CTA Service Adjustments

[Busjack]

I kept thinking to myself that there's got to be more to this than the official double talk of alleviating crowding, cutting back service duplication, and moving underutilized equipment to services where they're more needed...

I had indicated earlier that there was some unstated reason why CTA didn't want to serve Illinois Center and Wilson Ave., and made all sorts of assumptions about Pace that weren't necessarily valid. However, unless the press under reported it, there didn't seem to be complaints about 56A and 90N, so maybe people don't ride them (or believed either CTA or that showing up would be futile).

You can throw in Kevin O'Neil's [expletive deleted] comment "And you can bet we'll be monitoring the results after the plan takes effect on Dec. 16." At least I confronted him on that directly. Even though he mentioned CTA metrics, the current ones don't include "passengers crammed per rush hour bus/train car." But to bring back the Red Eye bunching comment, "Gap in Bus Intervals" suddenly went into the toilet in June 2012.

There also has to be some point to that the people Rahm and Forrest teed off live in their neighborhood, and according to sw, dissed their alderman. Very little was done on the south side.

The only thing with which I have to disagree with you is that the proposed 120-121 Streeterville loop is not the same as the 157, and is justified by the hospital complex, but I mentioned that before.

[sw4400]

Got my automated B.S reply from the CTA regarding my disgust about the elimination of the #11 Lincoln/Sedgwick route and the importance of it for businesses, not just the one I work for, but the ones all throughout our area. The Brown Line at Irving Park and Montrose is about 4-8 blocks from our store entrance(more toward 8). If you're a senior citizen or someone with mobility issues, why would you want to walk nearly 8 blocks to get your groceries and 8 blocks, plus up 3 flights of stairs to catch a Brown Line train? We're going to start to lose our valued customers not because of prices, not because of Customer Service.... what's going to kill us???? The CTA!!!

Anyway, rant aside.... here's the automated B.S reply...

Thank you for your comments. In a major initiative to reduce uncomfortable crowding and meet growing ridership, service will be added in high-demand bus routes and rail lines across the entire CTA-network. Reducing crowding has a direct and significant impact on customer comfort and satisfaction.

Although it was a difficult decision to reduce service, we also considered nearby CTA bus, rail service or Pace service as an available alternative. In most cases, service was added to the bus and rail options. As the implementation date of December 16, 2012 approaches, we will be providing more details.

We appreciate and value your use of the transit service.

CTA FEEDBACK TEAM

[Busjack]

Got my automated B.S reply from the CTA

Well, at least you know that it is what it is. Maybe someone from Milwaukee can try and get the same response. Remember what I said about the recycling bin?

[sw4400]

Well, at least you know that it is what it is. Maybe someone from Milwaukee can try and get the same response. Remember what I said about the recycling bin?

Well, I gotta exhaust all available options with this fight.... we're fighting a war with Mariano's and Aldi(our closest competitors who have bus service right by their doors). I will try Ald. Palwar next... if nothing there, I will contact Sen. Cullerton. While there is no bill that can stop this floating in Springfield and likely won't be for one bus route, maybe he can use his political background to press Rahm Emanuel and Forrest Claypool into scrapping the idea of eliminating the #11 Lincoln/Sedgwick bus route based on all the businesses it serves and the impacts that will severely cripple them or shut them down.

[jajuan]

I had indicated earlier that there was some unstated reason why CTA didn't want to serve Illinois Center and Wilson Ave., and made all sorts of assumptions about Pace that weren't necessarily valid. However, unless the press under reported it, there didn't seem to be complaints about 56A and 90N, so maybe people don't ride them (or believed either CTA or that showing up would be futile).

You can throw in Kevin O'Neil's [expletive deleted] comment "And you can bet we'll be monitoring the results after the plan takes effect on Dec. 16." At least I confronted him on that directly. Even though he mentioned CTA metrics, the current ones don't include "passengers crammed per rush hour bus/train car." But to bring back the Red Eye bunching comment, "Gap in Bus Intervals" suddenly went into the toilet in June 2012.

There also has to be some point to that the people Rahm and Forrest teed off live in their neighborhood, and according to sw, dissed their alderman. Very little was done on the south side.

