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- Today
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Today I took the #49 on Western at Cermak. Barely missed the first one, second one didn't show up, third one the driver skipped us. Gave up and walked to the L and transfered in the loop to get back up to Western and Milwaukee. A 36-minute wait is absurd on one of the major bus lines in the middle of the day. Terrible what the Cottage Grove passengers are going through too. From what I understand some cities are running more service on major lines because of Covid. Hopefully the newly announced bus lanes on Chicago and 79th can at least help those routes operate better and reduce some of the bunching and delays.
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Service change. 364 and 379 will serve the north side of Orland square mall with 379 serving the mall every hour instead of every 30 min on weekdays. 832 and the call n ride will no longer serve Orland square mall. 379 and 832's service changes are the one's I'm not ok with. And 379 will no longer operate on its temporary COVID-19 schedule. It will resume normal weekday service. https://www.pacebus.com/notice/routes-364-379-832-tinley-park-demand-service-change
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Metra added weekend ridership data to the ridership dashboard. The UPN and UPNW are the most crowded on weekends, as they are on weekdays. This is attributed to people who would have rode CTA using Metra instead because UP is not collecting fares. While the UP lines have more riders per car, Jim Derwinski commented in the WBBM interview that the train with the most total riders is on Rock Island. I observed that all the RI trains have at least 8 cars, including the less crowded ones. However, UPNW was running busier trains with only 5 cars. Is this because Metra doesn't want to give UP more equipment due to their ongoing dispute?
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Yeah, yikes is right.
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I don't understand why CTA isn't prioritizing filling runs over police shuttles and also loosening the rains on allowing part timers to do some extra work. Another thing that bugs me is with covid 19 still being an issue we still haven't gotten our warming buses back and the union is working hard on trying to get them back but man it's just getting frustrating not being able to have your fallback in piece without having to worry about so many factors on cottage grove.
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Yikes.
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From what I've heard it's a combination of operators calling in sick,some only doing half runs as OT, police charters and if you want to throw covid in there you can. Cottage grove is worse than it was before covid 19 started. 79th is no better I was on my way home yesterday evening only to be offered by the night owl supervisor if I wanted to do runs 679 and or 680 which are both night owls on 79th. I was so upset because I don't usually take my car to and from work that often since I live only 3 miles away but after finding that out what is normally a 30 minute trip turned into an hour and a half.
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4365 broke down on State Street on October 9, 2018
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5225-26 are on Pink. Video below is proof.
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6730's not the only one anymore🤣
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I fully understand you. A few spring picks ago I had all Cottage 4 days. I experienced the same thing recently on 79th St. I had 3 buses missing in front of me.
- Yesterday
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Are that may drivers calling in sick? I know CTA recently hired a bunch of drivers. Was there a shortage due to firings, retirement, and Covid,? Is it just the 4 or are other routes affected?
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Bustracker shows 8 buses on Cottage Grove right now.
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For any of my fellow travelers and operators god speed with you because cottage grove is an absolute mess. I never thought it was this bad until I picked it but on the weekends it's just nutty. Imagine having to work a double and triple street then add on to that not having any reliefs. I haven't had any easy time on cottage until my very last trip of evening around 10:30. Currently there is only 6 buses out there and I unfortunately have to go work on that street. I wish CTA would do something about this because it keeps getting worse and worse. I had one passenger tell me that had to wait nearly 2 hours for a bus because they had to keep switching buses due to no reliefs getting made. That to me is unacceptable and should be looked into if it hasn't already because I have get caught in the crossfire of tension from the passengers. I'm grateful it hasn't gotten violent but I'm starting wonder what the breaking point.
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Use em till they blow thats what cta doing
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What he meant was the 30 ft buses might be 21300s. What I was curious about was whether any new 49 ft Axxess diesels might be 20600 or 21699. Im thinking 500s might be for CNG, regardless of model.
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Cant be if RJL says 21300 is an eldo. But it sure is confusing.
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What's really mind blowing is the running of buses with flip dot signs still. The green ones. Saw one today on addison you couldnt even read the destination. Then the supervisor was over checking on #6678. #6784 was there too at the hip turnaround. Why would fg even run those on the weekends? The buses have got a gazillion miles. By me we havent even run the old buses since March. The maintenance is good too. Only have needed the mechanics for a flat tire. Work smart not hard!!
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CTA gets a bigger piece of the federal pie, so if anyone's dry on funding it will be Pace or Metra. Sad part about Metra is it just goes downtown and downtown is a ghost town. It's a shame. Seems like no restaurant wants to be down there. Out of all the Garrett's popcorn places only found one open on Madison and state. The Randolph (theatre district) was closed as well as michigan Avenue (millineum park). Even there it was a ghost town. I swear it's like dreamland. Some stores are still boarded up. Banks are closed the atm and the lobby. What's the sense in being there then. When I do uber I stay away from downtown. All around downtown is swinging but not downtown. Pace is in the suburbs and that hurts it. Unless it's the south suburbs which still does pretty good especially on halsted. Even uber hurts in the burbs. People are having trouble getting rides there. Didnt someone say a agency was going to partner with rideshare or even send out some paratransits or 15 passenger van's. You'll still have service but it wont be big buses. Some places that have high employment that rides the bus has even started chartering there own shuttles with 3rd parties. Theres a place that's runs 2 shuttles a day called Pactiv that does round trips for its rotating shifts of workers. Picks up at Ford city. I've driven those. It seems like it does good business and it does its job.
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I have never driven a Nova, so I can't say what the set up is for sure. I don't know if there buses came with daytime running lamps standard. My guess is that the New Flyers are. In the old buses, the outer lights were operated from the run control. One turn notch was the engine running and the next notch activated the headlights, rails and the markers. I think the run position also operaed the markers only. The interior lights operated on a different switch altogether, usually marked dome As far as the positions if the lights outside. That may have to do with repairs where sections of a bus are replaced with parts from another bus. The panels may come from another Niva, or could come from a New Flyer and customized to fit. I've seen side panels on buses where the striping was slightly off compared with the rest of the bus
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So you are saying 400s are 40 ft diesels and 500s are CNG? Or are 400s New Flyers and 500s Eldorados?
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And me too when I get my 8th one recorded
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That is intresting. Next time I see a old nova I'll look
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It's still the type of vehicle. Not the location. However, the first iteration of the 5-digit numbering system dated back to when most 30- and 40-foot buses still used the old 4-digit numbering system. But with the diesel 40-foot buses now beginning to use the new 5-digit system, the Xcelsiors now use the xx400-numbering group that was previously reserved for community vehicles, while the next batch of community vehicles will begin using the xx200 group of numbers (for example, 21201). The 30-foot Eldos are expected to have their numbers start at 21300. Paratransits will continue to use the xx000 and xx100 blocks.
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The light setups in these old Novas are funny 😂.I rode 6803 today, the headlights in the front were off but all the interior lights were on, even the front ones. On OMSI 2 I learned that when the headlights are off but the interior lights on, only the first bank of lights on each side are off but the rest are on. In July, I rode 6784 and all the interior lights were off but the headlights were on. Also what I noticed is that the rear light placement is interesting too. On 6784, both rear red lights are like 2 inches away from the end of each other. But on 6776, they are like 5 inches apart, which is real interesting. This is the most interesting fleet in the CTA and I wonder what other buses have silly and interesting sightings.
