CTA and a longer school day

[BusHunter]

Since the year round schools have now started going back and they are saying that the high schoolers will go 7 1/2 hours, I'm really starting to get interested how this is going to be handled by the CTA when CPS goes back all together in Sept. Sounds like school may be getting out around 3:45 or 4:00 in the afternoon. This would put them really close to rush hour. I wonder if this is going to have an impact on rush hour operations or will the PM rush runs stay in longer. Most go out starting around 1:30 now. Places like the Lane Tech school runs won't hit the west end until 5:00 PM, which would put them hitting downtown by 6 or 6:30, (unless they run them light EB) but by then the rush hour is over. But then everything could be delayed by a high volume of traffic. (traffic volumes are different at 3PM versus 5PM) Seems to me like this longer school day is going to be a killer for the evening rush. I wonder if anyone's thought about that. :rolleyes:

[Busjack]

I think we'll have to watch BusTracker for that. Most routes have runs that start at some intersection that turns out to be a school, and obviously it wouldn't make sense to leave early empty. But you do bring up the interlining problem.

If there are any drivers out there that got a pick that reflects that, please note that here.

[jajuan]

I don't think Emmanuel thought of it or even cared. It sounds like one of those things he just threw out there to parents to give the optics that he's tough on education. It seems to me it was more we got to get these education rules in place to lock in that school age parent vote with no though of oh wait we have to coordinate with CTA about this so they will be able to have buses scheduled properly to get the kids home.

[Busjack]

I don't think Emmanuel thought of it or even cared. It sounds like one of those things he just threw out there to parents to give the optics that he's tough on education. It seems to me it was more we got to get these education rules in place to lock in that school age parent vote with no though of oh wait we have to coordinate with CTA about this so they will be able to have buses scheduled properly to get the kids home.

Is this an educational politics point, or saying that Brizard didn't tell Claypool to reschedule the buses? The latter is possible.

[jajuan]

Is this an educational politics point, or saying that Brizard didn't tell Claypool to reschedule the buses? The latter is possible.

It could probably be seen as an educational politics point to a degree but in the overall context of transit, my overall point is it doesn't appear yet that CPS said to CTA 'Hey we need you to reschedule the buses for this longer school day that we've been pushing." The way Bushunter framed his question and opened the thread you can't help but have the educational politics aspect mesh into potential responses since the thread does link CTA and CPS and because both have become political bastions of Da Mayor, whomever he/she turns out to be at any given time at the time.

[CURRENTZ_09]

All these questions should be resolved when the CTA releases the fall bus schedules online which should be avaliable for preview on transitchicago. com either next week or by the end of August if i am assuming thats what the CTA will do

[trainman8119]

The longer school day has been in the works for a long time now. Anyone with half

a brain in the planning department should have picked up that bus schedules that

involved trippers would have to be adjusted if they were going to continue to provide

the same service. As much as I believe there are many dull bulbs there, I really don't

think it would have taken an executive order from the mayor to accomplish this.

[jajuan]

And therein lies the problem when city departments and municipal corporations, in this case CPS and CTA for the purposes of this thread, become political havens for those at the top of city government, in this case the mayor, to post political hacks with little or no credible experience in the areas that their departments or institutions provide services and will just say yes to that top official's directives with no thought until the last minute on how to implement it or how it spills over into how other services are provided.

[BusHunter]

Not to sound insensitive to education, but maybe there is a good reason school ends by 2:30 or 3:00 PM. From a traffic perspective, not only are they going to get the yellow school buses off the street by rush hour (not possible anymore) They are asking the crossing guards to work and stop traffic more closer to the rush hour. Then there's the safety of the children being asked to cross a street in rush hour. If they really wanted to increase the school day, they should send the kids to school earlier, so they get out before rush hour starts.

[Busjack]

All these questions should be resolved when the CTA releases the fall bus schedules online which should be avaliable for preview on transitchicago. com either next week or by the end of August if i am assuming thats what the CTA will do

Not really. If you look for instance at the 86 schedule, which covers Taft HS, it merely says "Additional service may be provided on school days, September through June." And at least that one has specific run times.

A similar legend is on 55, even though it doesn't show Lowe Ave. as a timepoint, but BusTracker will. 55 is more typical as being an "every x to y minutes from z" type schedule.

Maybe you are arguing that these schedules were reissued June 12, but I don't think that means they will be reissued on the first day of school, which has already happened for some schools.

This isn't Milwaukee or Pace North.