The only thing with which I have to disagree with you is that the proposed 120-121 Streeterville loop is not the same as the 157, and is justified by the hospital complex, but I mentioned that before.

The percentage of unavailable buses and trains for daily service are interesting. The train side numbers are especially interesting from the standpoint of the question popping to mind of how they hope to accomplish adding 17 total weekday train trips system wide when the percentage of unavailable train numbers have consistantly spiked in the red.

[Busjack]

The percentage of unavailable buses and trains for daily service are interesting. The train side numbers are especially interesting from the standpoint of the question popping to mind of how they hope to accomplish adding 17 total weekday train trips system wide when the percentage of unavailable train numbers have consistantly spiked in the red.

Well, they have all those 5000s now.

Well, I gotta exhaust all available options with this fight.... we're fighting a war with Mariano's and Aldi(our closest competitors who have bus service right by their doors). I will try Ald. Palwar next... if nothing there, I will contact Sen. Cullerton. While there is no bill that can stop this floating in Springfield and likely won't be for one bus route, maybe he can use his political background to press Rahm Emanuel and Forrest Claypool into scrapping the idea of eliminating the #11 Lincoln/Sedgwick bus route based on all the businesses it serves and the impacts that will severely cripple them or shut them down.

If nothing else, you will learn the limitations on clout. As pretty much indicated through this discussion, apparently Palwar doesn't have the clout that whomever west of Midway has.

Cullerton seems more obsessed with saying there is nothing that can be done on pensions except shoving them back to the suburbs and downstate and blaming the Republicans for not agreeing than caring about transit. The only ones who care about transit in the legislature (such as Nekritz) are in the pocket of Pace. And, of course, the guy from Milwaukee with secret access. B)

[jajuan]

Well, they have all those 5000s now.

If nothing else, you will learn the limitations on clout. As pretty much indicated through this discussion, apparently Palwar doesn't have the clout that whomever west of Midway has.

Cullerton seems more obsessed with saying there is nothing that can be done on pensions except shoving them back to the suburbs and downstate and blaming the Republicans for not agreeing than caring about transit. The only ones who care about transit in the legislature (such as Nekritz) are in the pocket of Pace. And, of course, the guy from Milwaukee with secret access.

Yeah but we all know that those have been trickling in at best.

Yeah this does appear an exercise in clout. But the question is who's burning through their clout and burning bridges rather than building political bridges when you add all the different issues these politicians throw their attention and focus on?

[Busjack]

Yeah this does appear an exercise in clout. But the question is who's burning through their clout and burning bridges rather than building political bridges when you add all the different issues these politicians throw their attention and focus on?

I had a rather interesting discussion on the parallels of Russian and Illinois politics on Chicago Now. But since someone is so concerned about my staying on topic, I'll just provide the link (comment including "The Economist"). In short, though, you have to be Todd Stroger to burn a sufficient number of bridges to make a difference. Rahm hasn't reached that level yet.

[wesmich]

The percentage of unavailable buses and trains for daily service are interesting. The train side numbers are especially interesting from the standpoint of the question popping to mind of how they hope to accomplish adding 17 total weekday train trips system wide when the percentage of unavailable train numbers have consistantly spiked in the red.

I know we are rehashing things that are obvious and have been said, but this is the central problem with this plan. They are eliminating or truncating service that is not critical but useful in its own right to only marginally increase service on other lines. I will use the Brown line because I am familiar with it. They don't have enough cars as is and have to ship cars from other lines so where are they going to get these two new am peak runs. My guess is that it is not going to be two new runs at the peak of peaks but be two new runs at the shoulder of peak. While that is good, it won't do anything to de-crowd the busiest runs. And of course there are no additions to the pm peak which are crush loaded too.

On the other hand, they are increasing the number of runs off peak on the Brown line. That is good and they have the cars to do it but they run 4 car trains off peak on the Brown line. So the Brown line is getting something like 20 extra runs or more on Saturdays when they run 4 car trains to begin with. Are all these extra runs the best way to de-crowd the line if it only needs 4 car trains now. Or is this the CTA saying that frequency over capacity is needed to induce new rides. This seems the opposite of CTAs position in the past.

