Tcmetro

It could refer to United Motor Coach. "In 1975 United Motor Coach became publicly owned Nortran (North Suburban Mass Transit District), and in 1991 became Pace Northwest Division." https://www.chicagorailfan.com/rtaphist.html

I was on the Cermak bus the other day and they just had a box on the front wheelwell.

Purchase agreements for bus shelters and pylon signs will come before the board at the Feb 17 meeting. https://www.pacebus.com/sites/default/files/2021-02/Public Notice Pace Board Meeting Agenda February 17 2021.pdf

Supposedly the contract was through 2026, but now that it has been delayed with the first buses coming in 2022, I think it could be extended to 2027. They were saying 100 buses per year before.

I'm hoping the next orders go to New Flyer or Proterra. It would be cool to see Nova artics also though.

Nova got the contract. Prototypes this fall and full production in 2022. https://www.transitchicago.com/chicago-transit-board-approves-contract-to-purchase-new-clean-diesel-buses/

The electrics is a change order on an existing (Proterra) contract. Hope we get some news on when these new buses will come in tomorrow! Q3 was floated in the capital plan update presented to CMAP a little bit ago...

New bus order going before the board tomorrow. $334 million total contract value giving an average bus price of $556,600. Here's the finance committee agenda: https://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/21/Feb2021_-_FAB_Web_Agenda.pdf?26684

I think the proposal that the IDOT study recommended was for a fourth lane west of Forest Park which would be a bus/toll lane. In the city, one of the four lanes would be converted to a toll lane. They did say the Oak Park rebuilding would take eight years, which is basically on par with the Circle Interchange project in terms of time. IDOT hasn't apportioned any money for the Ike, and I would imagine it's a few years out at best.

Artics in Seattle were definitely used to keep frequencies low while managing demand. Until recently it was common that major lines used artics on 30 min frequencies. They've put a lot of money into frequency, but good service there is generally 12-15 min headways. I hope any new artic purchases in Chicago are of the three-door model. If CTA decides to go forward with all door boarding on the J14 (and expand to other lines) they can really improve travel speeds and capacity.

A few things make artics slower in my opinion: 1. Typically artics mean running less service overall, to make use of the extra capacity. More people are getting on and off at each stop, which slows buses down. 2. It's a longer bus with the same amount of doors, so passengers take more time to exit. 3. The wheel wells in the middle and the accordion are harder to navigate, so riders take more time to sit down. 4. A lot of bus stop zones don't seem to accommodate artics well. One of my main stops on the 21 is difficult for an artic to pull in to, so the back door empties in

They are going to need new coaches anyways. So much of the fleet is obsolete. I'd imagine ridership will rebound by the time these start rolling in. From the Metra press release the base 200 new cars won't even be delivered until 2025-2027. (Deliveries starting 42 months after contract execution, and continuing for 30 months).

This is the note on the Red/Purple Bypass project page about the track rebuild from Belmont to Cornelia (not quite Addison as I previously stated) : 2021: Red-Purple Bypass to be completed; CTA to begin reconstruction of North Main lines (Red and Purple Line track structure reconstruction between Belmont and Cornelia/Newport) End of 2024: North Main Line reconstruction to be completed. https://www.transitchicago.com/rpm/rpb/

Once the flyover is done they are going to move onto the track rebuild from Belmont to Addison. That's a lot more difficult logistically, and they've been saying 2024 for completion.

Halsted and Western don't seem to have any safety problems but they look absolutely terrible. I really hope the city and the railroads can come to an agreement because a lot of these bridges are in bad shape. Metra has done so much more than the railroads have with the UPN and RI rebuilds.