[jajuan]

Not to sound insensitive to education, but maybe there is a good reason school ends by 2:30 or 3:00 PM. From a traffic perspective, not only are they going to get the yellow school buses off the street by rush hour (not possible anymore) They are asking the crossing guards to work and stop traffic more closer to the rush hour. Then there's the safety of the children being asked to cross a street in rush hour. If they really wanted to increase the school day, they should send the kids to school earlier, so they get out before rush hour starts.

That's been my thought on it especially when a lot of these schools are in areas with increased gang activity and increased shootings. That's what leads me to say they're pushing this with no thought because now you want these kids to come home in a lot of cases alone from school at 3:30 maybe 4 in the afternoon and we know a good portion of the school year that's when it's approaching night time. And yes to keep it on the transit aspect, you now have these kids walking amongst traffic in the throes of rush hour. And for those old enough to have to use the bus and train to get to and from school it means you now have them on a bus or train after dark more often than not at a time when we're talking about adults being concerned about a safe commute. It makes no sense. Mom and Dad are probably up early to go to work anyway so it makes more sense to tack the extra time to the morning rather than tacking it at the end of the day.

[See Tea Eh]

The longer school day has been in the works for a long time now. Anyone with half

a brain in the planning department should have picked up that bus schedules that

involved trippers would have to be adjusted if they were going to continue to provide

the same service. As much as I believe there are many dull bulbs there, I really don't

think it would have taken an executive order from the mayor to accomplish this.

What's with all the insults aimed at the planning department?

[trainman8119]

What's with all the insults aimed at the planning department?

If the CTA's planning department is anything like Pace's or Metra's, there

are people who just don't get it. I have witnessed both first hand. No department

or organization is totally inept or totally competent. My point being, is that

this situation should be obvious and should not take an executive order to complete.

IF it is not obvious, then the dull bulb reference should be self explanitory.

[rmadisonwi]

If the CTA's planning department is anything like Pace's or Metra's, there

are people who just don't get it. I have witnessed both first hand. No department

or organization is totally inept or totally competent. My point being, is that

this situation should be obvious and should not take an executive order to complete.

IF it is not obvious, then the dull bulb reference should be self explanitory.

My first question is, where is it stated anywhere that CTA isn't doing anything to adjust service for school changes? Nothing in this thread says they aren't.

That said, back when I was at CTA, I was directly involved in scheduling the school trippers, and I don't think that many people out there truly understand or appreciate what it takes to coordinate service to the 40-50 (I forget how many) schools that received dedicated trippers or other service adjustments, many of which had multiple trips (sometimes on multiple routes).

It's not like this is the first time CPS has ever changed their school day schedules. In fact, if memory serves me, there was a district-wide change to their schedules four or five years ago that required rescheduling a couple hundred trippers.

Further, even when there isn't a large-scale change that goes district-wide, some schools are still changing their schedules, even if only by a few minutes (and that is taken into account).

On top of that, many schools (particularly the larger ones, but even some of the smaller ones) had multiple bell times during the day, where maybe half of the students would get out at 2:30 pm, and the other half at 3:00 pm.

Then there are the schools (most of them) who had crazy schedules every few weeks where kids would get out at noon instead of 2:30 pm, or the every 15th Thursday where they'd get out at 12:30, or Wednesdays at 1:46 pm (except Wednesdays when they're off on Monday, then they get out at 2:12 pm).

Then there are the days off where the trippers are held in (but a normal weekday schedule still operates). Then there are the private and suburban schools that have a completely different calendar than the CPS schools. Then there are the special/military/charter/whatever schools within CPS that have completely different calendars than the rest of CPS.

The process of getting the trippers scheduled for the fall would typically start in April with a letter to the schools asking them a few simple questions, namely, what time will your students' school day begin (and how many will begin at that time), and what time will students be dismissed (and how many will be dismissed at that time)? Then, mark on a calendar any off days, and what days special schedules run (the early dismissals, late starts, etc.). Just to compare and make sure no errors were made, we also asked the schools for a copy of their bell schedule (the schedule they give their students, stating what time the periods start and end). You'd be surprised (or maybe not) how often they didn't match.

A school might say that 1,000 students get out at 2:30 pm, but the bell schedule shows the last period ends at 2:44 pm. "Oh, but we want the buses to be there by 2:30, so we said 2:30." The response was generally, as politely as possible, something to the effect of, you schedule your students, we schedule the buses. We schedule the buses around when the students will be getting to the bus stop, not when some administrator would like them to be parked in front of their school.

Then there were times that CTA staff would find errors in the school's own schedule (why are most of the periods 50 minutes long, but this one only 20 minutes long. School response: "oops"). Then there were plenty of cases where schools simply didn't respond, and we had to either assume no changes from the previous year, or search through the school's website (a waste of our time) and hope that info was there (and hope that it was up to date). This would be followed up by phone calls to find out why they couldn't respond to a survey in two months. One school told us they never received our initial letter becaused they fired the mail room guy and never replaced him.

