Bus garage refurbishment

[Busjack]

There was just a TV news story on bus garage overhauls, but I see that the link is on the home page.

While 77th is mentioned as being 107 or however years old, it isn't mentioned whether this is the replacement of the 77th Garage, which has been mentioned in CTA capital plans for at least the last 10 years.

Also, only slightly covered is whether CTA has realized, like some of the rest of us, that it needs more storage capacity. Maybe relevant to our discussion of 74th is: "... we have to use extra staff to make up for the inadequate equipment that can neither support more modern vehicles nor accommodate the space needed for the increasing number of 60-foot buses we're adding to the fleet..."

There is again the reference to "sales tax bonds," which again makes one wonder what will be left to subsidize operating once all the sales taxes are diverted to pay for these projects. But, again, some of you think that our asking these questions make the inquiring minds look stupid. Wait for the next "Moving Beyond Congestion," I mean tax hike campaign.

[i8itall4u]

I have always wondered why Forest Glen and North Park were never replaced. Maybe they are now within 10 years of someone's long term plans.

[Busjack]

I have always wondered why Forest Glen and North Park were never replaced. Maybe they are now within 10 years of someone's long term plans.

When they were about 50 years old, they were mentioned in some capital plan. Of course, now they have made it to 60 some (more or less, probably less for FG).

I still wonder how outdoor storage was thought o.k. on the north side, but, at least with respect to North Park, it seems like it is not properly located (on the same north south axis as Kedzie and east west as Forest Glen, and not near the main terminus at Howard), but it would take an awful lot of land to put it, say, in Rogers Park.

In that CTA got the TIGER grant for 80 electric outlets for hybrids at NP, I doubt that it is moving soon (nor are its hybrids).

[See Tea Eh]

There were two good locations I could think of to build a new bus garage. One was on land CTA owned, then sold for development. The other seems to be vacant right now.

The old Wilson yard would have been an excellent replacement for North Park. Close to Lake Shore Drive for minimal deadheading for all of the lakefront routes. Close to the Red Line, so easy access for operators making reliefs up and down the corridor (including Howard, which is a pain with the 92-to-Red Line connection right now that takes a while).

But it was sold to build a Target, so that's no longer a possibility.

The other location is right at the Western Orange Line. The land immediately adjacent appears to be light industrial (I haven't done full research, but in riding by, that's what it appears to be). On a frequent bus corridor and on a rail line, making reliefs easy. It would be a good replacement for Archer Garage, and better located for virtually everything than 74th Garage (another poorly located garage, where reliefs are difficult at best due to the closest bus route not being all that frequent nor having a particularly good west end connection).

I don't know if the facilities could be converted for such, but if they were to build this hypothetical Western Avenue garage, they could move much of 74th Garage's operations there, and, if it were possible/feasible (I don't know, not familiar with the specific needs of a mechanical shop, and 74th Garage was the one garage I never visited), relocate South Shops to 74th Garage. That way South Shops could have a relatively modern facility, and day-to-day operations could be run out of a garage with a location convenient to actually serving things.

[artthouwill]

There were two good locations I could think of to build a new bus garage. One was on land CTA owned, then sold for development. The other seems to be vacant right now.

The old Wilson yard would have been an excellent replacement for North Park. Close to Lake Shore Drive for minimal deadheading for all of the lakefront routes. Close to the Red Line, so easy access for operators making reliefs up and down the corridor (including Howard, which is a pain with the 92-to-Red Line connection right now that takes a while).

But it was sold to build a Target, so that's no longer a possibility.

The other location is right at the Western Orange Line. The land immediately adjacent appears to be light industrial (I haven't done full research, but in riding by, that's what it appears to be). On a frequent bus corridor and on a rail line, making reliefs easy. It would be a good replacement for Archer Garage, and better located for virtually everything than 74th Garage (another poorly located garage, where reliefs are difficult at best due to the closest bus route not being all that frequent nor having a particularly good west end connection).

I don't know if the facilities could be converted for such, but if they were to build this hypothetical Western Avenue garage, they could move much of 74th Garage's operations there, and, if it were possible/feasible (I don't know, not familiar with the specific needs of a mechanical shop, and 74th Garage was the one garage I never visited), relocate South Shops to 74th Garage. That way South Shops could have a relatively modern facility, and day-to-day operations could be run out of a garage with a location convenient to actually serving things.

