CTA Bus Rapid Transit (take two)

[Busjack]

20 minutes ago, jajuan said:

As Busjack brought up the stop at Clinton/Quincy in regards to 60 and 157, don't forget that the normal procedure buses turning on to Clinton from Adams before the bridge closed was to stop at that stop.

Although I mentioned NB in my prior post, the stop on Clinton (or some replacement of it) is needed for those using 7, 60, or 157 to go to the UIC/University Village area, or 60 to the Criminal Court.

[Busjack]

While the maps on the Advance Schedules for routes such as 124, 151, and 156 correspond to the notices, the schedules only refer to a time point at Union Station, not the Transit Center.

[jajuan]

21 minutes ago, Busjack said:

The maps on the Advance Schedules for routes such as 124, 151, and 156, while corresponding to the notices, only refer to a time point at Union Station, not the Transit Center.

But we know per the notices that the buses will go into the transit center terminal. Advanced schedule for the 1 also shows that only about half of the morning trips will end at Union Station near the Transit Center. The other half end at Wacker/Adams. The advance schedule for the 156 shows similar except at Van Buren/Wacker. The 151 schedule shows a boatload of W notations on the weekday morning times under the Union Station timepoint indicating again trip terminations at Wacker/Adams. That probably explains why an earlier version of the combined notice for 1, 28 and the 151 originally had a notice saying that CTA still advised riders to disembark at Wacker/Adams. It also would probably ease BH's concerns about the number of buses passing through the Jackson/Clinton intersection as well as artics moving into the terminal off Jackson during rush hour. At least in the morning at any rate.

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

But we know per the notices that the buses will go into the transit center terminal. Advanced schedule for the 1 also shows that only about half of the morning trips will end at Union Station near the Transit Center. The other half end at Wacker/Adams. The advance schedule for the 156 shows similar except at Van Buren/Wacker. The 151 schedule shows a boatload of W notations on the weekday morning times under the Union Station timepoint indicating again trip terminations at Wacker/Adams. That probably explains why an earlier version of the combined notice for 1, 28 and the 151 originally had a notice saying that CTA still advised riders to disembark at Wacker/Adams. It also would probably ease BH's concerns about the number of buses passing through the Jackson/Clinton intersection as well as artics moving into the terminal off Jackson during rush hour. At least in the morning at any rate.

Looks like someone is paying attention. Yeah no way can they run all the #151's and such into there. Remember when they turned around on Canal in front of Union Station? The layover in the rush extended that full city block. The distance from Clinton to Canal is perceived as a half block. While they may have tackled that with multiple lanes, if the buses in the same lane arrive together they may have a problem. Plus now the #156's are thrown into the stew. Hopefully they don't end up with a blockage because artics need room to navigate because they are long. They just can't swing around as easy plus the lanes look tight. Hopefully it's more than two lanes per aisle or at least a wide two lanes.

When i was over there on the weekend taking pictures, i got the distinct impression that the outside sign, the one that has #121 on it, is referring to a lane on Jackson. So there might be 4 lanes, if they are using the sidewalk as an island and the first lane as a bus layover lane. If so it would be smart to put the artics out there, this way they have a whole wide Jackson to swing around buses in. (not so tight) I think there's pictures on here of the lanes and signs. I need to look at those more closely.

[BusHunter]

Alright now check this out. (let me just borrow the use of Pace831's pictures here for a second)

Alright now see this sign, it says the #1 and #121 are stopping to the right of the sign and the others in the next lane

now look at this one

Now here if you zoom up it says the #28 and #124 are in the outside lane, but not in the street. Now the #28 and #124 are in the first pic as saying they are in the next lane, so no way can the #1 and #121 being using the same lane.

 

[Busjack]

4 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Now here if you zoom up it says the #28 and #124 are in the outside lane, but not in the street. Now the #28 and #124 are in the first pic as saying they are in the next lane, so no way can the #1 and #121 being using the same lane.

The notice for #1 is that ends "next to" the transit center. Similarly, #121 says "The westbound stop at the southeast corner at Jackson/Canal will be relocated to the south side of Jackson west of Canal, in front of the new Union Station Transit Center." So, no, they are not pulling in.

