CTA Tattler

Not that I expect them to change their ways for little old me, but both my girlfriend and I would benefit from the purple line stopping at Sheridan. As it is, she would ride from Sheridan back to Belmont to take a northbound Purple Line up to her job in Evanston. Because of the extra time and hassle, she drives to work most of the time. Like I said, she and I are just two people, but I know we're not the only ones. I understand it's very difficult for CTA to determine if this is a worthwhile venture, but it doesn't say how they arrived at their determination of how travel patterns would be affected- do they survey or use census data?

Great. I'm glad Carole Brown finally answered the Sheridan question. Hopefully this will but the issue to rest. If the Purple line is running every 15 mins, adding the stop at Sheridan will do little to relieve the overcrowded Red Line. Also, there were riders who were trying to get the Purple to stop at Sheridan years ago--before there was any thought of the Brown Line construction.

But then again, she and I are so-called reverse commuters, and not to sound snarky, but the CTA has made it clear that they're not concerned about us. See their response in the RedEye a while back about short turning outbound Blue Line trains at Jefferson Park... which alienates the Cumberland, Rosemont, and O'Hare stations... which is where the vast majority of the outbound commuters are riding to. It also leads to missed connections to the several Pace routes at Cumberland and Rosemont. I'm a daily Blue Line rider and have had it happen more times than I can count.
Sorry for going off topic a bit, but it sticks in my craw that reverse commuters aren't taken into consideration more often.

Patrick:

With all due respect, your girlfriend's excuse for not using transit is a pretty weak one. If you take train frequencies into account, even if the purple line did stop at Sheridan, it would shave about 5-6 minutes off of her commute compared to taking the red line to Howard and then continuing on the purple line.

I'd be the first to say there are ways that transit can and should be improved, but it's so aggravating to hear people in transit-dense areas citing the flimsiest reasons for driving rather than using public transit.

If you don't care about the environment and simply feel that five minutes of your time is worth a little pollution, then say so. The idea that there aren't good enough transit options beween Lakeview and Evanston is just silly, though.

Patrick,
CTA maintains a passenger flow, boarding, and alighting model of the rail system based on weighted timestamped origin-destination pairs inferred from farecard data.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/mice/2007/00000022/00000005/art00007;jsessionid=1cvas7r3tr5ge.alexandra?format=print

It's not that the CTA isn't concerned about reverse comuters. It's that they're more concerned about getting extra trains heading back inbound.

Why? Because when those trains head back inbound, they become full trains by the time they get downtown. But if they had kept them heading outbound, the load would have gotten lighter and lighter until they reached O'Hare. And by the time they turn around there, the load heading downtown has overwhelmed the Blue Line.

To serve that ever diminishing group heading to the outbound stations, but yet also serve the inbound riders would require an extra three trains. More cars. More crews. Higher operating expenses. Additional security issues at O'Hare... All that because a handful of people thin that the CTA isn't concerned with them? I don't think so!

Just because they don't give you what you want doesn't mean they don't have any concern for you. It just means that with limited resources, when the choice to serve people is a 20-to-1 choice, the final decision is easy, hurt feelings of the minority notwithstanding. They'll risk your whining about how they're not concerned with you in order to serve the majority.

Patrick, you say you are just two people, but you're sure there's more. Well, there probably are more, but you're out-numbered by the people who would be harmed by offering you gold-level service. Hundreds of people barely getting basic service take priority over your minor comforts.

And if your reaction is to abandon public transportation because of such a minor issue, then that just underlines how selfish you're being. Suck it up, and open your eyes. You've got to be able to see how selfish and whiney your complaint really is when put into the context of the whole city out there.

I'm a reverse commuter, and I count my lucky stars for this because no matter what, my commute is infinitely easier than anybody who has to go downtown.

Gee whiz folks, assume much?

You don't know me or my girlfriend, so I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make assumptions about our use of and support for transit based on what little you read above. If you knew me, you'd have little doubt about my commitment toward transit use.

That said, if I had it to do over again though, I would have mentioned that there are other factors involved in why she drives.

My underlying point to the above was that these measures foster service for the traditional markets based on existing data. But meanwhile, people in different situations- such as outbound Blue Line commuters- are potentially going to give up on transit because of the loss of reliability or it doesn't meet their needs for some other reason. Trust me, there's no shortage of people driving and riding from the city out to the Northwest suburbs.

