In a noon presentation Tuesday called "Transforming the CTA," (PDF, 51MB), CTA President Ron Huberman laid out his ideas and details in his short- and long-term plan.
Because of the loyal readership on my blog, Huberman called me this weekend with an invitation to attend as his guest to the sold-out event. Unfortunately, I had a prior appointment, so Dan O'Neil, creator of CTA Alerts, attended as a CTA Tattler reporter and representative. We'll see more reporting in future weeks from him and myself on topics covered at the event. Here are some notes from Dan on the speech that accompanied it.
This post is a little longer than most, so here's a handy topic index:
Staff intros - Funding - Financing - Track maintenance - Buying buses - Concessions and ads - Efficiencies - Bus bunching - Gum Buster
Staff intros. Huberman began by introducing his top staff, which amounted to a sort of coming-out party for the people he's assembled to execute on the transformation plan. It's a mix of old-timers (Chief Operating Officer Bill Mooney has been there for decades) and new faces (Chief Information Officer Jim Fowler's first day on the job was Monday). Fowler is the former Vice President of the Technology and Information Services Division at the New York Transit Authority.
Funding. He started off with a look at funding, with a particular focus on the labor agreement that the CTA struck with the Amalgamated Transit Union last Fall. "I can't say enough about the CTA's unions," said Huberman. "They care about the people riding and working for the CTA, and they also care about the CTA as an institution." He cited their willingness to push for pension and health care reform, including the move to make full pension available at 64 instead of 55, and recounted how they reached a deal at 1:30 AM after hard bargaining. He introduced Darrell Jefferson and Calvin Tillery Jr. as two union officials who were crucial to the talks.
Financing. He also dove deeply into the vagaries of financing, including details on how the CTA handles the aging of their assets. After clearing a frog in his throat, someone gave him a glass of water. Upon sipping, he said, "See, I get all verklempft when I talk about capital depreciation."
Track maintenance. He also spoke of attempting to approach maintenance in a more reasonable, ongoing fashion, noting that private railroads replace every fourth railroad tie every other year, allowing for less disruption in service. This eliminates the need to dig up entire lines of track (see O'Hare Blue Line Slow Zone for example).
Buying buses. He is working with large bus companies to figure out ways to save money. By better understanding the business risk of the manufacturers, the CTA and the rest of the transportation industry may be able to find ways to reduce costs. The companies say that the cyclical, capital-budget-style approach to spending, with gigantic orders followed by periods of nothingness, increases their ramp up/slow down costs when it comes to hiring, tooling, and supply purchases. They estimate that smoothing out the order process may result in 20% lower prices. He didn't talk about the enormous changes in the legislative process that would be necessary to get over this bust-and-boom system.
Concessions and ads. He spoke broadly of plans to increase concession and advertising revenue, with specific ideas for advertising on new digital platform signage, digital rather than static bus advertising, and more offerings of coffee, bagels, etc., on platforms and in stations. This one seems like a no-brainer that, if executed, could be a huge cash cow.
Just walking by the empty real estate at the Jackson stop on the Blue Line, it's easy to see that the CTA is not fully leveraging some of the best retail locations, but he didn't talk about any tactics on executing on the complex real estate and leasing deals that would be necessary to make it work.
Efficiencies. He did, however, detail some classic efficiency improvements that reduce the amount of time that buses spend in the barn getting serviced. He showed tactics like having clerks pull tools and parts for the mechanics and adding tool carts on rollers to reduce the amount of steps that a worker takes to inspect and repair a bus.
Bus bunching. He spoke at length about plans for customer service. Again, it is chock-full of details, with performance metrics on cleanliness, on-time performance, and -- the bane of Huberman's existence-- bus bunching. Check the presentation for details on how they're trying to solve this and the numerous factors involved. He shows that the phenomena is going down, and claims that bus bunching will be demonstrably reduced by summer.
He uttered the understatement of the day with, "slow zones are terribly uninspiring to people on the El," and noted that the system was meant to speed along at 70 MPH. Currently 16.8 % of the system is in a slow zone. The goal is to reduce that to 6.9% by December of this year.
Gum Buster. The presentation, in its 51MB of goodness, contains a world of charts, data, and mockups of the future of the CTA. I'll leave you with a shining object of transit geekdom -- the Gum Buster. He spoke of shifting solvent formulas and how the machines increase the efficiency of the bus cleaners without increasing staff. "The gum buster has taken us light years at the CTA".
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