CTA Blizzard Of 2015(Groundhog Blizzard 2: The Groundhog Bites Back)

[sw4400]

Let's see what the forum thinks of the CTA's performance in this latest blizzard....

Honestly, given the circumstances, they did a pretty good job. I think there's always room for improvement, but the buses ran(albeit behind schedule, but what do you expect) and the "L" trains ran with little to no issues(don't know about the grade level portions, but I didn't see many reports on issues via the Trib or Sun Times). So I would say good job to the CTA in keeping the city moving as best as they could.....

[strictures]

Let's see what the forum thinks of the CTA's performance in this latest blizzard....

Honestly, given the circumstances, they did a pretty good job. I think there's always room for improvement, but the buses ran(albeit behind schedule, but what do you expect) and the "L" trains ran with little to no issues(don't know about the grade level portions, but I didn't see many reports on issues via the Trib or Sun Times). So I would say good job to the CTA in keeping the city moving as best as they could.....

There were 20-30- minute waits for the 22 bus yesterday afternoon in Uptown, Edgewater & Rogers Park in both directions, so no, they weren't doing too good since 10 minute headways are normal. At least that's what's scheduled.

[Busjack]

..and the "L" trains ran with little to no issues(don't know about the grade level portions, but I didn't see many reports on issues...

There were reports of power failures at Howard Yard, but mostly that the Yellow Line was only using the inbound platform, as opposed to what was usual in past years of not running.

There were 20-30- minute waits for the 22 bus yesterday afternoon in Uptown, Edgewater & Rogers Park in both directions, so no, they weren't doing too good since 10 minute headways are normal. At least that's what's scheduled.

Unless you figured out a way to put helicopter blades on a bus, what do you expect? This isn't even like in the days of the trolley companies, when they had to have their own snow plows (I remember some private suburban bus companies that did).

[Chicagos_D]

Yesterday, with the 54B bus to Midway, the Orange line, transferring to the Purple line in the loop I got to work 10 min earlier. I was impressed. However, today there was a delay in the loop by tower 18. I would expect today's commute yesterday, but nothing major that would seem frustrating. Compared to last year, when the orange line was stuck in between 35th/Archer and Ashland for half-hour this week's commute seems close to or above normal.

[andrethebusman]

Most of the problems Monday morning was drivers not being able to get to work because they could not get their cars out of drifts. Side streets were basically untouched, including the ones buses run on. About 230pm a 146 artic (4378) got stuck on Berwyn and Kenmore for over an hour, with three Fosters and several 146's behind it. Berwyn had not been plowed, salted, anything. As of 10pm, still nothing of consequence seemed to have been done. Street barely passable. Main streets OK, but good luck on anything other than an "arterial". There are other routes where this is truly a major problem, such as 30-South Chicago. Houston between 91st and 92nd is not cleared, 132nd and Exchange in Hegewisch aren't either. I can't understand why CTA can't demand that any streets regularly used by buses for turnarounds be made part of the priority plowing grid. Back when CTA did the plowing and salting in the 1960's this was done, while "arterials" without bus service (few and far between back then) were left to the city to deal with if they felt like it. Now the situation is completely reversed.

By the way, yesterday between 1pm and 10pm making five round trips on Foster, saw exactly three salt trucks. One was going down Milwaukee, one down Clark, and one was actually heading down Long. The city has really laid down as far as the side streets are concerned. Bilandic must be grinning ear to ear.

[Busjack]

I don't get it... every other major city basically shuts down when forecast is for 12 inches of snow. We get full fledged blizzard warnings and CTA keeps plugging along just like nothing is happening (albeit at a very slow pace). What makes us that much more hardy than everyone else?

Chicago isn't like what Krambles described of Washington D.C.--let whoever put the snow there melt it. I'm sure that the Bilandic experience got the word to subsequent mayors that they better maintain city services. From that book, it also appears that Bilandic got the blame that the West-South had to run nonstop for a while.

Also, rest assured that the upstate NY communities have figured out how to keep their streets clear in blizzards such as this one, only being stymied by something like the 7 feet Buffalo got in November.

And, noting your above Bilandic point, are you really expecting the side streets to be cleared in a couple of hours? How long did it take to dig out in 1967 and 1979? You rather see buses drifted over on north LSD like they were 4 years ago? At least this time CTA had enough sense to get the buses off LSD.

[strictures]

Unless you figured out a way to put helicopter blades on a bus, what do you expect? This isn't even like in the days of the trolley companies, when they had to have their own snow plows (I remember some private suburban bus companies that did).