I like your idea. Not only could you move 74ths ops there,.but 77th routes 35, 39, and.43 also.

Note there.is a difference between 77th garage and South Shops even though they are on the same property. Comparatively speaking, South Shops facility is relatively modern. It is also easily accessible to the Ryan Expwy. I don't know if your new garage could be built at the same time 77th gets rebuilt, but in any case, an existing, unused Archer garage could temporarily become operational while a new garage(s) gets built.

[cta5658]

Did they say anything about the 103rd Garage? (AKA the 03)

[artthouwill]

Did they say anything about the 103rd Garage? (AKA the 03)

The article only talks about updating the repair areas and wash racks at ALL of the garages. No newly built ones, not even to replace ancient 77th, though age was cited as a reason to close Archer.

[BusHunter]

I wonder if there going to add repair facilities/lifts at some of the garages for the 60 foot artics? It seems kind of ridiculous to suggest places like the #77 would get artics, if the artics came from Kedzie. Kedzie would seem to have alot of routes already that could benefit from a 60 foot bus like the #62,#52, #8, #12, #82, #21 or even the #60. I think it would be smart to add Chicago to the list of artic garages. They could benefit greatly from some longer buses on the #20, #66, #72, #54, #74, #53 and it's not to far of a leap to suggest them for the #77, and ball game extras on the #152. They could always transfer FG operations to cover the West Rogers Park/Evanston/Skokie area (#93, #96, #97, #155, #201, #205, #206) to compensate. On the South side 74th may or may not be a good candidate. I say this because I don't know if the garage has the space for too many artics, but it's routes could use the extra capacity also. (They really could use another garage as the void caused by the Archer closing puts added stress on 74th and Kedzie.) I think this is one of the reasons why they don't bring back the 2009 cuts even though there having good ridership now. Without Archer or another garage, that's physically impossible.

[cta_44499_FG]

(They really could use another garage as the void caused by the Archer closing puts added stress on 74th and Kedzie.) I think this is one of the reasons why they don't bring back the 2009 cuts even though there having good ridership now. Without Archer or another garage, that's physically impossible.

The original intention of past was always to modernize or replace Archer. However, our former great "Feuhrer" Rodriguez decided it was logical to close it.

[Busjack]

The article only talks about updating the repair areas and wash racks at ALL of the garages. No newly built ones, not even to replace ancient 77th, though age was cited as a reason to close Archer.

That is correct. However, even Hilkevitch, while reading the press release to the camera in the Tribune story, added "I've been to 77th.." they still have the rails in the pavement from the streetcar era.

It is one thing to upgrade the equipment in the 4 newest garages (C, K, 74, and 103) and another trying to get 77th in modern shape to handle what Claypool says it has to handle. Maybe a comparison could be made to Steinbrenner saying that the mechanical condition of Yankee Stadium made replacing it with something that looked the same but with modern amenities necessary, while Ricketts is begging for help to refurbish Wrigley Field.

But as I noted at the top of the page, Claypool (and the leakers) haven't said anything one way or the other.

[sw4400]

and if it were possible/feasible, relocate South Shops to 74th Garage. That way South Shops could have a relatively modern facility, and day-to-day operations could be run out of a garage with a location convenient to actually serving things.

Possible, but not feasible... 74th St. Garage can service the 40' buses, yes... but what about the Artics? This Garage was designed to hold 55' M.A.N Artics from back in the day, not the 60' New Flyers currently on the road. They would have to renovate the Garage to accomodate the New Flyer Artics, thus defeating the purpose of the move as more money would be required to update 74th... and if you're going to do that, why not leave the garage where it is?

[Busjack]

Possible, but not feasible... 74th St. Garage can service the 40' buses, yes... but what about the Artics? This Garage was designed to hold 55' M.A.N Artics from back in the day, not the 60' New Flyers currently on the road. They would have to renovate the Garage to accomodate the New Flyer Artics, thus defeating the purpose of the move as more money would be required to update 74th... and if you're going to do that, why not leave the garage where it is?

I guess you missed that they are updating all seven garages. 7.

How about reading the linked articles, first?

[See Tea Eh]

Possible, but not feasible... 74th St. Garage can service the 40' buses, yes... but what about the Artics? This Garage was designed to hold 55' M.A.N Artics from back in the day, not the 60' New Flyers currently on the road. They would have to renovate the Garage to accomodate the New Flyer Artics, thus defeating the purpose of the move as more money would be required to update 74th... and if you're going to do that, why not leave the garage where it is?

