CTA Service Adjustments

[jajuan]

I saw that, and considered it a bit strange.

In fact, things are more screwed up than that. I was hoping for southbound arrival times north of Lawrence every 20 minutes (which I got) and south of Montrose every 20, but the segment between Irving Park and Belmont shows 5 buses at once. So, something is fouled up, whether in the real or virtual world.

And I think that's where we ended up misunderstanding each other in my question because I was only seeing the short trips northbound at that point I put forward my question and then when I saw your response I did look at the schedule and did see where the schedule clearly shows midday Montrose or Wilson trips for 5 to 6 hours each direction. On the point you made about the buses have to turn around somewhere, I was expecting to see that the buses use the driveways to the east of Lake Shore Drive. But I looked at a bus ending at Wilson (1873 to be exact) on BusTracker do its layover and saw it do so off-street on a spot that Google Maps shows to apparently be the south parking lot of Weiss Hospital.

[BusHunter]

Looks like their starting to dismantle the JCdecaux shelters on north Milwaukee, The NB Bryn Mawr one is gone. I wonder if Pace will replace some of those, there are quite a few of them along the ex #56A routing.

[jajuan]

Looks like their starting to dismantle the JCdecaux shelters on north Milwaukee, The NB Bryn Mawr one is gone. I wonder if Pace will replace some of those, there are quite a few of them along the ex #56A routing.

For that matter I wonder how soon they'll get to those still standing on the portion of Lincoln that had bus service cut between Fullerton and the Western Brown Line station as it makes little sense to have those up either when there are no more buses running along there.

[Busjack]

Looks like their starting to dismantle the JCdecaux shelters on north Milwaukee, The NB Bryn Mawr one is gone. I wonder if Pace will replace some of those, there are quite a few of them along the ex #56A routing.

I noted that having Pace 270 and 423 signs in front of them was strange, but the contract is with the city, not the CTA. Maybe someone at CDOT had a brain fart and is willing to forgo the advertising revenue.

Pace has a program that it will supply a free shelter if the municipality lets Pace put an advertising one there; Pace and the municipality share the advertising revenue. I'm sure that the City of Chicago would impose all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles.

For that matter I wonder how soon they'll get to those still standing on the portion of Lincoln that had bus service cut between Fullerton and the Western Brown Line station as it makes little sense to have those up either when there are no more buses running along there.

That would be the larger issue, in that there won't be a bus stopping there, but, again, the city will be forging revenue. This seems the converse of the complaint in the Sun-Times that the 11 signs on the 37 portion had not been fixed, especially where the loop was reinstated around Fullerton.

In any event, I wonder if someone obsessed with maps is going to check whether all the maps in the bus shelters were changed.

[jajuan]

That would be the larger issue, in that there won't be a bus stopping there, but, again, the city will be forging revenue. This seems the converse of the complaint in the Sun-Times that the 11 signs on the 37 portion had not been fixed, especially where the loop was reinstated around Fullerton.

In any event, I wonder if someone obsessed with maps is going to check whether all the maps in the bus shelters were changed.

What's interesting about the 37 complaints, even if they are understandable, is that there seem to be few folks in that area who remember that the 37 is technically a resurrected route and not a "new" one as CTA and the media keep labeling it and that in that stripe the bus stops were there once before as far as the parking issue goes. The complaints that the bus stop signs overall have yet to be updated from 11 to 37 seem a little more valid. It's similar to how the 38 was absorbed into the 157 and in those first weeks there were still 38 signs up instead of updated 157 signs.

[Busjack]

... that in that stripe the bus stops were there once before as far as the parking issue goes....

The impression I got from the article was that LAZ put one of its machines in what theoretically was an old bus stop. Like what was said about removing the Decaux bus shelters elsewhere, apparently the city had moved on.

[Sam92]

I noted that having Pace 270 and 423 signs in front of them was strange, but the contract is with the city, not the CTA. Maybe someone at CDOT had a brain fart and is willing to forgo the advertising revenue.

Pace has a program that it will supply a free shelter if the municipality lets Pace put an advertising one there; Pace and the municipality share the advertising revenue. I'm sure that the City of Chicago would impose all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles.

That would be the larger issue, in that there won't be a bus stopping there, but, again, the city will be forging revenue. This seems the converse of the complaint in the Sun-Times that the 11 signs on the 37 portion had not been fixed, especially where the loop was reinstated around Fullerton.

In any event, I wonder if someone obsessed with maps is going to check whether all the maps in the bus shelters were changed.

