CTA Tattler

Whatever happened to weekend Skokie Swift service? The last I heard is that it is supposed to start this Sunday.

ebob: I didn't mention it in this pos, but yes, Yellow Line weekend service starts Sunday. See this press release: http://www.transitchicago.com/news/ctaandpress.wu?action=displayarticledetail&articleid=102958

I'm glad to hear that "additional southbound Red Line trains will be staged south of Fullerton." Can someone with more expertise on the system explain how the CTA will do that?

FJ -
There is a little railroad siding there. (Think expressway shoulder) A train (trains) can be staged there and then fed into the traffic flow to pick up passengers south of Fullerton, if necessary.

I love all the detail you get on the Brown Line project and three track on that site. Why don't they do that for the other lines and projects?

Everyone ready for LOOOOONG commutes Monday morning? Based on the data I've seen on ridership levels in the morning rush versus evening, it is going to be a LOT more crowded and slow compared to the Northbound 3-tracking. It will be great once the Brown line project is complete and the worst of all the slow zones are elminated on Red and Brown. Maybe by that time we will also have train arrival countdown signs at the stations. One can only hope.

If the first phase of three-tracking was "hell" it certainly wasn't the eighth or ninth circle of hell, but rather more of a first circle of hell -- sorrow but without torment. (Indeed, "limbo" seems an appropriate description for much of the CTA experience...)

One can only imagine that this phase will be no worse. I mean, the CTA has done this once before, more or less. Plus this time the decrease in capacity is mitigated considerably by the brown line trains getting 33% bigger overnight.

it's shocking at how bad the brown line stations were. You really didn't notice it before, but now that most of them have been refurbished, the ones (especially Paulina) that are still to be renovated are shockingly dilapidated. Public Transportation has been neglected for far too long. It is vital for the livelihood of any city. A world class city (if Chicago is in fact that) should not have transportation stations in the condition that the Paulina Brown line currently finds itself in.

It's not like the roof at Damen was tied to the platform by rope.

Oh wait, yes it was.

I like stillwaiting's Dante reference. Maybe Red and Brown Line riders could pass the time rewriting "The Inferno" for CTA. Maybe you could rewrite Dylan: "Stuck Outside of Belmont with the Fullerton Blues Again." Or is it Bemont? I'm so confused.

Chris is right about how shocking the condition of Brown Line stations is. It's especially shocking when you consider the condition of the stations in the Loop to which out-of-towners are likely to be exposed. There are a few decent ones, but let's be honest: the three aboveground stops on Wabash are downright scary.

On Monday, even with the expected delay, I'll be a little grateful that I live at the Kimball stop. It just looks like I won't be transferring at Belmont to the Red Line. No sense in giving up the precious seat that I'll be enjoying.

I do feel bad for everyone else.

There's no way staging southbound trains on the track 1 siding is going to work?
That train would have to first go north onto the mainline & then go south into the subway, thus blocking all SB trains.
If that train were to go north to Fullerton, it would be even worse!

My guess is they going to park that train on the temporarily unused track 2 near Armitage just north of the crossover that the trains going into the tunnel will use.
That makes more sense.

My guess is that they short-turn a few northbound trains just north of North/Clybourn.

About the extra trains south of Fullerton, I think some Northbound Red Line trains will run only to Clybourn. From there the train will simply cross-over at Armitage and head South. This operation appeared to be the way the Brown Line "sneaker trains" were handled - running every stop Northbound to Belmont, annoucing that all passengers must exit the train, then as an empty train it made the cross over south of Southport and headed back to Belmont as a Southbound. Yes, there is virtually no room in terms of track sidings anywhere in that segment of the CTA rail system.

I think the extra red line trains staged south of Fullerton will most likely be transported by a host of angels that will gingerly pluck each train from the northbound tracks and guide it up and over onto the southbound tracks on a bed of clouds.

Er, Kevin, the "post your comments in this thread" link sends us offsite to CTABrownLine.com/threetrack.html... and I'm not seeing any place to post there. ;)

Report from Monday, March 31, Red Line a.m. commute: Not Too Bad! I left maybe 5 minutes earlier than normal (~8:00 at Jarvis) and got to my office just about at 9. So I'd guess, at least for today, the single tracking only caused about a 3-5 minute delay. Whew. Let's hope it stays that way... :-)

well as the whiner of the group, it took 19 minutes just to get from Addison to Fullterton. We waited for 12 of those just before the Addison switch as 5 SB Brown line trains went into the station along with two purple line trains. Then there was the phantom stop signal just out of Fullerton.