Besides the already noted plan to equip the garages with the necessary lifts and whatnot to service artics, as I pointed out earlier, 74th Garage is poorly located from an operational standpoint. For operators to make street reliefs on a route like the 52A or 53A, they have to head east to Ashland, south to 79th, and west to Kedzie/Pulaski. The only bus route serving the garage directly is the 75, which is not that frequent of a bus route, so you're paying bus operators more to wait for a bus, and make multiple transfers to get to a relief point.

It's also not that convenient for deadheading to too many routes, either.

Those are issues that you don't have to worry about for a fleet overhaul facility, since you're not running regular service out of there.

As for the condition of South Shops, I'm only going off of memory of what folks told me back when I was at CTA. They said the shops were old and in need of updates, there were too many places for employees to "hide" and whatnot. The little bit of South Shops that I did see certainly looked like it had quite a few decades under its belt. I don't know the whole facility, but was just speculating out loud that if the 74th Garage facility could accommodate a relocated South Shops (obviously, with modifications since it would be geared more towards maintenance rather than overnight storage), then you could make use of a relatively new, already-built facility and not waste it, but still build a garage somewhere else that would be better for the actual day-to-day operation.

Of course, I'm not even sure what kind of maintenance even gets done at South Shops these days. The RFP that went out for rebuilding the 1000 D40LFs is the sort of work that, at one time, was done in-house by large transit agencies with massive fleet overhaul facilities (such as, you know, South Shops). I remember back in Milwaukee when the Cold Spring Shops (on Highland Blvd, just east of Martin Drive, where the railroad is) rehabbed the GM Fishbowl fleet for MCTS. Those rehabbed buses lasted another 10-15 years before retirement. I recall reading somewhere that MCTS also tried contracting out the rehabs of some of those buses, but the contractor either went bust or their quality was too low. In any event, some of the buses (I think the 1800 series) never got rehabbed like they should, but the in-house guys did the 1900s and 2000s, and they lasted as long as a new bus would have.

But that's diverting off the topic of garage refurbishment, so I'll stop there.

[jajuan]

I wonder if there going to add repair facilities/lifts at some of the garages for the 60 foot artics? It seems kind of ridiculous to suggest places like the #77 would get artics, if the artics came from Kedzie. Kedzie would seem to have alot of routes already that could benefit from a 60 foot bus like the #62,#52, #8, #12, #82, #21 or even the #60. I think it would be smart to add Chicago to the list of artic garages. They could benefit greatly from some longer buses on the #20, #66, #72, #54, #74, #53 and it's not to far of a leap to suggest them for the #77, and ball game extras on the #152. They could always transfer FG operations to cover the West Rogers Park/Evanston/Skokie area (#93, #96, #97, #155, #201, #205, #206) to compensate. On the South side 74th may or may not be a good candidate. I say this because I don't know if the garage has the space for too many artics, but it's routes could use the extra capacity also. (They really could use another garage as the void caused by the Archer closing puts added stress on 74th and Kedzie.) I think this is one of the reasons why they don't bring back the 2009 cuts even though there having good ridership now. Without Archer or another garage, that's physically impossible.

From what I'm understanding they are at that planning on updating the maintenance facilities and lifts with CTA planning on getting more artics. The plan is supposed to touch on all 7 current garages. The articles imply that CTA head honchos get that they have to do something about storage capacity in addition to the official maintenance capacity reasons if they plan on having at minimum 400 plus artics (the current 208 + the 100 they're again piggybacking from a Seattle option + the 100 minimum out of the planned 425 buses). Having 6 out of 7 garages able to accomodate repairs on 60 foot buses even if the facilities overall in the system are out of date just won't cut it for having 400 artics around. Given those numbers, that makes it less feasible for them to try cramming artics on garages that currently have artics such as Kedzie. As I stated observing some time ago up until the time I moved from the near vicinity of that garage that even with the 2009 cuts and the close to 300 remaining 6000s at the time being taken out of service, Kedzie was still parkiing buses at night and some other offpeak hours in front of the garage bay doors much as it was before the cuts. It just doesn't have the space for more artics. And the routes you mentioned may be feasible for some artics during the rush periods but it gets tricky when we're talking nonrush. The 52 for example from what I observed of having lived near the route once only saw big upticks on school days, so artics might be good for school trippers. The 12 already does occasional rush hour runs with artics outside of the weekend full artic coverage. The 82 already gets artics normally assigned at NP on school trippers between Bryn Mawr and Congress to handle the school loads from Northside Prep, Von Steuben and the high school down the street from the Kimball Brown line station before they then take the Eisenhower into downtown to become 135s and 136s. So the possibly of say artics on the 77 may not be as over the top as you think.

