Suburban bus trivia question

[buslist]

Since I'm doing trivia questions tonight, here's a South Suburban bus at a spot it regularly operated past. But what's it doing in Garfield Park? ( no it wasn't bought second hand from another Chicago suburban carrier). And if you get the first part you might be able to note the further significance of this bus.

[Railwaymodeler]

Is this the bus Pace still has they use for Parades and such? They have a GM old look and a Nortran Fishbowl I think (I think the Fishbowl wasn't originally Nortran, but repainted as such, or something like that).

[artthouwill]

Since I'm doing trivia questions tonight, here's a South Suburban bus at a spot it regularly operated past. But what's it doing in Garfield Park? ( no it wasn't bought second hand from another Chicago suburban carrier). And if you get the first part you might be able to note the further significance of this bus.

I found out that this bus was a Safeway bus leased to Leyden for about a year and ran the last Leyden route, according to this site:

http://gallery.bustalk.info/thumbnails.php?album=540

[buslist]

I found out that this bus was a Safeway bus leased to Leyden for about a year and ran the last Leyden route, according to this site:

http://gallery.bustalk.info/thumbnails.php?album=540

Yup that's what I get for putting the photo over there as well. Good research! Actually leased only for the summer, it had be returned with several sisters to SSS to operate some school trippers. Layden did not have sufficient buses of its own buses operable at the time hence the shutdown.

[Busjack]

Probably more relevant than a CTA thread:

...I seriously don't understand how Pace created that route for 423. Now I could've accept it if it was going eastbound to Linden and Westbound to Harlem Blue Line or splitting it to two routes by keeping 228 between Glenview and Harlem Blue Line and 423 between Glenview and Wilmette (Linden).

That was part of the 2005 restructuring, and I sat through a couple of the meetings.

The impetus was that people in the original study area (Evanston, Wilmette, Skokie and Lincolnwood) wanted to get to the Glen Town Center, which had just opened.

On the second go round, which affected other communities, such as Northbrook and Glenview, and resulted in a meeting in Northbrook, the proposal was that 422 would go up to Willow, and then make a left at Patriot and go down Harlem. 423 took the more direct route of where it would run to Kraft, and then stay on Willow to Shermer, and then to Northbrook Court.The issues I raised were (1) it cut off north of Willow from Old Orchard, without a promise of a transfer point on Willow, and (2) it essentially removed bus service from downtown Glenview (Glenview Road between Harlem and Waukegan).

The current configuration took care of these two problems, but resulted in 423 rather than 422 becoming the convoluted route.

Looking at the before and after schedules, it was clear that 423 was put on the 228 headway.

Another aside was that the original plan through The Glen was to stay on Patriot Blvd. until East Lake, then via Shermer and Glenview Rd. to Harlem. This was changed to Chestnut St. in The Glen, and then straight via Lehigh past the Metra/Amtrak station to Harlem. On a message board, Adam Kerman said he suggested that because the bus was not going to serve the Dominick's (now Jewel) in the shopping center at Patriot an E. Lake.

While I thought that Pace was going to do something like what you suggested, it wouldn't have accomplished that both sides of the route would go to the Glen Town Center, unless bus loops were placed at both ends.

If you want to get into bizarre proposed combinations, the original draft of the South Cook restructuring was one line from Midway via Harlem to Tinley Park and then to Harvey. That was broken up into 356 and 386, both ending in Tinley Park.

Maybe the strangest interline was what I mentioned in connection with the North Restructuring: apparently 565 to College of Lake County to 574 to Hawthorne, to 272 to Golf Mill, 272 back to Hawthorne, 574 back to CLC, and finally 572 back to Waukegan.I don't see how a 4 hour tour meets scheduling rules, or for that matter how the driver can hold one's bladder for that long, although I did see one North division bus stopped in front of the Dunkin Donuts at Milwaukee and Palatine Road, so maybe the driver had to do some "business." At least I did see the signs flip when the route numbers changed (i.e. 272 becoming 574 about 10 feet short of the Hawthorne stop).

[garmon757]

Probably more relevant than a CTA thread:

That was part of the 2005 restructuring, and I sat through a couple of the meetings.

The impetus was that people in the original study area (Evanston, Wilmette, Skokie and Lincolnwood) wanted to get to the Glen Town Center, which had just opened.

