strictures

Road diets in Chicago never work as advertised. Chicago's traffic engineers are totally incompetent. Maybe 15-20 years ago, the Trib had a long article & interview with a Chicago traffic engineer. The following is an exact quote from that article that I've never forgotten: "We don't believe in left turns, we want traffic to go straight"! As an example of that, numerous intersections in the city still don't have left turn arrows, despite the fact that there are left turn lanes. One of the worst of these intersections is Logan & Elston. Most WB cars on Logan want to turn left onto Elston for all the shopping there, but must wait out several red lights, due to the lack of a left turn arrow! Several years ago, Skokie planned a road diet for Oakton, from Skokie Blvd., west to past the library. Being far more intelligent than Chicago's numbskulls, they tested it out first with cones & jersey blocks. They cancelled it within two weeks!

Yes, just the week before

I see the Pulse wrapped buses parked on Clark St. north of Wrigley Field waiting out the games. Most of them have their destination signs off, but at least one had a far north suburban sign.

Take a walk under some of the UP North bridges. They're in terrible condition. My favorite is Wrightwood Ave., where you can see the sun on a bright summer day. The UP also had crews welding new flanges at the bottom of some bridges in Rogers Park. Get off at the Lunt side & you can see them. Other than Addison [1960 or so], Peterson [concrete with steel supports] or Emerson [1960 or so] in Evanston, they're all rusting away. And the Emerson bridge is so rusted on the outside, Evanston tried to force the UP to paint it or let students paint it & they refused.

They are fun. The suction from them is incredible. I used to go outbound from there in the morning & would wait on the inbound platform, before I went to the center platform, just to watch people scurry away from the yellow line when it came. I also wondered who cleaned up the hundreds of used coffee cups after they were left there on the center platform?

About 10 years ago, the Clark/Arthur terminal was supposed to be turned around and the buses would enter from Clark, instead of that short stretch of Ashland. That way they would exit to a traffic light & not have to cross traffic from the opposite direction both entering & leaving the terminal. Several weeks ago, I asked the new 40th Ward alderman's chief of staff why this never happened & he said the CTA claimed the artics for the 151 couldn't make that turn. Since I see them leave onto Clark without a problem, including some that do make a tight left turn to the median, that claim has to been BS. They also easily make a tight left turn at the north end of the terminal, right along the guard rails.

Just how many 6400s are still in service at Forest Glen?

If they bring back the X4, then it needs to stop at 58th St, not 59th, which is where it did. 58th is where all of the U of Chicago's Hospitals & clinics are.

No, many riders are dumb! Although Metra riders seem to be smarter than CTA or Pace bus riders, where so many stand next to the front wheel wells & make it difficult to impossible to get past their fat asses! The worst of the Metra riders I see are the ones who are obsessed with their phones going down stairways & can't put the damned things down for 30 seconds!

You're being ridiculous. The riders would figure out the new stop positions in two days!

I would love Metra to change over to this style of car. Fewer steps, larger bike storage area & far easier boarding.

A CFD ambulance would've taken her to the nearest trauma center, not the nearest hospital.

A neighbor had the CTA Motormen's rule book. That's where I saw it.

Had he been looking to the front, he would've at least seen her & honked the train's ridiculous European style horn. He was also was violating the rule that requires all motormen to stand when entering, going through & leaving stations, stand through all turns & switches & interlocking plants. Of course, I see them ignoring that rule all the time, so apparently CTA doesn't bother to enforce it.

All of Metra, except the Heritage & SW lines will eventually be electrified, due to pollution & climate change problems. New rolling stock will be needed only when it's worn out, electric locomotives would be used until then. UPN is the simplest to electrify, as it has almost no freight interference from North Ave. to Lake Bluff. It also could be turned into high level platforms, unlike any of the other low level lines Metra runs. If they do make the ME & RI cheaper in the city, Metra will be forced to lower all Zone 2 fares throughout the system, as they will be inviting a federal lawsuit under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. As for pulling riders from the CTA, pulling them from the rotten Red Line would be good, maybe it will wake up the numbskulls at the CTA & change the horrible seats on the 5000s & either bring back the A&B trains or even better, close the stations from Wilson north to Howard that are too close to other stations, such as Lawrence, Thorndale & Jarvis!