I glance at the maps here and there when I'm waiting......They still show the Stage 2 routes from the Wacker Drive project.

[brownliner]

<br />CTA's fares are not distance-based (which leads to the disparity), but I assure you, CTA's costs certainly are impacted by distance.

Less than you seem to think. For the most part, the costs are fixed when the routes and the schedules are set. It costs very little more to run a bus that's packed to the gills with standing passengers than it does to run it empty. What costs money is running the bus at all. If you've got a section of the route that causes buses to be full to capacity, because people get on and ride a short distance, then those riders are expensive, because they'll cause upgrading of service. Running an artic costs more than running a 40' bus; reducing headway costs money, too.

If the congestion areas and ridership profiles are understood, there are things that can be done to avoid having to run extra buses the whole route. You could short turn buses, at one end, or both, either on schedule or by supervision. You can add a route that covers the high traffic section, so you've got extra capacity there, but not the whole route. (That's one of the things the old Loop shuttle was supposed to do, same idea, even though it was a train.) You could split the route, either in two or three sections. You can adjust pricing -- charge extra for trips through the peak area, charge extra for trips starting in the peak area, charge extra for peak times, have a reverse distance charge (short trips cost more). Some of that would help cover your costs, and make the capacity driving travelers pay more than the average marginal trip cost, some would reduce loading ("$5 bucks for a six block ride? F that, I'll walk")

What's optimal from economic standpoint is different than what you can get implemented due to practical reasons (people hate paying when they get out of a system, and it's slow and ineffective on buses) or political ones.

This is pretty well studied area; shouldn't be hard to find some references, if you want to read up on it.

[See Tea Eh]

I do transportation scheduling and service planning for a living. My job is directly tied to budgets and often involves trying to squeeze a bit extra out of existing resources.

Less than you seem to think. For the most part, the costs are fixed when the routes and the schedules are set. It costs very little more to run a bus that's packed to the gills with standing passengers than it does to run it empty.

Costs are impacted by lots of factors, but distance is certainly one of them.

If a route is five miles long and takes 30 minutes for a one-way trip (one hour cycle time), and you want to run a 10 minute headway, you need 6 buses. If that route is ten miles long and takes an hour for a one-way (two-hour cycle), you need 12 buses. That's going to be more expensive.

Longer routes (without short turns or other adjustments) also are far more likely to have wasted capacity. Prior to the increase in short-turns at UIC on the Blue Line, for example, you had the same level of service going to Forest Park as you had through Logan Square and up to O'Hare, even though the north side of the route was far heavier than the south end of the route.

Way back in the day, when the #8 was entirely out of 74th Garage, you had buses going into service northbound at 5:30 am just to make a southbound peak headway at 7 am. Basing the route out of a north-side garage would have obviously meant the buses could pull out later, but that just means that when they get down to the south end of the route, they all have to turn around and come back north later, so you'd have peak service returning northbound at 9-10 am from a 7 am rush.

Short-turns help, but that's essentially admitting (as my point was earlier) that distance is expensive. There are a few problems with short-turns, though, which is why things tend to swing back and forth between having more short-turns and having fewer of them. For one, there is the public perception of favoring one end of the route vs. another (even if there is a legitimate reason for doing so). You could turn half your rush-hour #8s at the Orange Line (as was done a few years ago), but then you've got the north side vs. south side (and therefore, everybody at CTA is racist) debate. Then there's the issue that many routes don't have a very good place to turn a bus short on a regular basis. On top of that, there's the challenge of having a short turn that actually saves money (back in the day, there were schedules on the #80 with short turns at Harlem that had the buses returning eastbound in the same order as they went westbound, even though half of them went to Cumberland and half went to Harlem; or sometimes you force it by shorting the layover on one side or giving too much layover at the other terminal).

What costs money is running the bus at all.

No disagreement there. If you're only talking about one bus, it doesn't matter whether it's driving around the block for 8 hours or driving up to Waukegan and back. The cost is, more or less, the same. But in the former case, you could have a four-minute headway with that one bus. In the latter, you'd get a four-hour headway.

What drives a total budget is how many buses you need to run. It simply takes more buses to provide a decent headway on a longer route than on a shorter one.

If you've got a section of the route that causes buses to be full to capacity, because people get on and ride a short distance, then those riders are expensive, because they'll cause upgrading of service.

And here's where I disagree. Or, rather, where I say it's not that simple.