It took longer just to get from Addison to Fullerton than it should have taken for my entire trip. We left addison at 8:31 and didn't get into lake until 9:07.

KevinB

I took the 147 after seeing, at the corner of Bryn Mawr & Broadway, how crowded the Bryn Mawr Red Line platform was at about 8:10. Traffic on the Drive was awful and the driver obstinately stayed in the rightmost lane; I got on at Bryn Mawr at 8:15, we hit the Drive at 8:20, and from there we crawled until things opened up at North. I got to work (Tribune Tower stop) a couple of minutes before 9. There were still a few seats left at Foster & Marine, and it looked like the 147 we caught up to was a little more empty than ours.

Moring commute was slower than usual (and I leave later than most for work). Waited 10 min for a Red Line @ Wilson around 8:40. Some cars had no seating which is rare for that time of day. (granted it's opening day)

Lots of pausing btwn Addison & Belmont as a Purple & Brown line went ahead. Waited 10+ min for a Brown Line car @ Belmont - and there wasnt an empty sneaker car at 9:05 like there usually is. Arrived at work about 10-15 min later than I usually do.

I think phase 2 is going to be pretty bad if it continues operationally as it did today. The extra Red line trains stage between Sedgwick and Belmont on the northbound Ravenswood tracks.

I don't think anyone mentioned that in exchange for the 8-car brown line trains during rush hour, they would be dropping to *4-car* trains shortly after rush hour! I'm can't say I see the rationale for this. Where do the 8 car trains go after rush hour? Given the equipment shortage that we've all heard about, I didn't think they would have some trains that they only use for a couple hours in the morning before mothballing till later in the day.

Anyhow, now that these mini-brown line trains are running, they really ought to pull farther into the Washington/Wells station. Right now the front of the 4-car train is pulling up to the exit at the middle of the platform. The other exit, used by upwards of half the people getting off at this stop, is quite a walk forward.

If you'll indulge me in a little ASCII art, the situation looks like this (the train is denoted by the T's):

-
X <--exit (southern end of platform)
|
|
|
|
T|
TX <--exit (middle of platform)
T|
T|
T|
T|
|
-

The upshot is that nearly everybody on the train ends up walking half the length of the platform to get to their exit. It does not take a lot of complicated math to see that it would decrease the average disembarking passenger's walk significantly if the train came to a halt here:

-
X <--exit (southern end of platform)
T|
T|
T|
T|
T|
TX <--exit (middle of platform)
|
|
|
|
|
-

Okay the blog took away the leading spaces. Try this:

_.._
|..X <--exit (southern end of platform)
|..|
|..|
|..|
|..|
|.T|
|.TX <--exit (middle of platform)
|.T|
|.T|
|.T|
|.T|
|..|
-..-

Versus:

_.._
|..X <--exit (southern end of platform)
|.T|
|.T|
|.T|
|.T|
|.T|
|.TX <--exit (middle of platform)
|..|
|..|
|..|
|..|
|..|
-..-

I had planned on leaving ten minutes earlier than normal today but, of course, ended up running late! The ride from Western wasn’t really any different than normal at first. We did get stopped for a quite bit between Southport and Belmont. Right after the Brown-line left Belmont, a Red-line came in, so I was actually able to switch trains more quickly than normal! I did arrive about ten minutes late, but if I leave the ten minutes earlier that I had planned on doing, I’ll be fine. Plus, now that the weather is getting better I’ll start staying on the Brown-line and just walking farther to work, so then I won't have to worry about weather or not a Red-line train is coming.

The 148 I was on this morning was the only 145/48 running at the time--the driver told us this. He didn't explain where the other buses were. It was absolutely jammed and crawled down the Drive. I couldn't see if that was because of traffic or the weather or a combination of both.

My commute was terribly slow! This does seem like it will be a lot worse than Phase 1 because more people travel at the same exact time to get to work at 9 than people trickling out of work/school in the afternoon/evening. Why couldnt they give the Red Liners a bone by giving us longer trains too? It's so frustrating that we have to suffer all these delays and it's not even benefiting the line we use! Being lucky to get on a crowded train where you'll likely be standing up for an hour every day for a year sounds pretty crappy to me.

Angst, which Red Line platforms are long enough for 10 cars?