I expect the CTA to use all that location info they get from the buses to actually make some use of it & flip buses when necessary to have some semblance of a schedule.

It makes no sense for four buses to be bunched running NB at Clark/Devon, when nothing is running SB from Howard to Belmont.

They have a terminal at Clark/Arthur, so put all the passengers except those going all the way to Howard on two of them, then flip one at Arthur, send one express north on Ashland to Howard & let the other two continue on to Howard.

The lack of common sense & of course the lack of street corner supervisors, who used to & did do that is appalling.

[Busjack]

I expect the CTA to use all that location info they get from the buses to actually make some use of it & flip buses when necessary to have some semblance of a schedule.

It makes no sense for four buses to be bunched running NB at Clark/Devon, when nothing is running SB from Howard to Belmont.

They have a terminal at Clark/Arthur, so put all the passengers except those going all the way to Howard on two of them, then flip one at Arthur, send one express north on Ashland to Howard & let the other two continue on to Howard.

The lack of common sense & of course the lack of street corner supervisors, who used to & did do that is appalling.

They could do some of that but then you had someone complaining that the passengers were dumped off a Red Line train at Garfield, so you can't please everyone with that. Also, that might just be sending the bus back into the mess. Maybe people should figure that it isn't easy navigating a two lane street in a snow storm.

[BusHunter]

I voted C myself. They were lucky there was no school yesterday cause like half the buses were out there. I got to see how today is. That's one reason for the big gaps and overcrowding. I don't get it, why do buses not run in an indoor facility especially when most are pretty new or rehabbed. Was there high absenteeism yesterday or what??

[strictures]

They could do some of that but then you had someone complaining that the passengers were dumped off a Red Line train at Garfield, so you can't please everyone with that. Also, that might just be sending the bus back into the mess. Maybe people should figure that it isn't easy navigating a two lane street in a snow storm.

Living in Rogers Park, for 62 of my 65 years, just off of Clark, I can't tell you the number of times I was on bunched buses at Devon, when the supervisor told one to flip & the other to continue on to Howard.

On a few occasions, a 36 would be told to go to Howard, because of a huge crowd waiting At Devon. I used to see 155s going EB to go to the terminal & go west, because there weren't any going west there.

Buses were only flipped at Devon if there was another bus there to pick them up.

Even in nice weather & no Cubs games or bridge lifts, I've looked at Bustracker online & I can see not one NB 22 from North Ave to Howard & not one sitting at Howard.

Now there might be a ghost bus or two there, since from personal experience, Clark just may have the most ghost buses in the system of late. I'll be at the Bryn Mawr/Clark Jewel, check my phone app & see a 25 minute wait for one & look out & see one go by 3 minutes later.

[jajuan]

I voted B personally. I gave myself extra time yesterday and Sunday and got luck to have my wait times on the 9 and 22 be no more than 10 minutes. I agree that considering New York City had its entire transit system including subways shutdown temporarily during their snow scare the week prior to us, we really are lucky given the horrible conditions out there that CTA had things running as well as they managed in this latest big snow storm, which happens to be just under two inches shy of the total from the Groundhog Day 2011 Snowmageddon by the way. And the interesting part is New York City lucking out in that prior storm caused our local forecasters to give a more conservative estimate and the actual totals here ended up higher than estimated in the official forecast though the same models that said New York would get more than what they actually got and brought complaints that Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio overreacted actually said that Chicago would get at least 18 inches. Yeah the waits were 30-45 minutes at certain points, but what the heck do we expect in the sixth largest Chicago snowstorm in the history of official weather recordkeeping with no official travel restrictions other than CTA pulling the express buses off Lake Shore Drive?

[Tcmetro]

Bus bunching still seems to be worse than usual. Today I saw several packs of 7s, 12s, 49s, 157s, etc.

[jajuan]

Bus bunching still seems to be worse than usual. Today I saw several packs of 7s, 12s, 49s, 157s, etc.

Yeah I noticed. How about when I had to go to my eye doctor appointment this morning, I saw three #84s going eastbound when walking from my place to catch a #22. And when I made my connection to the #9, the bus I rode (6872) was one bus out of maybe five or six that were all back to back going southbound on Ashland. I'm wondering if most of the bus stops outside of downtown still being a mess with snow piled high along with few cases of those routes that use side streets to turnaround is part of the problem and how much that's a factor in slowing things down since the main streets are indeed cleared of snow.