[artthouwill]

If all 7 garages are getting remodeled, refurbished, then it would seem to make sense that the service areas at 74th garage would get retrofitted with new lifts to accommodate 60ft buses.

I believe the 77th garage dates back to the early 1900s. I'm not certain about the South Shops facility, though I would guess at least 50 years old. It looks like 77th has its own repair facility and South Shops foes major repairs for buses systemwide.

[sw4400]

The RFP that went out for rebuilding the 1000 D40LFs is the sort of work that, at one time, was done in-house by large transit agencies with massive fleet overhaul facilities (such as, you know, South Shops).

That kind of work being done on 1,030 D40LF buses is most likely an outsourced job, where a portion of the fleet will be out of service for a period of time for a complete and total teardown and rebuild(the only thing remaining from these buses will be the frames underneath). I wonder why the 20 DE40LF's are not going to be included... maybe they might be retired soon along with the Optimas and NOVA Buses? You think the CTA would really miss 20 DE40LF's when they're getting 1,030 brand new(so to speak) D40LF's and 325 D40LFR's?

[sw4400]

On the South side 74th may or may not be a good candidate. I say this because I don't know if the garage has the space for too many artics

That's what I was thinking when I discussed earlier about 74th not being able to support 60' artics. Yes, Busjack.... they could extend lifts to service them, but if the garage space isn't capable of holding 60' buses, then why build/extend lifts for them? North Park, Kedzie, 77th and 103rd are space capable to hold artics... that's why they are assigned to them. The renovations being done are just for maintenance facilities in the garages, Busjack... not total rebuilds of the garages!!! Chicago, Forest Glen and 74th don't have the required capacity. If they did, FG wouldn't need to borrow from NP for Cubs games and school trippers on Addison, they would have a stock of DE60LF's on their property.

Here's the link again in case you forgot. Here's the excerpts you should take a moment to read and dissect...

More than half the $205 million pricetag — $130 million — will be used to upgrade the seven bus garages and the repair equipment inside them. The rest of the money will be used to overhaul rail shops.

The project includes everything from repair and replacement of bus fueling and servicing facilities, inspection pits, bus hoists and wash racks to expansion of the South Shops used for heavy maintenance to accommodate a growing number of articulated buses.

As you can see, the only "Garage" being expanded is South Shops... the other 7 are remaining the same, size and capacity-wise, just getting new service equipment.

[See Tea Eh]

That kind of work being done on 1,030 D40LF buses is most likely an outsourced job

Umm, I'm under the impression that it will be (not "most likely" but definitely) an outsourced job. Hence the RFP.

where a portion of the fleet will be out of service for a period of time for a complete and total teardown and rebuild(the only thing remaining from these buses will be the frames underneath).

The point I was making in the part of my post that you quoted is that this is the exact sort of work that facilities at South Shops used to do. Some transit systems still do it in house.

I wonder why the 20 DE40LF's are not going to be included... maybe they might be retired soon along with the Optimas and NOVA Buses? You think the CTA would really miss 20 DE40LF's when they're getting 1,030 brand new(so to speak) D40LF's and 325 D40LFR's?

No need to read into it what isn't there.

That's what I was thinking when I discussed earlier about 74th not being able to support 60' artics. Yes, Busjack.... they could extend lifts to service them, but if the garage space isn't capable of holding 60' buses, then why build/extend lifts for them?

The main thing that determines whether or not a garage is "capable" of holding artics is whether or not the shop facilities can handle them. Otherwise, it's just a matter of how many buses you want to put in a garage. An artic takes up the space of 1.5 40-footers, so if they reduced total fleet count at FG, they could run artics out of there today, provided the maintenance facilities were capable of servicing them. Likewise, they could theoretically expand the fleet count at Kedzie or North Park by replacing artics with 40-footers (of course, then you run into other issues such as ability to fuel and service a certain number of buses every day, regardless of how big they are; but just in terms of physical space, you could do it).