Take a hypothetical example of a trip on the #49. If your capacity target is 60 passengers/bus, and you happen to pick up 61 passengers, you seem to imply that it's the 61st passenger that is causing the agency to need another bus. My point is that every single one of those 61 passengers contributed to the overload that results in another bus being added. You can't blame the guy that gets on at Lake, pays $2.25, and rides to Madison, any more than you blame the guy that got on at Berwyn and rode all the way to 79th for that same $2.25.

If the guy that got on at Lake didn't ride, you'd only have 60 people on your bus, and you'd be fine. But likewise, if the guy that got on at Berwyn didn't ride, you'd still only have 60 people, and you'd still be fine. Further, if the guy that got on at Berwyn didn't ride, maybe you wouldn't even have to run the bus to Berwyn. Maybe you could only run it to Lawrence (or, in this case, the Brown Line). As noted above, running the route only to Lawrence would generally cost less than running it to Berwyn, because you could cut a peak bus (or maybe two) out of the cycle. Again, this is only hypothetical, and there are of course other factors in the real-life example (terminal capacity at the Brown Line, transfers from other buses, etc.).

But the point is, it takes 61 people to have 61 people on the bus.

Running an artic costs more than running a 40' bus; reducing headway costs money, too.

No real disagreement here, but I don't think that's a point that's being argued anywhere.

If the congestion areas and ridership profiles are understood, there are things that can be done to avoid having to run extra buses the whole route. You could short turn buses, at one end, or both, either on schedule or by supervision. You can add a route that covers the high traffic section, so you've got extra capacity there, but not the whole route. (That's one of the things the old Loop shuttle was supposed to do, same idea, even though it was a train.) You could split the route, either in two or three sections.

All of which are making the route (or at least certain trips on the route) shorter, which goes back to my original point that you seemed to casually dismiss in your first sentence. Namely, distance costs money, so reducing distance reduces cost.

You can adjust pricing -- charge extra for trips through the peak area, charge extra for trips starting in the peak area, charge extra for peak times, have a reverse distance charge (short trips cost more). Some of that would help cover your costs, and make the capacity driving travelers pay more than the average marginal trip cost, some would reduce loading ("$5 bucks for a six block ride? F that, I'll walk")

The only thing in here that makes sense is a higher fare for peak times, because peak period service is expensive to provide. The rest seems to be based on the false premise that it's the 61st passenger that drives the cost, rather than all 61 passengers taking an equal amount of responsibility for the cost. A distance-based system that charges a short-distance traveler more than a long-distance traveler is just asinine.

What's optimal from economic standpoint is different than what you can get implemented due to practical reasons (people hate paying when they get out of a system, and it's slow and ineffective on buses) or political ones.

This is pretty well studied area; shouldn't be hard to find some references, if you want to read up on it.

As noted, I "read up on it" pretty much every time I go to work.

[jajuan]

Well the 11 signs in my neighborhood have been updated for about three weeks now. Can anyone spot what's wrong with them?

[artthouwill]

Well the 11 signs in my neighborhood have been updated for about three weeks now. Can anyone spot what's wrong with them?

Looks like CTA forgot weekend service on this route

[jajuan]

Looks like CTA forgot weekend service on this route

Bingo. The sign is incomplete in that regard. They got it right in regards to having a sign up that shows the route no longer goes south of the Brown Line. But they forgot to mention that the route also runs on weekends not just the weekdays. They also have to finish updating the 148 signs south of Wilson and Clarendon along Clarendon and Irving Park. Most of them have been updated north of there, but there are still a few between Wilson and Irving Park/Marine up that mention 145 and service along Wilson for 148. The SB stop at Foster/Marine still had 144 on it as of last Thursday if I'm not mistaken, and I wonder if the State Street stop signs have been updated yet like they've been doing on Michigan Avenue.

[ArcherRider]

Bingo. The sign is incomplete in that regard. They got it right in regards to having a sign up that shows the route no longer goes south of the Brown Line. But they forgot to mention that the route also runs on weekends not just the weekdays. They also have to finish updating the 148 signs south of Wilson and Clarendon along Clarendon and Irving Park. Most of them have been updated north of there, but there are still a few between Wilson and Irving Park/Marine up that mention 145 and service along Wilson for 148. The SB stop at Foster/Marine still had 144 on it as of last Thursday if I'm not mistaken, and I wonder if the State Street stop signs have been updated yet like they've been doing on Michigan Avenue.

They did change the State Street sign today and wait for a bus on Dearborn and Polk I saw the sign say 29 State instead of 22 Ckark stop here.