On the second go round, which affected other communities, such as Northbrook and Glenview, and resulted in a meeting in Northbrook, the proposal was that 422 would go up to Willow, and then make a left at Patriot and go down Harlem. 423 took the more direct route of where it would run to Kraft, and then stay on Willow to Shermer, and then to Northbrook Court.The issues I raised were (1) it cut off north of Willow from Old Orchard, without a promise of a transfer point on Willow, and (2) it essentially removed bus service from downtown Glenview (Glenview Road between Harlem and Waukegan).

The current configuration took care of these two problems, but resulted in 423 rather than 422 becoming the convoluted route.

Looking at the before and after schedules, it was clear that 423 was put on the 228 headway.

Another aside was that the original plan through The Glen was to stay on Patriot Blvd. until East Lake, then via Shermer and Glenview Rd. to Harlem. This was changed to Chestnut St. in The Glen, and then straight via Lehigh past the Metra/Amtrak station to Harlem. On a message board, Adam Kerman said he suggested that because the bus was not going to serve the Dominick's (now Jewel) in the shopping center at Patriot an E. Lake.

While I thought that Pace was going to do something like what you suggested, it wouldn't have accomplished that both sides of the route would go to the Glen Town Center, unless bus loops were placed at both ends.

If you want to get into bizarre proposed combinations, the original draft of the South Cook restructuring was one line from Midway via Harlem to Tinley Park and then to Harvey. That was broken up into 356 and 386, both ending in Tinley Park.

Maybe the strangest interline was what I mentioned in connection with the North Restructuring: apparently 565 to College of Lake County to 574 to Hawthorne, to 272 to Golf Mill, 272 back to Hawthorne, 574 back to CLC, and finally 572 back to Waukegan.I don't see how a 4 hour tour meets scheduling rules, or for that matter how the driver can hold one's bladder for that long, although I did see one North division bus stopped in front of the Dunkin Donuts at Milwaukee and Palatine Road, so maybe the driver had to do some "business." At least I did see the signs flip when the route numbers changed (i.e. 272 becoming 574 about 10 feet short of the Hawthorne stop).

So pretty much it was a good decision for them to have 423 routing set up as it is today? 422 and 423 are Northbrook's bread and butter but my problem is that why no weekend service? When I found out the transitions with 565 and 572 and the infiltration of 574 I was like wtf??? I thought it was a terrible decision but I guess demands are getting higher and higher as I thought.

[Busjack]

So pretty much it was a good decision for them to have 423 routing set up as it is today? 422 and 423 are Northbrook's bread and butter but my problem is that why no weekend service? When I found out the transitions with 565 and 572 and the infiltration of 574 I was like wtf??? I thought it was a terrible decision but I guess demands are getting higher and higher as I thought.

422 isn't so good, in that the trip to LInden CTA is 15 minutes longer than it was via 212 on Golf. However Pace said that the reason was that CTA had encroached with 205, and Pace wasn't going to compete with that.

Originally there was a 423/422 interline on Saturday that ran once an hour. That cut was made in the so called budget crisis of 2010, actually one of the few cuts that was implemented. Ridership was low, anyway.

The North stuff was simply a consequence of noting on the various new schedules that buses were scheduled to leave time points 5 or 10 minutes before they arrived, if one assumed that 574 was its own route instead of interlined with something else.

[garmon757]

422 isn't so good, in that the trip to LInden CTA is 15 minutes longer than it was via 212 on Golf. However Pace said that the reason was that CTA had encroached with 205, and Pace wasn't going to compete with that.

Originally there was a 423/422 interline on Saturday that ran once an hour. That cut was made in the so called budget crisis of 2010, actually one of the few cuts that was implemented. Ridership was low, anyway.

The North stuff was simply a consequence of noting on the various new schedules that buses were scheduled to leave time points 5 or 10 minutes before they arrived, if one assumed that 574 was its own route instead of interlined with something else.

So 212 got dumped in 2005 despite having a better averaged weekday ridership than 422. I don't blame Pace for not competing with 205 but that route is not even "all that" to begin with. I found this ridership resource that may be very interesting if you haven't seen it before. http://www.rtams.org/rtams/ridershipDetail.jsp?dataset=paceBus

[Busjack]

So 212 got dumped in 2005 despite having a better averaged weekday ridership than 422. I don't blame Pace for not competing with 205 but that route is not even "all that" to begin with. I found this ridership resource that may be very interesting if you haven't seen it before. http://www.rtams.org/rtams/ridershipDetail.jsp?dataset=paceBus

Here you are comparing apples and oranges, because before the restructuring 422 only ran between Linden and Old Orchard.

You would need the boarding numbers at stops between Old Orchard and Northbrook Court. Pace has that on the IBS (that's how they do restructuring) but does not post that, for instance, boardings at Waukegan and Chestnut went up or down 3%. The only thing they said was that ridership on restructured routes was up about 4% after the restructuring.