I'm dismayed that CTA management (hi Ron!) thought it was better to cut four Reds and no Browns. Red Line capacity dipped 25%; Brown Line 0%. And from these reports, it sounds like the Brown Line's getting very high priority over the Red moving into Belmont. It doesn't make any sense to me. (And I assume the Reds are being held at Belmont as the staged trains turn back south of Fullerton, but I hope they find a more efficient way to do this.)

Of course it makes sense, us yuppies live along the brown line and not the red.

In case anyone noticed, the red line is also cut down to four cars southbound after about 8pm now too.

Maybe the perceived favoritism toward Brown line trains is to make up for station closures, etc. Or maybe this was the first day and there were some snags.

In any case, it seems to me that the Red line -- in both directions -- always gets precedence over a Brown line making the turn after Belmont.

My Red Line ride this morning took maybe 10-15 minutes longer, which is about what I allowed for. But my Monday trip takes place about half an hour earlier than the other four days, so we'll see how it is tomorrow.

I just have one little suggestion about the wording of the announcements on the train: They are using what I call the "hypothetical weasel", in saying "we apologize for ANY inconvenience." If you're pretty certain there is an inconvenience, drop the "any" and "the" instead. An apology always sounds much better when you acknowledge that the effect you are apologizing for is real, rather than leave room to imply that maybe nothing really happened.

I agree C C. It's basically saying "I'm sorry you feel that way."

"I'm dismayed that CTA management (hi Ron!) thought it was better to cut four Reds and no Browns. Red Line capacity dipped 25%; Brown Line 0%"

Well, not exactly. Brown and Red BOTH lost 4 trains. The only reason Brown capacity is the same is because Brown is now using 8 car trains, which makes up for it.

I believe that during the Southbound 3-track, Brown lost a number of trains, and Red did not. Almost positive.

Ah, well, insert "effectively" before "no Browns." The next sentence about capacity is correct as written.

They can't do 10-car trains on the Red because the unrenovated stations on the North Main are still only eight-car compliant -- namely, Sheridan, the southbound platforms of Belmont and Fullerton, and Wilson through Thorndale, as well as Morse and Jarvis. Everything from North/Clybourn south can take ten cars, as well as Addison, Granville, Loyola and I believe now Howard as well.

Hopefully the governor will give transit its due like previous governors did, rather than the horribly road-biased capital bill he has proposed. We need the state matching funds in order to fix the North Main.

"Hopefully the governor will give transit its due like previous governors did, rather than the horribly road-biased capital bill he has proposed. We need the state matching funds in order to fix the North Main."

Aww, wishful thinking is cute.
;)

That will probably happen when pigs start flying above the L tracks outside of my window.

I wonder if the CTA has given any thought to making this second part of the Belmont and Fullerton project two-track.

Bear with me here.

The idea of three track was that, given the constricted nature of the site, and the tiny size of the existing platforms, you had to maximize platform space to avoid people getting pushed off but they could get away with one track in peak direction for running the trains -- just barely.

But now that the big new northbound platforms are up, the contractors are working, at great expense and in a very time consuming way, staging a new southbound red platform in a tiny space. And once they're done, southbound passengers will be forced to stand, at considerable risk to their own safety, on a little strip of concrete about six feet wide while the southbound Brown line gets worked on.

Why not just run all northbound trains on the Brown track and all southbound trains on the northbound Red track through Belmont and Fullerton, so that the southbound reconstruction can be all done in one go, customers can stand on a platform that is safely large enough, and the project comes in six months early and under budget? The CTA has the track layout to do it; presumably they have the signaling too. There still might be time for the change order.

Sarah, I had to laugh in agreement about your comment on wishful thinking. It is cute, though, right?

DBX: I asked the CTA about the two-tracking idea. They're response was that they did consider that, but determined that with all the switching involved, it would result in worse service than the three-tracking. My guess is that not knowing for sure how bad things were going to be with three tracking, they didn't want to make them worse just for the sake of speeding construction up a bit. Also, I don't know enough about their agreements with the contractors doing the renovations to know for sure whether they can just change the project and require the contractor to do the work in a shorter period of time, which presumably would pull resources from whatever else the contractor might have going on.

I assume the two-tracking was an April Fools, cos' there would be so much crying bloody murder that the cta wouldn't even dare consider it.

Consider; delays in both am and pm rush periods. No access to Diversey or Wellington in one direction. And no options if something went wrong with a train to route around it.

We're lucky that they didn't shut down the red and brown totally...