight or gently curved track. The same goes for the wheels which have to be removed & recut on a huge lathe periodically because the flange gets worn out on the same tight turns.
2. The CTA is required by federal law to make the entire system ADA compliant. That means elevators will eventually be built into the Sheridan station. But to do so into the current station will cause huge delays for all trains in both directions. Or don't you see the three track mess at Belmont & Fullerton?
By building a new single platform station over Irving Park on a new alignment, the only delay would be a weekend shutdown to connect the new section into the current one.
And why a single platform?
Because the Evanston Express doesn't stop there & with a single platform you have just one elevator, one escalator, fewer lights & thus, lower operating costs over the lifetime of the station, which will probably be a hundred years.
The two platform station rebuild at Sedgwick is the depths of stupidity since the right of way was already there. All that had to be done was to rebuild the unused since 1963 tracks 1 & 4 & then build the new ADA compliant & 8 car long platform in the middle, where tracks 2 & 3 were. Plus they wouldn't have had to buy & demolish any adjacent structures.
3. Additional expenses were incurred when the CTA allowed DePaul to build directly next to the existing right of way on the old Lincoln Park Library Branch property. If the CTA had demanded 10 feet of this, then three tracks wouldn't have to jog east at Fullerton.
The same at Howard where the new buildings were built right up to the existing embankment. And in this case the CTA owned all of the land.

There isn't any future planning done, first on the 7th floor of the Mart & now at 567 Lake St.

It's obvious that not enough land was acquired north of Belmont for the Ravenswood flyover. At the very least, that triangular building just north of Clark Junction would have to go for it. It all should have been bought at the same time, even if all they did was lease it back to the current owners with a 6 month cancellation clause!

There are numerous other locations that have the same problems.
You mentioned the infamous triple turn at North & Halsted. Well guess what?
Except for the Yondorff Building, all of the land over there was vacant for years, but the CTA let it get built on, thus making straightening that mess out impossible!
They haven't even straightened out the small S curve where the tracks split over the Cortland St. subway portal, even though, again, track 1 is used only as a siding & track 4 is abandoned!

This is an agency run by incompetents & hacks for decades!
And unfortunately, I see no changes coming!

"The CTA is required by federal law to make the entire system ADA compliant. That means elevators will eventually be built into the Sheridan station. But to do so into the current station will cause huge delays for all trains in both directions. Or don't you see the three track mess at Belmont & Fullerton?"

They don't by any means have to build elavators at the remaining stations that are not ADA complient. They could build ramps, which would cost quite a bit less. And even if they do build elevators, I'm not sure why you think that would require major delays like at the Belmont and Fullerton stations. Those delays are the result of them having to essentually redo the whole station while it is still operating and having to move the tracks to accomodate new platforms (not to mention there are three lines that stop at those stations instead of two). They have renovated many stations and installed elevators without causing major delays, such as the Chicago red line stop and, just now, the Sedgewick brown line stop. Most likely they would do something similar to this at Sheriden or they could just a very minor renovation by replacing some stairs with a ramp.

A ramp!
Surely you are joking?
There are ramps on the Congress Line, each a couple of hundred feet long.
This isn't Kedzie or Francisco on the Ravenswood!
There's no way to squeeze any kind of ramp between the L pillars!
This is Sheridan, 20 feet above the street in a crowded city with platforms that are too narrow now. An elevator is the only way to make this station ADA compliant.
But to do so, there isn't enough room in the current configuration in the middle of the S turn. Any elevators would have to go at either the east or west ends of the existing platforms. Then the current stairs would have to be replaced with stairs at the same end.
Guess what?
Then there's not enough length for an eight car train!
The current platforms are just barely long enough for eight cars!
So they do have to change the entire track alignment to make this station ADA compliant!
So buy the land NOW, before any more construction takes place around there to raise the cost!
Just how stupid are they?

Dudes, the blue line between division and grand now rocks so hard! in fact, it capsizes my boat! the ass-shattering speed of the once slow zone results in less time sitting in those oft-soiled seats or holding onto oily handles and smelling the 5:30 B.O. and coffee stench of Frank in accounts payable. It's like time traveling in a bacteria trap. Sweet!

Hey! You got a problem with me?

No offense Frank, but the stench is pretty bad, especially from my wheelchair, it is a whole other perspective. By the way, when are we getting our refund checks back for our CTA vouchers. If this doomsday thing happens, the prices are going to skyrocket, and it may drain all the reserves that we have at the company

Oh! My! God! Unindicted Co-conspirator uses a lot of exclamation points!

I am therefore persuaded by what he has said!

Seriously, yeah there are some savings from the things that you suggest, but they're likely modest compared to the cost of implementing them. E.g.: yeah, trains get more wear-and-tear from going over curved tracks, but probably not that much more when they're traveling slowly, as most trains are doing as they pull into and out of the Sheridan stop.

The amortized cost of totally reconstructing the station is likely to vastly outstrip minor cost savings from things like having one elevator rather than two.