North Park, Kedzie, 77th and 103rd are space capable to hold artics... that's why they are assigned to them. The renovations being done are just for lifts, Busjack... not total rebuilds of the garages!!! Chicago, Forest Glen and 74th don't have the required capacity. If they did, FG wouldn't need to borrow from NP for Cubs games and school trippers on Addison, they would have a stock of DE60LF's on their property.

Chicago Garage probably has the most physical space capacity of any garage in the system (with the possible exception of the 77th/South Shops location; haven't compared area). There's tons of space at Chicago, not only inside the garage itself, but it's on a large plot of land with driveways all around the building where they could park buses if needed.

If we want to get technical, Forest Glen doesn't "borrow" anything from North Park. The Cubs and school tripper work are assigned to North Park. Even if the garage had the maintenance capability to handle artics, with the current fleet (208 buses), Forest Glen wouldn't have any. For one, other than Belmont, there really isn't any Forest Glen route that would have much use for artics, other than the school peak and Cubs service on Addison (if not for the schools, which only bump up ridership for a couple hours a day, Addison would be a fairly sleepy route). Given that North Park has a significant demand for artic service on the lakefront, it makes more sense to run the artics out of NP, because those school trippers can then feed into the lakefront rush hour service. In the morning, those trips can run right into the 135. In the afternoon, the school peak is much earlier than the "rush hour" peak, so there's plenty of time to deadhead those buses downtown to do any number of express routes.

If the artic school trippers came out of Forest Glen, they'd be done at 4:00 in the afternoon, and have nothing else to do but go back to the garage, probably waving at a North Park run pulling out as they're pulling in. That would be a waste of resources.

Assigning artics to Forest Glen just for Cubs work would be even more of a waste, given that the Cubs play at home only 81 times per year, and only a few hours per day. Then there's also the question of which garage has the manpower available to absorb Cubs extras. Since North Park is a larger garage and has a bigger operation, they have a larger extra board which is more capable of handling the demand placed by Cubs extras (particularly when they play an afternoon home game, which requires extras to be out during the PM peak, which strains everybody's resources). That said, there are Forest Glen extras on the 152 for Cubs games (and school trippers, too), but the average bus foamer wouldn't be able to tell them apart from regular service (and the everyday passenger, even less so).

Manpower is something a lot of folks on here don't realize plays a key role in where extras are assigned.

In the past, I recall occasionally having to give the #154 extras to Kedzie Garage because North Park was stretched to the limit as far as available operators, even though total bus availability didn't change.

[Busjack]

That's what I was thinking when I discussed earlier about 74th not being able to support 60' artics. Yes, Busjack.... they could extend lifts to service them, but if the garage space isn't capable of holding 60' buses, then why build/extend lifts for them? North Park, Kedzie, 77th and 103rd are space capable to hold artics... that's why they are assigned to them. The renovations being done are just for maintenance facilities in the garages, Busjack... not total rebuilds of the garages!!! Chicago, Forest Glen and 74th don't have the required capacity. If they did, FG wouldn't need to borrow from NP for Cubs games and school trippers on Addison, they would have a stock of DE60LF's on their property.

Here's the link again in case you forgot. Here's the excerpts you should take a moment to read and dissect...

More than half the $205 million pricetag — $130 million — will be used to upgrade the seven bus garages and the repair equipment inside them. The rest of the money will be used to overhaul rail shops.

The project includes everything from repair and replacement of bus fueling and servicing facilities, inspection pits, bus hoists and wash racks to expansion of the South Shops used for heavy maintenance to accommodate a growing number of articulated buses.

As you can see, the only "Garage" being expanded is South Shops... the other 7 are remaining the same, size and capacity-wise, just getting new service equipment.

Why do you keep repeating "Busjack"????? You've disclosed that you don't work for CTA, and I can bet you have never been in any of their facilities.

I can read the release for myself, as I did at the top of the thread.

[jajuan]

That kind of work being done on 1,030 D40LF buses is most likely an outsourced job, where a portion of the fleet will be out of service for a period of time for a complete and total teardown and rebuild(the only thing remaining from these buses will be the frames underneath). I wonder why the 20 DE40LF's are not going to be included... maybe they might be retired soon along with the Optimas and NOVA Buses? You think the CTA would really miss 20 DE40LF's when they're getting 1,030 brand new(so to speak) D40LF's and 325 D40LFR's?