Then there was the school that, one week into the school year, still couldn't tell us what their schedule was.

So, no, this stuff doesn't take an executive order to complete. It takes the folks who work there doing the same thing they've done every year for years.

Apology accepted.

[Busjack]

That said, back when I was at CTA, I was directly involved in scheduling the school trippers, and I don't think that many people out there truly understand or appreciate what it takes to coordinate service to the 40-50 (I forget how many) schools that received dedicated trippers or other service adjustments, many of which had multiple trips (sometimes on multiple routes).

...

That said, brings us back to BusHunter's original question, which included how interlined buses (such as someone mentioning about 3 years ago that a bus went from Clemente west to Austin, then came back as a Madison) are affected by the school times.

[artthouwill]

I spoke with a driver who had this unusual tripper. She started as an 8A S Halsted from 79th & Perry to 103rd.& Halsted. Then she deadheaded to Julian High to run a 24 Wentworth to Simeon High. Remember the 24 no longer has service south of 87th. At Simeon, which is at 82nd & Vincennes, she became an eastbound 79th bus to the Lakefront.

[BusHunter]

That said, brings us back to BusHunter's original question, which included how interlined buses (such as someone mentioning about 3 years ago that a bus went from Clemente west to Austin, then came back as a Madison) are affected by the school times.

That's most likely going to change. If buses can't make the rush hour downtown, they could always schedule those to complete a shift on a regular garage based route, and have more of those runs either change to another route or go to the garage. It may be a scheduling nightmare, but the challenge is not to change what they don't have to or they have a snowballing effect and have to change everything. Maybe when they get more artics, alot of those buses will not even travel downtown and may end up doing the local service in the area. You have to ask yourself, with all this out of service shifting around how much money do they lose in operators getting in place.

[Busjack]

All these questions should be resolved when the CTA releases the fall bus schedules online which should be avaliable for preview on transitchicago. com either next week or by the end of August if i am assuming thats what the CTA will do

Not really. If you look for instance at the 86 schedule, which covers Taft HS, it merely says "Additional service may be provided on school days, September through June." And at least that one has specific run times.

A similar legend is on 55, even though it doesn't show Lowe Ave. as a timepoint, but BusTracker will. 55 is more typical as being an "every x to y minutes from z" type schedule.

...

As noted under the 31st St. topic, the new schedules have been posted. The ones for 55 and 86 are exactly as I said; the legend about additional service on school days is still there, but no school trippers or school timepoints on the timetables.

[BusHunter]

As noted under the 31st St. topic, the new schedules have been posted. The ones for 55 and 86 are exactly as I said; the legend about additional service on school days is still there, but no school trippers or school timepoints on the timetables.

On the #86 the run that leaves at 3:17PM SB from Imlay and goes through Steinmetz around 3:47PM and terminates at North ave should be a school run. It has the right timeframe and past school runs have always terminated there and interlined with the #72. That one run was ran by Chicago long ago, now it might be a FG run doing something different.

[Busjack]

On the #86 the run that leaves at 3:17PM SB from Imlay and goes through Steinmetz around 3:47PM and terminates at North ave should be a school run. It has the right timeframe and past school runs have always terminated there and interlined with the #72. That one run was ran by Chicago long ago, now it might be a FG run doing something different.

Could be, but my point was that there was nothing on the schedule to distinguish it, except that it doesn't go to the Lake-Cuyler loop, and there is one fewer line on the NB table than the SB one.

[artthouwill]

With the CPS teachers on strike, it seems the kids have a longer summer break.

This morning two K Buses 1717 and 909 were pulling up on the 35th side of CPD Hqts, presumably to shuttle officers downtown for striking teachers.

[trainman8119]

With the CPS teachers on strike, it seems the kids have a longer summer break.

This morning two K Buses 1717 and 909 were pulling up on the 35th side of CPD Hqts, presumably to shuttle officers downtown for striking teachers.

Funny, they have plenty of $$$ for that kind of stuff, but no $$$ to provide service and pay employees.

This city sucks more and more every day.

[chitowndude84]

CPD "Borrow" buses from kedzie ??

Why not use their own ??

[Busjack]

CPD "Borrow" buses from kedzie ??

Why not use their own ??

Wasn't this on the auction list? Or was that another?

[chitowndude84]

Wasn't this on the auction list? Or was that another?

IIRC the ones in that auction a few months ago were 6000 series,The bus above going by the painted steel wheels is a 5300 series.