CTA Tattler

1. How would Daley know anything about the CTA since he never rides it?
Not even after his taxpayer paid for city limo, with two tail cars full of cops got a flat tire last week from one of his potholes, which are caused by a combination of wretched quality road building & the appalling overuse of salt every winter.

2. Completely OT, but yesterday afternoon [Sunday] I rode the 36 Broadway bus. Several of them. They were running on 9 minute headways all afternoon!
They don't run that often on weekday non-rush periods! The buses were of course almost empty & the drivers had to keep sitting out an extra red light every half mile or so as to not run ahead of schedule.
Who is the idiot at the CTA's bus operations dept. that has done this insane scheduling.
Yet another reason the CTA is incompetent!

Okay, maybe I will be the only one, but: I don't get whatever joke Daley was trying to make about the names of the red, yellow, and purple lines (or was it about the fact that they converged in one place? some obscure joke about Irish geography?).

Also, n.b., "stewarts" should be "stewards".

Yeah, red, purple, and yellow lines seem like pretty "non-unique" names to me. But Daley almost never makes any sense to me. He mostly rants incoherently, which seems to endear him to the people of Chicago.

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Daley stressed that anytime he meets with Brown and Rodriguez, he reminds them that the CTA "has to be clean, it has to be safe, it has to be on time and it has to be friendly
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The problem isn't with these worthwhile goals. The problem often is with prioritzing.

Why is clean mentioned first?

Safe, in the sense of operational safety, should be first. (Safe, as in security, should not be a sole responsiblity of CTA, but rather should be the primary responsiblity of the CPD, just as safety on the sidewalks and streets is their responsiblity.)

Having the service there in the first place should be second behind operational safety. The route has to exist, and service hours need to be planned before anything else can happen.

Then the vehicles need to be on-time, with minimal gaps or bunching.

Next, there should be a decent ratio of seats available, as in a seated to standee ratio.

After that comes cleanliness. I'd rather be able to ride a bus with grafitti than not have that bus available to ride. Cleanliness as the top priority is pandering. Yes, it's very nice to have clean vehicles, but most people don't realize that it can be at the cost of other more important operational considerations.

In other words, in my book, functional comes way ahead of aesthetics.

Of course successful politicians are successful because they put appearances ahead of all else, so it's no surprise that Daley (and his speechwriters) wouldn't quite grasp the concept of function over form.

Sounds like this was just a laugh riot all the way around. :( All the politicians dispensing non-sequiturs that they think are funny and, of course, everyone has to laugh because they're prominent people and we must acknowledge their greatness at every opportunity.

I'm not even going to waste brain space and cyberspace to posit about Daley's insane ramblings. So Carole thinks she's too young to have the Brown Line named after her? Do you think she even realizes it was only named the Brown Line in 1993 and that it was called something else before that? Probably not.

I hope Heather Steans is able to accomplish what she says. I think she is a pretty good representative so far.

UCC,

Are you complaining about more frequent buses?

If his life depended on it, our "born-and-raised-over-by-dere" mayor probably couldn't tell you where the yellow line goes.

Once again, I am going to go off topic.Here's how to get the C.T.A. a billion rides a year before the end of December and they don't have to change a thing!Daley and Stroger can promise not to raise taxes,fees and fines [for a year or two ]if the goal is met.They can't privatize public assets except for short term deals.They can't create shortcuts that deprive citizen's of their Constitutional right to due process.Why would they even consider such a bet?Because even if they lose,they win since it proves that with motivated citizens anything is possible.

James,

What in the heck are you even talking about? And how does getting 1 billion rides on the CTA fix a City of Chicago budget shortfall?

chris: I'm complaining that there is better buss service on a Sunday afternoon, when fewer people are riding, than on a weekday afternoon when more people are around & many have appointments to go to.
Nine minutes apart on Sunday, but 10 or more apart on weekdays.
Something is very wrong there!
13-15 minutes would have made more sense for Sunday afternoons.

I remember about 30 years ago when at 6AM onward, the 22 Clark buses were running at 7 minute headways on Sunday mornings.
I didn't understand it then & I don't understand it now.

It looks like the CTA has updated the alternative analysis pages.
http://www.transitchicago.com/news_initiatives/planning/altanalysis.aspx

Orange Line - Screen 2 - Wed April 22, 2009
Yellow Line - Screen 2 - Thurs April 30, 2009
Red Line - Screen 3 - June 2009
Circle Line - Screen 3 - moved from early 2009 to Fall 2009

UC. just throw yourself under the next bus or train you see. Put us out of your misery.

You first!

Rusty sez: "I'd rather be able to ride a bus with grafitti than not have that bus available to ride. Cleanliness as the top priority is pandering. Yes, it's very nice to have clean vehicles, but most people don't realize that it can be at the cost of other more important operational considerations."

What you don't realize is that there are buses and trains available, so it's not an issue to most people. When I run into CTA/public-transit haters, the issue is ALWAYS about it being "dirty". Trying to change that perception is just good marketing if you're trying to get more riders and supporters. It's what any organization does.

What you're complaining about is kind of like saying "Why doesn't McDonald's make good food instead of spending all those resources making it look clean and neat?" Well, apparently its customers think food is good enough, and would quit going there if it started looking too scuzzy. So you're right about the rationality, but overlooking the primacy of perception. Personally I'm glad the CTA is finally seeing past the idea that it's enough to make the trains run.

So did anybody at the shindig say anything about finishing the overpass from the round building to the south terminal? Or opening the doors from the CTA parking lot direct to the terminal?

OK, I think I'm developing an obsession, but almost can't stand the stupidness of having to go downstairs to go upstairs and vice versa. Still hoping that "finished" doesn't really mean "that's all we're gonna do".

Obsessive or not, you're making sense as far as I'm concerned, DaveW. This doesn't seem like it would be very expensive to do, either.

It's sort of like the cleanliness in a way, isn't it? I'm not thinking just of transit here, but any product or service: if you keep bumping up against something that makes you think, "This is just stupid," it comes to color your view of the whole thing even if it's not, taken by itself, hugely important.

David Orr is not the city clerk. Shoddy reporting!