Only problem is despite the mayor's saying that everything on the 1000s but the frames would be brand new, others pointed out that the RFPs don't mention anything that extensive for the work they want to bid out to occur with the buses. And there's nothing to substantiate the hypothesizing that the 800s and 900s are going anywhere before their 12 year FTA lives end despite their press releases and the news articles that the Optimas were getting phased out.

[jajuan]

Umm, I'm under the impression that it will be (not "most likely" but definitely) an outsourced job. Hence the RFP.

The point I was making in the part of my post that you quoted is that this is the exact sort of work that facilities at South Shops used to do. Some transit systems still do it in house.

No need to read into it what isn't there.

The main thing that determines whether or not a garage is "capable" of holding artics is whether or not the shop facilities can handle them. Otherwise, it's just a matter of how many buses you want to put in a garage. An artic takes up the space of 1.5 40-footers, so if they reduced total fleet count at FG, they could run artics out of there today, provided the maintenance facilities were capable of servicing them. Likewise, they could theoretically expand the fleet count at Kedzie or North Park by replacing artics with 40-footers (of course, then you run into other issues such as ability to fuel and service a certain number of buses every day, regardless of how big they are; but just in terms of physical space, you could do it).

Chicago Garage probably has the most physical space capacity of any garage in the system (with the possible exception of the 77th/South Shops location; haven't compared area). There's tons of space at Chicago, not only inside the garage itself, but it's on a large plot of land with driveways all around the building where they could park buses if needed.

If we want to get technical, Forest Glen doesn't "borrow" anything from North Park. The Cubs and school tripper work are assigned to North Park. Even if the garage had the maintenance capability to handle artics, with the current fleet (208 buses), Forest Glen wouldn't have any. For one, other than Belmont, there really isn't any Forest Glen route that would have much use for artics, other than the school peak and Cubs service on Addison (if not for the schools, which only bump up ridership for a couple hours a day, Addison would be a fairly sleepy route). Given that North Park has a significant demand for artic service on the lakefront, it makes more sense to run the artics out of NP, because those school trippers can then feed into the lakefront rush hour service. In the morning, those trips can run right into the 135. In the afternoon, the school peak is much earlier than the "rush hour" peak, so there's plenty of time to deadhead those buses downtown to do any number of express routes.

If the artic school trippers came out of Forest Glen, they'd be done at 4:00 in the afternoon, and have nothing else to do but go back to the garage, probably waving at a North Park run pulling out as they're pulling in. That would be a waste of resources.

Assigning artics to Forest Glen just for Cubs work would be even more of a waste, given that the Cubs play at home only 81 times per year, and only a few hours per day. Then there's also the question of which garage has the manpower available to absorb Cubs extras. Since North Park is a larger garage and has a bigger operation, they have a larger extra board which is more capable of handling the demand placed by Cubs extras (particularly when they play an afternoon home game, which requires extras to be out during the PM peak, which strains everybody's resources). That said, there are Forest Glen extras on the 152 for Cubs games (and school trippers, too), but the average bus foamer wouldn't be able to tell them apart from regular service (and the everyday passenger, even less so).

Manpower is something a lot of folks on here don't realize plays a key role in where extras are assigned.

In the past, I recall occasionally having to give the #154 extras to Kedzie Garage because North Park was stretched to the limit as far as available operators, even though total bus availability didn't change.

This all makes a lot of sense. Part of my reason though for going with the thought that we would see artics outside the three that currently house them is that in addition to the 100 reported to be on the way within the next year and the about 100 they wish to have out of the 425 they wish to purchase outright after that 100 on the piggyback Seattle option, we're supposed to be seeing the phasing out of the Optimas along with the retirement of the Novas based on what the CTA says they want to do with the bus fleet over the next couple years minimum. I just don't see consolidating 400 articulated buses at just the current garages that now have them plus maybe one more addtional garage under those conditions even taking into account man power. I can see them more spread out even if one out of the seven garages didn't get artics or if say FG for instance got just enough to use on Belmont with maybe a mix out of the 325 new 40 footers plus some 1000s shifted from other garages. There was a point after all where CTA was still only functioning with just over 100 artics where in the final months of the 7300s, Kedzie only had enough artics to operate the 156 LaSalle before the 134 and later 148 got created and 77th had just enough to operate the 6 back when it still had that route in its assigned routes.

