CTA Tattler

I'm one of those dudes. Anything that helps me get home to my family sooner, I'm for.

Having WiFi on the buses and 'L would be great! I got an iPod Touch which gets its internet connection via Wifi, not cellular signals like the iPhone. I'd love to be able to check my email (and CTATattler of course!) on my 45 minute commute.

I wonder if it's even a consideration at this point.

I've had to bust out the laptop on the bus or train a few times when I was on call. Its kind of a pain in the ass to do any work, especially if you have a short train ride or a crowded bus ride like I do. (On that note- someone please slap the shit outta the assclown who's supposed to be keeping the 14 on time. Mr. Assclown, please die, so someone with two IQ points to rub together can take your job.).

I guarantee you'll see more of this, but with the trend towards smartphones, "ultra-mobile" PCs and other stuff like the iPod touch, they'll probably be smaller and cuter.

I've seen a few "dudettes" bust out the laptop. But either way, I always wonder if they're actually doing work or just goofing off/showing off. I mean, none of them EVER look like the Fortune 500 types so what the hell could they be doing that is so urgent it needs to be done on a crowded, bumpy train? I keep waiting for the train to hit one of those 60-to-0 emergency stops that sends passengers flying and sends one of those expensive laptops crashing to the el train floor. LOL. Mostly I see folks reading email on their Blackberries, etc. But the full laptop thing mystifies me? Are you THAT busy/important?

If it keeps them from talking loudly on their cell phones, I can deal with it. But I'm going to look!

Being a full time student and full time employee, yea sometimes we are that important. I have to squeeze every minute of every day for everything it's worth. Sometimes that means working on the train!

I'm on-call 24/7/365 and I'm forced to carry a satellite phone when I'm on vacation. The ONLY time I can avoid being near a computer is when I'm on the train going to and from work. 1 hour of bliss a day. 5 days a week. I get a lot of reading done.

I agree with painhertz--I feel like we're expected to be reachable all the time. I rather enjoy my 30-60 minute commute (isn't it amazing what a difference time of day can make?). I read a book, maybe do a crossword puzzle, people watch (and yes, sometimes I listen to my iPod, but not loudly--it helps keep me from feeling claustrophobic on a crowded train). I like that it's time that I am not expected to be doing anything else!

Wow - not often we hear about the CTA expanding rail service!

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=5955513

This reminds me of something I wish I heard discussed more often: the lack of 24-hour rail service on most of our rail lines. From personal experience, I can say it's not too fun to get "stuck" in some far flung (and possibly not-quite-nice) part of town at 2am because the nearby train station just closed for a few hours.

Of course it would require additional resources, but it seems like there are a few economies that could help keep down the costs of having "night owl" service between 1am-5am (or whatever). For example as happens earlier in the evening, the brown line could just operate from Kimball to Belmont.

As well, a little efficiency could be gained by combining the pink and orange lines into one route late at night. Or they could each do an abbreviated route (like the late night brown line), with the orange operating between Midway and Roosevelt and the pink operating between 54/Cermak and Clinton.

And if the red line is only running with four cars at these hours anyway, why not have it continue on to Linden? (If this was done earlier in the evening, replacing existing purple line service during the few hours leading up to 2am, it would dramatically enhance service to and from Evanston, eliminating the delay and hassle of transfering at Howard.)

Some additional savings could even come from operating some existing rail lines slightly less frequently at night. I ride the brown line a lot at night, and I like frequent service as much as the next guy, but the brown line doesn't need to run every 7 minutes at 11pm at night!

In short, it seems like there's a good deal more value that could be squeezed out of our existing rail resources, in some cases with relatively modest additional expenses.

Now that the CTA isn't drowning in deficits, perhaps it could think about how to better leverage its existing resources?

Weekend service on the yellow line is a good start.

Weekend service on the yellow line? How many people would use that?

At least the trains run most of the night - unlike cities like Boston, which has no trains at all after a certain hour until morning - it's impossible to go to a bar, have it close at midnight, and catch a train out of there.

Hey, at least we have night service; I spent most of last week in DC, where the spiffy trains stop at midnight and the wretched buses (which rarely parallel the trains) very soon thereafter. Heck, I even waited 20 minutes late last Saturday for a #1 train on the Upper West Side -- it ain't perfect anywhere.

CTA had an extensive "night owl" network before the 1997 cuts, with 24-hour service on Purple, Green, and what's now the Pink lines in addition to Red and Blue, plus many more night bus routes. However, it was a relic of the three-shift workday; night service was the first to get canned when the feds pulled their operating assistance, 1996-98.

Back to the topic at hand, wifi is now arriving on suburban commuter buses, ferries, and trains in cities like Colorado Springs, San Jose, and Seattle; most people on those services get seats and travel for long distances. I've used my computer a few times during long CTA rides, to do things like read those long newspaper articles I didn't get to earlier -- but now, with the BlackBerry, there's much less need for even that. In Japan, talking on the phone is deeply frowned upon on the train, but nearly everyone is immersed in either text or data on their phones.

I've seen a few guys use their laptops. You know they are doing "offline" work when they're using their PC after Fullerton on the red line!