As I think Bill V. pointed out on Chicago Transit and Railfan, what Pace essentially did was tack the outer portion of 212 on 422.

There was also a debate on this forum several years ago on whether CTA should extend 205 to Northbrook Court, to which I said sure,if the philosophy were to eliminate Pace and CTA wants to run it every 20 minutes. That wasn't going to happen.

You can now see what my impetus was in suggesting that the service boards be abolished and there actually be regional planning. There was a similar issue on 304, which was cut back from Pink Line to North Riverside, although there it was competing with .both CTA 21 and Pace 322.

[jajuan]

Here you are comparing apples and oranges, because before the restructuring 422 only ran between Linden and Old Orchard.

You would need the boarding numbers at stops between Old Orchard and Northbrook Court. Pace has that on the IBS (that's how they do restructuring) but does not post that, for instance, boardings at Waukegan and Chestnut went up or down 3%. The only thing they said was that ridership on restructured routes was up about 4% after the restructuring.

As I think Bill V. pointed out on Chicago Transit and Railfan, what Pace essentially did was tack the outer portion of 212 on 422.

There was also a debate on this forum several years ago on whether CTA should extend 205 to Northbrook Court, to which I said sure,if the philosophy were to eliminate Pace and CTA wants to run it every 20 minutes. That wasn't going to happen.

You can now see what my impetus was in suggesting that the service boards be abolished and there actually be regional planning. There was a similar issue on 304, which was cut back from Pink Line to North Riverside, although there it was competing with .both CTA 21 and Pace 322.

Yeah the 304 situation did kind of throw me for a loop from what you point out that the 322 also operated to the Pink Line along side the 21 and still does. At the time of that cutback, the other thing that had the wheels cranking inside my brain on Pace's reasons was 304 still appeared to get good ridership on that portion between North Riverside and the Pine Line during the rush periods at least despite CTA merging the 25 into the 21 as part of its West Side Corridor restructurings.

[andrethebusman]

Since I'm doing trivia questions tonight, here's a South Suburban bus at a spot it regularly operated past. But what's it doing in Garfield Park? ( no it wasn't bought second hand from another Chicago suburban carrier). And if you get the first part you might be able to note the further significance of this bus.

Safeway had quite acollection of ancient buses for school service until about 1970 - 4008's and 5103's, some even in the older paint job with much more red, Route service was majority5301's and 5303's, with 5105's and 4512's on lighter routes (such as Halsted - inagine that!) with Dan Ryan Flyers being 5303's and ex=Denver 5105's. All except the latter 5303's (594-611) got replaced in 1974 by 701-755,

[Busjack]

Yeah the 304 situation did kind of throw me for a loop from what you point out that the 322 also operated to the Pink Line along side the 21 and still does. At the time of that cutback, the other thing that had the wheels cranking inside my brain on Pace's reasons was 304 was still appeared to get good ridership on that portion between North Riverside and the Pine Line during the rush periods at least despite CTA merging the 25 into the 21 as part of its West Side Corridor restructurings.

The other thing you have to figure about this cutback were that there were some local 322s, but as part of the restructuring, CTA limited 322 only to Yorktown, except during some fringe hours.

[jajuan]

The other thing you have to figure about this cutback were that there were some local 322s, but as part of the restructuring, CTA limited 322 only to Yorktown, except during some fringe hours.

Yes true on that part. But that still would seem to suggest that demand between North Riverside and 54th/Cermak station was probably still there more than Pace was letting on given CTA's streamlining that segment into the 21 mostly had the effect of putting back the weekday midday presence it had clandestinely removed from the 25 sometime in the 1990s without a formal notice, which they were able to do because as I recall the combined 25/304/322 schedules simply often said something like "every x number of minutes" or "buses depart at the following times after the hour :x, :y and :z" during some generic timeframe that covered midday without distinguishing whether that bus was CTA's #25 or Pace's #304 or #322. CTA nonrush headways on that stretch initially were still up to 20 minutes in daytime hours after 21 took over CTA service, though it did drop to 15 minutes as the one ride bus trip along Cermak from the west side to the mall got more popular. I think that particular case in some ways had more to do with the coordination between CTA and Pace along that part of Cermak being broken when CTA placed the 21 there more than it being Pace demand dropping because CTA restructured its share of coverage that had already been there for decades. And that would get to your point of there not needing to be four different service boards and merging planning. I agree with you but for a different set of reasons in some areas.