"To serve that ever diminishing group heading to the outbound stations."

I'm not neccessarally disagreeing with your whole post, Rusty. But I'm not sure where you are getting that fewer people are reverse commuting on the blue line. It is well known that reverse communting in general is increasing dramatically. From what I understand, the trends toward reverse commute driving that have ocurred over the past several decades are starting to be felt majorily on the area's public transportation system. I don't know about the blue line but I don't think it would be different (although the slow zones over the past two years certainly would not have helped). That doesn't mean that you shouldn't turn trains around at Jefferson Park. However, the CTA, for its own sake, needs to be careful about alienating these customers far more than the traditional commuters. If they are displeased with the service they have a much better substitute (driving usually to free parking spaces) than those who work downtown, who would need to cross a much bigger treshold before they would stop using the CTA.

you know, I had a job in Evanston (near Davis) for a while. I had absolutely no problem with getting on the Brown line at Irving Park & riding back to Belmont. It was a lot faster than getting on the Red Line at Sheridan, riding north, & transferring to the Purple Line at Howard; even with the back & forthing. Actually Sheridan might have been better, since there are fewer stops between Sheridan & Belmont than Irving Pk & Belmont. (the extra time on the bus probably evens out the extra stops) And it was more comfortable because it was a reverse commute with fewer people. Admittedly before all the slow zones, though.
So what's wrong with doing that now?

MK, thank you for doing a better job of saying what I was trying to say.

Surprised this hasn't happened in Chicago yet.

http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=7904906

Diminishing as in there are fewer passengers on the train leaving Harlem than there were leaving Jeff Park, and fewer on the train leaving Cumberland than there were leaving Harlem, and fewer leaving River Rd than there were leaving Cumberland.

So as I said, there are a diminishing number of riders on the train, contrasted with the inbound train which has an increasing number of riders as it passes each station.

Was that really that hard to understand what I was saying the first time? Especially when you don't disagree with turning the trains around at Jeff Park? What other reason would there be for short-turning the trains than a diminishing number of passengers in one direction, and an increasing number going back?

If the number of riders isn't diminishing, then it shouldn't be short-turned. But even without traffic counts in hand, I'd find it hard to believe that there are more riders leaving Harlem than there were at Jeff Park, and more leaving Cumberland than there were leaving Harlem, and more leaving River Rd than there were leaving Cumberland, and more arriving at O'Hare than there were on the train leaving Jeff Park. Once that starts to happen, then no, you wouldn't short-turn the train at Jeff Park.

"Was that really that hard to understand what I was saying the first time?"

I think your use of the word "ever" led me (and I would bet at least 90% of people reading your post) to believe you were talking about the amount of people reverse commuting over time rather than on a single train from station to station. But, in any case, I'm glad you turned out to be stating something that made sense after all.

Patrick, what assumptions are you complaining about? Your post said:

"she would ride from Sheridan back to Belmont to take a northbound Purple Line up to her job in Evanston. Because of the extra time and hassle, she drives to work most of the time."

If you didn't really mean what you said, fine, but you can't expect other people to magically know that.

Is Carole Brown a good person to ask about non-funding questions (such as why a vandalized bench in the Monroe St. subway was removed last summer but never replaced)? If not, where does one usually get the best results?

I had gotten into a weeklong email discussion with one of the CTA reps back when that Jeff Park to UIC express service started (at the onset of 3 tracking).

I tried in vain to get them to send the trains to Rosemont, but in the end, I had become convinced that they were right, and in fact were not fucking morons for turning the trains at Jeff Park.

It also helped that as the weeks wore on, the CTA became much more efficient in turning those trains around. When if first started, you could be stuck for 10 minutes as you waited for the train ahead to switch tracks.

I got caught behind one this morning, and barely noticed it. The normal train arrived about 2 minutes after the Jeff Park train had, and we sat for maybe 30 seconds waiting for the train ahead.

It's really not that much of an inconvenience. Although I wonder whether the blue line has seen that much of a rider increase since the 3 tracking went into affect anyways...

So? It takes like 30 seconds to stop at Sheridan for those trains. Not to mention those trains have to slow down on that curve anyways.