Will it matter if the CTA is incapable of maintaining the routes currently served to a standard that discretionary riders demand. Slow zones and bus bunching are destroying the usefulness of the system. There is now a slow zone between Belmont and Fullerton on the Red line, that should be the pinnacle of the system yet they can't keep it free from slow zones. Furthermore, what in God's name happened to the Congress branch of the blue line. It went from 11.7 percent slow zones to 23.4 percent just since January. Likewise there has been a huge jump in Green line slow zones this year. What good is increased service if I can walk faster than the train.

Hopefully it is for the benefit of Springfield because the only thing I can see is that the computer told them to do it this way and they did.

[Busjack]

Will it matter if the CTA is incapable of maintaining the routes currently served to a standard that discretionary riders demand.

I think they gave up on that a long time ago, certainly after the 2010 cutbacks.

[jajuan]

I'm glad you mentioned the Congress branch of the Blue Line, wesmich. I rode the Blue Line last month for the first time since moving to the north side of town last October to visit a friend who lives near the Oak Park/Chicago border, and I was literally sitting in my seat on the train shaking my head and thinking to myself 'what the hell happened to this line?' In the course of nine to ten months time, the line not only has more slow zone areas, but huge stretches of that part of the line between the Halsted stop and the portion a bit west of the Cicero stop where the tracks shift to the side of the Ike for the Oak Park stretch to Forest Park now have these god awful looking fences just outside the tracks with the weeds having practically taken over. It just had a feeling that they just gave up with doing any form of real maintenance of the Chicago portion of the Congress branch. It was so disheartening see this portion of the Blue Line look as if it was just left to fall apart in such a short time.

[Sam92]

I'm glad you mentioned the Congress branch of the Blue Line, wesmich. I rode the Blue Line last month for the first time since moving to the north side of town last October to visit a friend who lives near the Oak Park/Chicago border, and I was literally sitting in my seat on the train shaking my head and thinking to myself 'what the hell happened to this line?' In the course of nine to ten months time, the line not only has more slow zone areas, but huge stretches of that part of the line between the Halsted stop and the portion a bit west of the Cicero stop where the tracks shift to the side of the Ike for the Oak Park stretch to Forest Park now have these god awful looking fences just outside the tracks with the weeds having practically taken over. It just had a feeling that they just gave up with doing any form of real maintenance of the Chicago portion of the Congress branch. It was so disheartening see this portion of the Blue Line look as if it was just left to fall apart in such a short time.

I've seen a PDF that had future projects including the Ryan track project. They also mentioned that the congress branch also had drainage issues like the red line and would get some work done in the future. There was some tie replacement work done on that branch at the beginning of 2001

[CURRENTZ_09]

I've seen a PDF that had future projects including the Ryan track project. They also mentioned that the congress branch also had drainage issues like the red line and would get some work done in the future. There was some tie replacement work done on that branch at the beginning of 2001

If the Forest Park Branch Ever gets shutdown like the Red Line is getting, expect the Public Outrage to be 10 times worse.

[Busjack]

If the Forest Park Branch Ever gets shutdown like the Red Line is getting, expect the Public Outrage to be 10 times worse.

What's your foundation for that? The July Ridership Report has average weekday ridership of 48,774 on the Dan Ryan Branch, and 28,278 on the Forest Park branch, and there is the obvious alternate of the Lake Street L for the Forest Park branch.

Do you have some secret inside information from a west side politician, or are you making more unsupported assertions? Did you even read sw4400s posts today?

[CURRENTZ_09]

What's your foundation for that? The July Ridership Report has average weekday ridership of 48,774 on the Dan Ryan Branch, and 28,278 on the Forest Park branch, and there is the obvious alternate of the Lake Street L for the Forest Park branch.

Do you have some secret inside information from a west side politician, or are you making more unsupported assertions? Did you even read sw4400s posts today?

@Busjack, just an opinion. Move the discussion along

[Busjack]

@Busjack, just an opinion. Move the discussion along

And apparently not a very bright one.

To move the discussion along, are you going to post @Busjack: I admit I had no foundation for my statements about writing CTA doing any good with regard to rescinding the cuts, and @sw4400, thank you for showing what really happens when you do?