Oh Gee, you don't like a few exclamation points!
They were used to make a point that so many of you ignore or don't understand.
And you are one of them.
There isn't enough length for a rebuilt Sheridan station with the current track alignment.
So buy the land now!

I'm curious about the original post "regular cta workers, not paid by FTA or RTA." Sorry, but who ARE they paid by. Doesn't all funding flow through FTA and RTA, and maybe these particular workers can't be linked to specific funding but as long as they're shifting capital funding to operations, some of the funding is likely FTA. And really, what is the point of that statement?

NOTE to NGP:

I think Ron was merely making the point that the "Regular workers" were in addition to workers being funded through that $26 million in FTA/RTA funds.

Also, remember that in July Huberman reassigned CTA workers from other jobs to focus on slow zones.

And yes, I suppose you could make the argument that with the shifting of capital funds some of the funding is likely from FTA. But I think he was making the greater point that these guys are not paid by the $26 million.

A slow zone can be eliminated in two ways: A capital project, or ordinary maintenance.

To compare it to something easier to picture, imagine a street improvement project. If you mill-down the surface, and pave the street with a new layer of asphalt, that's ordinary maintenance. On the other extreme, if you tear-out the whole street, put in new drainage, a new base, new curbs, and new pavement, that's obviously a capital project.

But what if the scope is someplace in the middle? There's a nice grey area in the middle in which you could call a project either extensive maintenance, or a minor capital project. And frankly, what you call it depends mostly on where you think you can get the money from.

So essentially what Ron is saying is that they decided to use maintenance workers doing extensive maintenance instead of waiting for capital funding.

(Of course the smarter situation would have been to do less extensive maintenance as needed so you would never get to the point that you're doing that intensive of a maintenance project, or in need of additional capital funding.)

As for buying property now for a new station at Sheridan that may be many, many years out, why would you want to take productive property off the tax rolls?

As for updating to ADA standards, ADA doesn't require the station *ever* be brought into compliance. When the time comes to rebuild the station, given the restrictions of the current site, ADA would not require compliance. However, if capital funds are secured from outside sources (as they *always* are), that source may require an ADA compliant design.

But at this point in time, it would be costly to take property currently subject to property tax off the tax rolls in anticipation of a station rebuild that may or may not happen in our lifetime. I can't imagine where the funds to make such a move would come from, either.

I think it's pretty clear that Carol and the CTA board lost whatever confidence they might have had in Ron's predecessor, and they made it pretty public beginning last summer. Kruesi tried to throw some of his staff under the bus in the fall, but it wasn't enough, and once the election passed mayor D finally agreed to make a replacement.

Just because the land would be bought now doesn't mean it won't be bringing in money.
It would be rented to either the current owners or to anyone else who was willing to sign a lease that contains a six month cancellation clause.
As for RE taxes lost, we lose more to those idiotic TIF's than this would ever bring in!

If it's all so simple and obvious, UCC, then why don't you fucking do it?

Idiot.

The CTA's problems are so much larger than one station that I can't imagine why anyone would be fixated on one station.

Usually the Santa train operates with 5 cars on the Brown line because Santa takes up a car length in the middle. (The 6th car is blocked by two "elves" who instruct you to move to a different car). Since some stations have been lengthened already, does this mean the Santa train can use all 6 cars open going NB from Addison to Kimball this year? A far less likely option is to use all 6 cars on the entire run and skip the Paulina, Wellington, and Armitage stops, although it's better to squeeze everyone onto 5 cars than to miss any stops.

Also all six cars could could be opened SB from Sedgwick to Midway if the run is truly a combined Brown/Orange run. You can check the Santa train schedule here:

http://tinyurl.com/2r5rm6

- John T

There's no way that you could easily get the area to go along with eminent domain for that though AND having two platforms allows flexibility in being able to at some point in the future stop an express train here - even though it was never done in the past - and for baseball games. They could do a flyover for those one story commercial buildings and then another over the cemetaries.

Better yet, drop the tracks into a tunnel after Addison, put the station right at Broadway and Irving, add another at Montrose, another underground in new tunnel at Wilson and up somewhere at (around, either before or after - about where the concrete viaduct begins) Lawrence. No silly curves, less weather problems, another station AND ADA access, how does that sound?

Anyway, the CTA had no money (and there was no desire in the city to improve the el anyways) back when the land along the el in Lincoln Park was last cheap (early/mid 80s).

I can't believe they're wasting money on a Santa train this year.

No kidding! And it's not even Thanksgiving yet! I was waiting for my already 20 minute late northbound Red line train at Lawrence yesterday and lo and behold here comes the freaking Santa train and it doesn't stop. I don't get it...are the riders on the Santa train Santa's captives on the way to the North Pole or something?

Maybe it was an equipment movement, test, or was leased out to a group as the Santa train schedule shows the first day this year to be Saturday Novemeber 17 running on Red and Purple lines.

I'm a big Santa train supporter, with kids, it gives me a reason to pay for a train ride I wouldn't normally take and spend some cash downtown while at it. And to see people touched by the sight, inside the train, walking outside while seeing this on the elevated tracks, and especially (swerving)cars on the expressways as Santa waves at them.

- John T