So, who's to "blame" for the Blue Line evacuation?
As many of you know, a mechanical failure on the Blue Line Tuesday morning eventually led to an evacuation of several trains stuck in the subway tunnel.
But who is to blame for that evacuation?
CTA President Ron Huberman originally said, "If not for the [riders' self] evacuation, we could have restored that service in around 25 minutes." Huberman said. He said the initial mechanical problem was reported at 8:10 a.m. and by about 9 a.m. the problem was mostly corrected."
He later backed off that statement and said, "In no way is the CTA pointing fingers at anyone but ourselves."
That's good, because we have CTA Tattler readers commenting here that they got little to no information about what was happening, so they "took matters into their own hands." Erin reported that there were some announcements, "but then they stopped."
Still, there were other comments from folks who said the CTA kept them informed and who blamed the antsy folks self-evacuated: "All CTA service would have been fine at 9am but some idiots needed to get to
work. Those few people that started the mass evacuation should be ashamed."
I wasn't there, so I don't know what to think. I do think that in general, passengers should stay on the train till they get word from the CTA to do something. I also know that the CTA must do a better job in general of communicating with passengers during crisis situations.
I've complained about this since the Tattler started in 2004. Things are a little better, but certainly not where they should be. And the NTSB said the same thing after the 2006 Blue Line derailment.
It appears that the CTA, at best, does an uneven job in communicating with passengers in these situations. Some motormen are better than others. We need to get to the point where all operators get good information from central command and share it with passengers.
Top photo by Erin. Bottom photo by a Tattler fan. And many thanks to all you folks who emailed me and sent CTA Alerts about what was happening Tuesday.
Someone commented that this wouldn't happen 30-50 years ago. But it's not because people back then trusted authroity figures better. It's because today no one has any common sense.
It is unbelievable that anyone actually would think that it would be a good idea to take a walk through a subway tunnel. I don't care how long the train has been stopped. You don't do it unless you know that the power has been cut-off, and you have a guide who can steer you away from the dangers.
So what's next? Do we think it's okay to stick your hand in a thrasher that's stopped working? Maybe if we wait an hour after it stops it'll be okay?
It was dumb, dumb, dumb for them to leave the trains. And it created more problems for the people who had the good sense to stay in the train.
You can rationalize that it was okay because they didn't recieve enough information about what was happening, but the bottom line is that they didn't have to good sense to understand the danger they were putting themselves in, and/or they didn't have the decency to care about how their actions affected everyone else.
What the CTA did or didn't do, or what they said or didn't say is irrelevent to their lack of brains. If they're that stupid to begin with, then I don't really expect that there was anything they could have been told that would have helped.
And they're probably still to stupid to understand the danger they put themselves in, or the implications it had on everything else.
Sometimes I wish we didn't have a duty to protect the idiots, and we could have just left the 3rd rail electrified, and have culled the herd a bit. Maybe it's time for us to stop being enabliers of stupidity, and let evolution get back to work on getting rid of the stupid among us. And anyone who left a train to walk the tunnel yesterday falls into that category no matter how offended they, or their equally clueless supporters, might be when they're called out for being idiots.
Posted by: Rusty | April 17, 2008 at 07:48 PM
I'm with Rusty. I wasn't there, but you won't see me getting off a train in the subway until I'm told to.
600 volts + darkness + big heavy moving things = not something I want a part of.
I'll tell you what though...news reports indicate someone started smoking down there. He'd have heard it from me.
Posted by: Josh | April 17, 2008 at 08:49 PM
The actions of the people who self-evacuated were similar to a herd of people running to one side of a boat and causing it to capsize. The leader of, as he likes to remind us, the nation's second largest transit system standing in front of a sea of microphones minimizing his agency's lack of preparedness and communication is like a little kid trying to cover up the fact that he broke mom's favorite piece of crystal throwing a ball around the dining room. As for the guy smoking, I would have stabbed him with a pen.
Posted by: Martha | April 17, 2008 at 09:33 PM
I guess CTA didn't learn their lesson from the last "incident" in the Blue Line tunnel. I'm quite sure the NTSB will be all over their asses for this one!
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2007/RAR0702.pdf
Posted by: Tim | April 18, 2008 at 05:52 PM
Tim:
I highly doubt the NTSB investigates equipment problems, even ones that result in severe service delays and evacuations.
Posted by: MK | April 18, 2008 at 06:51 PM