[jajuan]

They did change the State Street sign today and wait for a bus on Dearborn and Polk I saw the sign say 29 State instead of 22 Ckark stop here.

I was also mainly getting at those historic looking bus stop signs on State Street along what used to be the old State Street Mall between Wacker Drive and Congress.

[jajuan]

Well while out on Thursday night after a break in the combination rain/ice/snow storm, I noticed that the December edition of the system map was available at the Western Brown Line stop while the Belmont Red/Brown/Purple stop had the January maps. A I previously mentioned from looking at them online, the January map does mention the changes that came under the December decrowd plan as well as the update in fares. So it was pretty much a waste to even print the December maps instead of just waiting until January for the fare update to kick in.

[Busjack]

On the current meeting agenda (Word doc) is "Review of an ordinance authorizing a five-year agreement with Civic Staffing L3C for the #98 Avon Express." So, I guess someone came up with the money. Apparently connected with Harborquest.

[Sam92]

One thing I've been noticing with the new 115 Pullman/115th route is that going toward the Dan Ryan, the rear sign flips from 111/115....possible software error?

[Busjack]

One thing I've been noticing with the new 115 Pullman/115th route is that going toward the Dan Ryan, the rear sign flips from 111/115....possible software error?

Yep, since there wasn't a 115 before, so a recent one.

You probably can't tell if that sign is in sync with another (i.e. is the right one messed up too?)

[jajuan]

One thing I've been noticing with the new 115 Pullman/115th route is that going toward the Dan Ryan, the rear sign flips from 111/115....possible software error?

And add in the fact that both its termini are shared with the revised 111 route after the two were split and they both operate on an interline where one becomes the other when reaching one terminus or the other, it adds on to the likelihood it's a software error.

[Sam92]

Yep, since there wasn't a 115 before, so a recent one.

You probably can't tell if that sign is in sync with another (i.e. is the right one messed up too?)

nope. Only the rear....

[jesi2282]

Looks like the #33 is now on the chopping block.... http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/cta/redeye-cta-no-33-bus-to-stop-running-march-29-20130301,0,7059261.story

[Busjack]

Looks like the #33 is now on the chopping block.... http://www.redeyechicago.com/news/cta/redeye-cta-no-33-bus-to-stop-running-march-29-20130301,0,7059261.story

The inaccuracy in that story is that it was publicized earlier that the U of C said goodbye to CTA as of Aug. 31, 2013 (unless they were referring only to 192, but definitely for the 170s). Apparently someone at CTA didn't get that word.

And, apparently, the 33 is no loss.

[BusHunter]

The inaccuracy in that story is that it was publicized earlier that the U of C said goodbye to CTA as of Aug. 31, 2013 (unless they were referring only to 192, but definitely for the 170s). Apparently someone at CTA didn't get that word.

And, apparently, the 33 is no loss.

Probably FG is going to receive those Optimas from 103rd too or they may just retire them.

[artthouwill]

The inaccuracy in that story is that it was publicized earlier that the U of C said goodbye to CTA as of Aug. 31, 2013 (unless they were referring only to 192, but definitely for the 170s). Apparently someone at CTA didn't get that word.

And, apparently, the 33 is no loss.

What I found ironic was that the article said that CTA would increase service on the 65 Grand (apparently) for those who ride from there downtown. This seems to defeat the purpose for the cuts. Couldn't they, like the UP riders, just catch a 125 from the downtown train stations? If they are going to increase service on the 65, might as well increase service on the 66, using the Grand/Western Metra station as the short turn to help out on the overcrowding on the 66.

[Busjack]

What I found ironic was that the article said that CTA would increase service on the 65 Grand (apparently) for those who ride from there downtown. This seems to defeat the purpose for the cuts. Couldn't they, like the UP riders, just catch a 125 from the downtown train stations? If they are going to increase service on the 65, might as well increase service on the 66, using the Grand/Western Metra station as the short turn to help out on the overcrowding on the 66.

The original rationale (if there was one) of the Crowding Reduction Plan was that the millions of dollars were going to be reallocated to other routes. Here, whoever rides route 65 gets the benefit of whatever crowd reduction results, not just Metra riders who got on at Artesian for an express ride. Certainly those getting off at Clybourn Station aren't getting alternative service.

As far as the 125, apparently at one time Metra thought it worthwhile to allow its UP passengers to bypass downtown inbound (but apparently not outbound in the afternoon), but now not for what the CTA was asking. At least the article confirms that it was Metra that was subsidizing the route.