Busjack

I don't know or remember the "original plan," but the station page says "Free (lot fills quickly); Follow yellow signs to overflow lot (Allow extra 5 minutes to walk)."So, tey must be trying to move P&R riders away from there. NWI Times said there is supposed to be a parking garage built at 11th St.

You're right, he talked around it, but he also appeared to dismiss the PART (especially Carole Brown) wing that it's up to the state to bail CTA out from the fiscal cliff.

At the referenced meeting, Metzger said capacity at NW had to be expanded 300%, but when asked about moving some buses, she said NS had to be expanded, too. However, NW and NS have not been in the last few capital budgets. The 2024 Capital Budget only has North, and the 5 year plan only has N, R, and SW. The presentation at the meeting was the first mention of Wheeling that T saw in a long time. At the Board Meeting where architectural work for River was authorized, they moved money based on SW having federal funds and the I-294 project would not be ready to go. I assume that the $200 million Rebuild Illinois earmark is still around, but Pace isn't acknowledging NW and NS in the budget. I also doubted Metzger's answer because NS isn't running 619, 620, 623, 627, 631-635 and 640, and has no intention of bringing them back. Re network revitalization, it still looks like Northbrook and The Glen are going to be cut. So, I can't see how NS can be over capacity. On the other hand, the most NW lost was the Randhurst segment of 696 and 694, and needed to pick up about 10 buses for Dempster Pulse.

If you mean from the low platform maybe; if from crowds, maybe not. Maybe the trains with the 1200s are going to bypass. No way of really knowing. Now that you mentioned that, it jogged my memory.

I sort have the feeling that they do have (at least the existing) Gary Metro Center ridership information, with about only the BMX bus being a generator, and figure that the free Miller park and ride will be a better draw. An early plan was to consolidate the two stations in Aetna (north of the end of I-65), but decided not to do that.

What's somewhat surprising is that a lot of trains start at 11th St. instead of Carroll Ave., and a bunch bypass Gary Metro Center, 57th St., and Museum Campus. Schedule is effective Tues. May 14.

@Tcmetro summarized it well. I can also add that there was a time when CTA wanted to compete with Pace, such as whhen it proposed a study from 79th to 159th, or Route 96 to the Skokie Industrial Area, or 205 over Pace 212. One thing Claypool admitted in 2011 (although not explicitly) was that CTA could not afford to compete with Pace, and it abolished routes 17,49A, 56A, and 90N, and rearranged the Pullman area. The only places where there are a real choice (because of huge ridership) are West 95th (at one time 95 didn't run west of Lafayette) and S. Halsted, and in those cases, CTA and Pace are participating in joint Pulse studies. There;s also overlap on Harlem,but Pace really cut back service north of the Green Line. Similar situation in Berwyn on Cermak. As @Tcmetro indicated, people take the first bus, unless they are going to a destination not served by the other carrier (such as Harlem-North to Harlem-Irving Park. I don't know what Pace route you avoid, but you seem to disregard that transit is not a free good, and usually frequency is a result of demand, unless there is market information that something like Dempster Pulse will grow ridership.

One would think, but Pace hasn't done it. Metzger was asked that and said Pace had done it, but the only time I knew of it was when North Shore opened in around 1991. She goes back at Nortran at least that far. Totally impossible. CTA's garages (except maybe 77th) are all over-capacity, short of workers, and use incompatible equipment. It's a long enough deadhead to get from FG to Crawford and Central--can you imagine FG to Schaumburg? Only reason CTA has 54A, 201 and 206 is that in the last coordination plan, Pace didn't have the resources to take on anything other than the extension of 213.

You assume too much. Each service board is legally authorized to set its own fares, so long as it presents a balanced budget within RTA set funding marks. More than likely, Pace is trying to attract discretionary riders. And where service is more in demand (i.e. I55) the fare is $4.00 Also, you admitted lack of knowledge of the Southland. Maybe your theory holds up for 352.

The planning portion of the Planning and Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting indicated that the best percentage recovery was in North Cook, especially on Milwaukee and Dempster, considering the sum of local and Pulse routes. Metzger also said that if NW had more capacity, they would add service to 208 and 290. They also mentioned growth on 213, but then because Pace took over from CTA between Davis and Howard.

Anyone who likes divining tea leaves might look at the recent Planning and Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting video. There's finally some mention of the Wheeling Garage, including how Des Plaines is beyond capacity, but other than mentioning that "our CNG bus supplier is out of business" (like we didn't know), and maybe "fuel cell technology may advance to the point we can use it at S and NW" not much was said about moving forward. On North Division, they said that the buses on order have somrthing like 760 kw of battery capacity, which should be enough to cover all blocks with only garage charging.

Again, CTA's main justification is that it takes maybe a 30-minute bus ride just to get to 95th, plus whatever the time it takes to get to where you are going. I don't think 34 and 119 can be fixed to take care of that problem. There was once an express bus via I-94, but that died. As often discussed, fare integration might help, but with the low frequency of ME Kensington and Blue Island services and the ME not directly connecting with the L system, it won't get you much

The article said that the second following bus driver called 911 from a gas station. The control center didn't do anything.

This has basically the mayoral appointee pattern for the last 25 years. Sec. 19 of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Act (70 ILCS 3605/19) says "Members of the Board shall be residents of the metropolitan area and persons of recognized business ability" but that's not been the case. The question is whether the City Council will bring that up. I doubt it will. Your preacher point may be relevant to whether any of them have recognized business ability." The "regular rider" question is, again, the old game of FOIAing various board and staff members' Ventra card accounts.

The only real question raised in an article written 60% only for emotional impact is what duty the Control Center has to check on a driver when a bus doesn't move on the tracker.