[See Tea Eh]

This all makes a lot of sense. Part of my reason though for going with the thought that we would see artics outside the three that currently house them is that in addition to the 100 reported to be on the way within the next year and the about 100 they wish to have out of the 425 they wish to purchase outright after that 100 on the piggyback Seattle option, we're supposed to be seeing the phasing out of the Optimas along with the retirement of the Novas based on what the CTA says they want to do with the bus fleet over the next couple years minimum. I just don't see consolidating 400 articulated buses at just the current garages that now have them plus maybe one more addtional garage under those conditions even taking into account man power. I can see them more spread out even if one out of the seven garages didn't get artics or if say FG for instance got just enough to use on Belmont with maybe a mix out of the 325 new 40 footers plus some 1000s shifted from other garages. There was a point after all where CTA was still only functioning with just over 100 artics where in the final months of the 7300s, Kedzie only had enough artics to operate the 156 LaSalle before the 134 and later 148 got created and 77th had just enough to operate the 6 back when it still had that route in its assigned routes.

With additional artics, sure, they will go to other garages. My comment was challenging the notion that 1) garages such as Forest Glen aren't capable of handling artics for reasons other than maintenance facilities and that, 2) if Forest Glen was capable, then you'd see them operating artics today. Mainly, with a fleet of 208 (or the 226 NABIs), you still wouldn't see them at Forest Glen because there are other, higher-priority locations to put that limited of a fleet.

Now, once the fleet becomes less limited (by adding another hundred or two), they'll start showing up elsewhere.

[Guest]

With additional artics, sure, they will go to other garages. My comment was challenging the notion that 1) garages such as Forest Glen aren't capable of handling artics for reasons other than maintenance facilities and that, 2) if Forest Glen was capable, then you'd see them operating artics today. Mainly, with a fleet of 208 (or the 226 NABIs), you still wouldn't see them at Forest Glen because there are other, higher-priority locations to put that limited of a fleet.

Now, once the fleet becomes less limited (by adding another hundred or two), they'll start showing up elsewhere.

After my time at FG , I can say this.... the artics can do not have space there. Maybe parking but they will have to come up with a new and revised pattern of parking buses if they were to accommodate artics there. But the biggest concern would have to be the maintenance facility there, it was of course, not built to accommodate longer articulated buses. There are no special lifts for artics, plus the space there, theres no room to move 60ft buses around inside that small building. The garage was built in 1949, the concept of longer, high capacity buses were still a ways off. With new residential housing springing up rapidly just behind and east of the FG facility, I highly doubt that construction of a new facility whether an all new garage or an updated maintenance facility would be impossible now.

[jajuan]

With additional artics, sure, they will go to other garages. My comment was challenging the notion that 1) garages such as Forest Glen aren't capable of handling artics for reasons other than maintenance facilities and that, 2) if Forest Glen was capable, then you'd see them operating artics today. Mainly, with a fleet of 208 (or the 226 NABIs), you still wouldn't see them at Forest Glen because there are other, higher-priority locations to put that limited of a fleet.

Now, once the fleet becomes less limited (by adding another hundred or two), they'll start showing up elsewhere.

Oh no I wasn't challenging you on your post. I was just fleshing out my own thinking more. My apologies if I gave the impression that I challenge you on what you say. I meant to point out that your post exempiflies that bus fleet garage assignments are not as simple as some like to make them out to be and actually are more complicated than those same people like to admit.

[BusHunter]

After my time at FG , I can say this.... the artics can do not have space there. Maybe parking but they will have to come up with a new and revised pattern of parking buses if they were to accommodate artics there. But the biggest concern would have to be the maintenance facility there, it was of course, not built to accommodate longer articulated buses. There are no special lifts for artics, plus the space there, theres no room to move 60ft buses around inside that small building. The garage was built in 1949, the concept of longer, high capacity buses were still a ways off. With new residential housing springing up rapidly just behind and east of the FG facility, I highly doubt that construction of a new facility whether an all new garage or an updated maintenance facility would be impossible now.

which is why we won't be seeing artics there. Now that they built those homes east of the garage, they couldn't close Armstrong if they wanted to for a garage expansion. (Weird they have a public street bisecting the garage anyway) If they ever rebuilt the garage it would have to be done elsewhere. The only spot I could think of would be the state owned land around Read mental, but that has been slowly disappearing and it's probably not valid anymore.