[jajuan]

Oh for crying out loud are we going to start policing opinions now and reduce this board to petty arguments over those opinions? Arguments that are totally unnecessary? We were having a good discussion today so let's step it back up to that please. Geez

[CURRENTZ_09]

Oh for crying out loud are we going to start policing opinions now and reduce this board to petty arguments over those opinions? Arguments that are totally unnecessary? We were having a good discussion today so let's step it back up to that please. Geez

Thank you @ jajuan

[geneking7320]

I have a question for Brown line riders who have ridden the trains from the "6 car platform" days to the present. Do you find the trains more crowded, less crowded or the same?

[Busjack]

Now for some verifiable fact relevant to this topic:

Pace's Moving Forward of September 14 says:

Planners for Pace and CTA have discussed the plan since early 2012 to coordinate on the proposals. For example, the CTA's 90N North Harlem and 56A North Milwaukee would be eliminated. Passengers would continue to have service on these streets via Pace's Route 423 Linden CTA-The Glen-Harlem CTA and 270 Milwaukee Avenue, respectively. Another example of coordi-nation is the CTA's elimination of Route 17 Westchester, which operates weekday rush hour service. Pace Route 317 Westches-ter, which operates midday and weekends, would be expanded to cover the rush hour service. Another example of coordination will be on 95th Street, where CTA Route 95W and Pace Route 381 would alternate trips such that passengers will board either a Pace or CTA bus every ten minutes.

"This is an excellent example of the interagency coordination that occurs on an everyday basis between Pace, CTA and Metra," said Pace Board Chairman Richard Kwasneski. "There may have been a time in the past when the service boards didn't communicate as often as they should have, but that's no longer the case– and it results in better service for customers."

So I withdraw any prior comment about whether CTA talked to Pace about this.

[Sam92]

Now for some verifiable fact relevant to this topic:

Pace's Moving Forward of September 14 says:

So I withdraw any prior comment about whether CTA talked to Pace about this.

As far as the 95W/381 coordination... does that mean the 381 would now make all stops with the 95W? And for the people who use incompatible passes would they be willing to wait an extra 10 minutes just to get on a bus that'll take the pass? I say they should scrap that plan and instead combine the 95W and 95E that thus freeing up room at the Dan Ryan with one less route. Plus East to West travel along 95th would be slightly easier without the extra transfer

[Busjack]

As far as the 95W/381 coordination... does that mean the 381 would now make all stops with the 95W? And for the people who use incompatible passes would they be willing to wait an extra 10 minutes just to get on a bus that'll take the pass? I say they should scrap that plan and instead combine the 95W and 95E that thus freeing up room at the Dan Ryan with one less route. Plus East to West travel along 95th would be slightly easier without the extra transfer

What you would have is no different than what 108/352 rush hour 49B/349 were, or what was 56A/270 midday before the 2010 cuts to 56A.

Also, as discussed previously, you would have more congestion with your proposal, in that both the EB and WB 95 buses would have to pull into the terminal, as there is no bus stop on the south side of 95th. Since the current schedule has 95W running weekday about every 10 to 12 minutes, there is less congestion in the proposal, in that they will be getting rid of close to half the 95W buses, without affecting frequency on 95E.

As far as passes, probably the only ones affected are those with 7 day CTA only passes, but, again, that isn't like those riders who lose their routes (for the sake of this argument) only to have a Pace alternative. As I pointed out earlier, 270 is posted stops only, too.

[See Tea Eh]

Actually, if you merged 95E and 95W, the westbound buses wouldn't have to pull into the terminal. They could just stop on the bridge on the north side of 95th. Right now, both routes have to pull into the terminal.

[CURRENTZ_09]

Actually, if you merged 95E and 95W, the westbound buses wouldn't have to pull into the terminal. They could just stop on the bridge on the north side of 95th. Right now, both routes have to pull into the terminal.

Always thought that too but wonder why it is never considered?

[i8itall4u]

Always thought that too but wonder why it is never considered?

I would imagine the idea was/is to keep all traffic within the terminal. I can't think of anywhere else in the system a route stops exclusively outside the terminal, can any of you?