[jajuan]

38 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Looks like someone is paying attention. Yeah no way can they run all the #151's and such into there. Remember when they turned around on Canal in front of Union Station? The layover in the rush extended that full city block. The distance from Clinton to Canal is perceived as a half block. While they may have tackled that with multiple lanes, if the buses in the same lane arrive together they may have a problem. Plus now the #156's are thrown into the stew. Hopefully they don't end up with a blockage because artics need room to navigate because they are long. They just can't swing around as easy plus the lanes look tight. Hopefully it's more than two lanes per aisle or at least a wide two lanes.

When i was over there on the weekend taking pictures, i got the distinct impression that the outside sign, the one that has #121 on it, is referring to a lane on Jackson. So there might be 4 lanes, if they are using the sidewalk as an island and the first lane as a bus layover lane. If so it would be smart to put the artics out there, this way they have a whole wide Jackson to swing around buses in. (not so tight) I think there's pictures on here of the lanes and signs. I need to look at those more closely.

Note though that they're only ending those three at Wacker for some trips doing the morning rush. The rest of the routes' service hours, the buses are indeed pulling into the terminal. 

23 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Alright now check this out. (let me just borrow the use of Pace831's pictures here for a second)

Alright now see this sign, it says the #1 and #121 are stopping to the right of the sign and the others in the next lane

now look at this one

Now here if you zoom up it says the #28 and #124 are in the outside lane, but not in the street. Now the #28 and #124 are in the first pic as saying they are in the next lane, so no way can the #1 and #121 being using the same lane.

 

Lanes 2 and 3 looking fairly wide, and the islands for all three lanes look to start a nice distance from the Clinton curb so artics shouldn't have too much a problem getting in coming off Jackson. I'm not sure if it's the angle of your shot but the lane from lane 1 doesn't look as wide as the other two. That's the lane that looks like it may be a tight squeeze for artics, and Kedzie runs weekend 124 with all artics, and the 124 is supposed to use that lane. So that may be where your artic challenge may come in. We'll see though on that front and for the 151 come Sunday. We'll have to wait until Tuesday to see how things go for 156. 103rd has been known to place a few artics in service on the 28 during rush hour sometimes when the route has downtown express trips in play, and that route is also assigned to lane 1 of the bus terminal. So that may bring into question if 103rd still does so since that island in place shown in your earlier pics would appear to put more a challenge on lane 1 buses. 

[BusHunter]

I don't know that first lane where #124 goes may be difficult for artics too because you are asking them to clear that horseshoe like barracade. I was on a #124 artic last weekend after the shots. So let me get this straight #151 is the sole route in the middle and #156 is the sole route on the inner (next to the white colored car garage) Maybe that would work but they might have problems like if a bus stalled out there or someone was doing an extended layover. Because the artics are long, it takes them longer to straighten out. Like if an artic passed another bus, it might leave it's tail sticking out. Hence you then have a 2 lane block. I suppose it could be argued that Canal was just two lanes, but Canal didn't have the #156's either at least at the #151 layover spot. We need to see them in the rush though before we can say if they messed up or not.

[Busjack]

4 hours ago, BusHunter said:

now look at this one

Clarifies that there are separate canopies, so I withdraw my comment re that.

[Busjack]

The other strange thing is that per the 9/5/2016 schedule, 125 still goes to DesPlaines-Harrison instead of the Transit Center.

[Busjack]

14 hours ago, jajuan said:

Note though that they're only ending those three at Wacker for some trips doing the morning rush. The rest of the routes' service hours, the buses are indeed pulling into the terminal. 

Looking at the NB and SB, there are far fewer SB buses in the a.m. rush, and those NB trips that do not head back SB end at Wacker.

[BusHunter]

The pm demand should be heavier on the terminal. It depends on the ustc volume. Probably some though will have to start at wacker or it will be gridlock. 

[Busjack]

44 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

The pm demand should be heavier on the terminal. It depends on the ustc volume. Probably some though will have to start at wacker or it will be gridlock. 

Not really, 1 runs every 20 minutes until 4:17 SB, and then 15 minutes thereafter, which is pretty comparable to the a.m NB schedule to the TC (about every 15 minutes). What skews the a.m.. schedule is trips every 6-9 minutes 2/3 of which are cut short. I have the feeling that riders generally are not going between IIT and Union Station.

28 is a different story as afternoon is a consistent 8-10 minutes, while morning at the TC is more varied, but only 1/3 of the buses are short until about 8:30 arrivals.

Otherwise the question of demand relates to most people will be getting off at the station in the p.m. (unlike the apparent 1 situation), and it takes less time to unload than load (2 doors, no Ventra).

