Control Center

[Busjack]

Channel 11 Chicago Tonight had a story tonight about the CTA Control Center. Text Version.

Among other things claimed was that they could shut off the power in 30 seconds and fix bus bunching. Is there any evidence of the latter, since CTA never seemed able to do it before?

And at the end they said the location was a big secret. It's still 120 N. Racine, isn't it? Google sure thinks so.

[Kimball401]

I still thought it was there and I've never seen one bus that was behind schedule run express. Most supervisors just say run it bit never order a express run. sometimes I think.they just be bragging.about certain thimgs

[MetroShadow]

I was on a 90 (this was shortly after the West Side restructuring) that had to go Express to the Green Line. There was major traffic at Lawrence, the HIP, and Grand, which had turned out 6 buses in a row. Buses were strategically sent to Grand, North, and Lake [or: typical traffic on a Friday]. I was on the one that had to Express to Lake.

At the time, there was a supervisor who just made the decision to short turn buses, giving the drivers a yellow slip allowing them to bypass.

[Busjack]

I still thought it was there and I've never seen one bus that was behind schedule run express. Most supervisors just say run it bit never order a express run. sometimes I think.they just be bragging.about certain thimgs

The only thing I noticed on TV was that the track electrical diagram looked about the same as Krambles's picture of him in front of it in 1940 or so, except then Comm Ed didn't have flat screen monitors. B)

[renardo870]

I still thought it was there and I've never seen one bus that was behind schedule run express. Most supervisors just say run it bit never order a express run. sometimes I think.they just be bragging.about certain thimgs

Well, when I used to ride the old 6 Jeffery Express from downtown on a Saturday, the would be extremely late ( well over 30 minutes )so to speed them up, the supervisors @ State/Lake or Jackson/State would convert a few buses to the old 14 South Lake Shore Express, which didn't run on weekends at that time. That was pretty cool because the bus was still packed and we didn't have to go thru Hyde Park. To ride down Jeffery as a 14 on a Sat was cool.

[Busjack]

Since jajuan sent me in Tracy Swartz's direction, I noted a story "Behind the Scenes at the CTA Control Center"* where she writes "The control center, at 120 N. Racine Ave. ..."

So, as Boers and Bernstein would say "WTTW, who ya crapping?"

___

*That must have been where jajuan saw the 111A story.

[jajuan]

Since jajuan sent me in Tracy Swartz's direction, I noted a story "Behind the Scenes at the CTA Control Center"* where she writes "The control center, at 120 N. Racine Ave. ..."

So, as Boers and Bernstein would say "WTTW, who ya crapping?"

___

*That must have been where jajuan saw the 111A story.

That would be correct. Her experience with the 111A is a short brief in the corner of her section on the CTA control center. And speaking of having buses run express, I remember being aboard a 145 one morning back during that approximately eight month stretch that all 145 buses were express from Irving Park to Delaware and the buses being really behind schedule that morning. There was a supervisor at Clarendon and Wilson who had the operator run that bus express starting at that point going into downtown. So that bus entered the Drive at Wilson and shot straight down to Michigan Avenue without having to creep along Clarendon or Irving Park. And because the traffic was still light on Lake Shore, that old Americana got to speed downtown in very little time.