 

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, BusHunter said:

The pm demand should be heavier on the terminal. It depends on the ustc volume. Probably some though will have to start at wacker or it will be gridlock. 

However, there is one thing I later had a thought about. Like the Loop Link, these schedules were published without any prior trial period, and there may be a question whether they get the throughput they expect.

[jajuan]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

The other strange thing is that per the 9/5/2016 schedule, 125 still goes to DesPlaines-Harrison instead of the Transit Center.

CTA is leaving the 125 at the Desplaines/Harrison terminal actually. It's the only other route next week besides the night time 36 that will still use the Desplaines terminal.

[Busjack]

27 minutes ago, jajuan said:

CTA is leaving the 125 at the Desplaines/Harrison terminal actually. It's the only other route next week besides the night time 36 that will still use the Desplaines terminal.

I guess they gotta do what they gotta do given resource and capacity constraints. However my reaction is like "they don't drop off some Jefferson Park passengers at the Gale St. Inn side of Milwaukee Ave."

[artthouwill]

6 hours ago, jajuan said:

CTA is leaving the 125 at the Desplaines/Harrison terminal actually. It's the only other route next week besides the night time 36 that will still use the Desplaines terminal.

Not strange to me in that the 60, 125, and 157 also serves the Oglivie Transportation Center (60 and 157 being thru routes).  You may say that 124 also serves both stations and I would respond by saying that the 124 doesn't run in the a.m. rush.  Union Station loads heavier than Oglivie. 

[Juniorz]

The calm before the revenue........

[cta5658]

20 minutes ago, Juniorz said:

The calm before the revenue........

Those look really impressive

[jajuan]

One thing I was able to observe despite some heavy glitching with Bus Tracker for the routes that went through a route change starting today, was that Kedzie didn't send artics out on the 124 like had been normal for a weekend day. That would appear to have addressed BH's concern of how an artic would negotiate that island in the road that he reported the city placed at the USTC bus terminal entrance and get into that first lane closest to Jackson to which 124 is now assigned. Kedzie and NP still sent artics out on 151 though. So that island must not be a hindrance to artics getting into the 151's assigned middle lane inside the bus terminal. 

[Sam92]

38 minutes ago, jajuan said:

One thing I was able to observe despite some heavy glitching with Bus Tracker for the routes that went through a route change starting today, was that Kedzie didn't send artics out on the 124 like had been normal for a weekend day. That would appear to have addressed BH's concern of how an artic would negotiate that island in the road that he reported the city placed at the USTC bus terminal entrance and get into that first lane closest to Jackson to which 124 is now assigned. Kedzie and NP still sent artics out on 151 though. So that island must not be a hindrance to artics getting into the 151's assigned middle lane inside the bus terminal. 

Doesn't kedzie only do 124 with attics during summer pick anyway? 

[jajuan]

16 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Doesn't kedzie only do 124 with attics during summer pick anyway? 

It's still Labor Day weekend though sir if that's the case, and they still usually do the full holiday weekend with artics. 

[Tcmetro]

Rode 124 today. It's on the fall schedule (every 22 min, vs 15 in summer) and no artics, meaning a very full trip. I watched a 40 foot pull into the station and there's plenty of room for the bus. I'd imagine a 60 footer could make it, and I don't think CTA would be foolish enough to build something that couldn't handle them.

[jajuan]

8 minutes ago, Tcmetro said:

Rode 124 today. It's on the fall schedule (every 22 min, vs 15 in summer) and no artics, meaning a very full trip. I watched a 40 foot pull into the station and there's plenty of room for the bus. I'd imagine a 60 footer could make it, and I don't think CTA would be foolish enough to build something that couldn't handle them.

The question wasn't whether the bus could fit in the terminal itself, but whether it could negotiate past the concrete island in the road that BH reported the city placed in the roadway on the Clinton side. And don't forget the project wasn't a CTA only project. The Chicago Department of Transportation was involved also. They were the lead agency of the Loop Link Project in fact. Remember it being reported that the city didn't take into account the different floor heights between each of the different current CTA bus models when building the bus stop platforms along the Loop Link cooridor?

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, jajuan said:

The question wasn't whether the bus could fit in the terminal itself, but whether it could negotiate past the concrete island in the road that BH reported the city placed in the roadway on the Clinton side.....

Are people forgetting that a 60 foot bus is 2 30 foot buses, or are they figuring that the rear compartment is going to whack something on day one?