[BusHunter]

Yeah I noticed. How about when I had to go to my eye doctor appointment this morning, I saw three #84s going eastbound when walking from my place to catch a #22. And when I made my connection to the #9, the bus I rode (6872) was one bus out of maybe five or six that were all back to back going southbound on Ashland. I'm wondering if most of the bus stops outside of downtown still being a mess with snow piled high along with few cases of those routes that use side streets to turnaround is part of the problem and how much that's a factor in slowing things down since the main streets are indeed cleared of snow.

That's probably one of the bigger complaints with this storm. They should try and shovel out the bus stops, especially the ones at main roads. The #72 was a complete mess this afternoon. they had about 3 packs of three plus buses and a half hour spot where there was no bus and this is north ave, probably one of the more busy routes. At one point in my journey at Homan and North there was no path to the bus, the bus had to stop let off about 10 passengers who climbed over this mound to wait for 10 more to climb back over the mound to get on the bus. The bus was stopped a good 2-3 minutes just at that one stop. It's challenging just to ride the bus. I notice all the fire hydrants are dug out though. I know that's for public safety, but isn't this a safety hazard too. I think this is going to bite Rahm in the butt, election day is this month and he will not plow the alleys either. Streets and San's got it real hard collecting the garbage. I walked down a few alleys tonight and they are ridiculous.

[jajuan]

That's probably one of the bigger complaints with this storm. They should try and shovel out the bus stops, especially the ones at main roads. The #72 was a complete mess this afternoon. they had about 3 packs of three plus buses and a half hour spot where there was no bus and this is north ave, probably one of the more busy routes. At one point in my journey at Homan and North there was no path to the bus, the bus had to stop let off about 10 passengers who climbed over this mound to wait for 10 more to climb back over the mound to get on the bus. The bus was stopped a good 2-3 minutes just at that one stop. It's challenging just to ride the bus. I notice all the fire hydrants are dug out though. I know that's for public safety, but isn't this a safety hazard too. I think this is going to bite Rahm in the butt, election day is this month and he will not plow the alleys either. Streets and San's got it real hard collecting the garbage. I walked down a few alleys tonight and they are ridiculous.

Yeah the snow on those stops aren't just hills, but big mountains of hard packed ice. And they're a good three feet high at minimum above the surface of the street pavement. If able bodied riders like you and I run into some challenges negotiating that, imagined how it must be for the disabled and senior riders. Speaking of alleys, some of the alleys out there including a bunch of them up here near Edgewater and Rogers Park still have snow with the drifts sitting higher than some of those mountains of snow on the bus stops.

[BusHunter]

Yeah the snow on those stops aren't just hills, but big mountains of hard packed ice. And they're a good three feet high at minimum above the surface of the street pavement. If able bodied riders like you and I run into some challenges negotiating that, imagined how it must be for the disabled and senior riders. Speaking of alleys, some of the alleys out there including a bunch of them up here near Edgewater and Rogers Park still have snow with the drifts sitting higher than some of those mountains of snow on the bus stops.

Yeah our garbage truck was getting stuck. The supervisor was right there too watching like they were expecting problems. The ends where it slopes are real bad, No way can you travel that with a car, I'd even question a small 4X4 suv making it. I think only something like a Ford F-350 super duty or something big and powerful with the double back wheels can tackle that. Yeah I was thinking about the seniors too, notice we are not seeing any as they would have to carried on the bus.

[Busjack]

Yeah the snow on those stops aren't just hills, but big mountains of hard packed ice. ...

On the coverage of the man who was run over by the unmarked police car on 79th, they talked with a couple of passers by who said that it you were waiting for a bus, you either had to be in the street or wave your arms from the other side of the snow pile.

I then made the connection that CTA is legally responsible for stopping at a safe location.

I'm not going to make a prediction about what would be reasonable care under blizzard circumstances, and whether it is CTA's or Streets and San's responsibility to shovel the bus stops, but someone should.

[jajuan]

Yeah our garbage truck was getting stuck. The supervisor was right there too watching like they were expecting problems. The ends where it slopes are real bad, No way can you travel that with a car, I'd even question a small 4X4 suv making it. I think only something like a Ford F-350 super duty or something big and powerful with the double back wheels can tackle that. Yeah I was thinking about the seniors too, notice we are not seeing any as they would have to carried on the bus.

Yeah. I've been seeing fewer seniors on the buses than I normally see. The #22 gets a good senior ridership through my area and other parts of its north end. Not as many of them have been on the bus on that route these past few days.

On the coverage of the man who was run over by the unmarked police car on 79th, they talked with a couple of passers by who said that it you were waiting for a bus, you either had to be in the street or wave your arms from the other side of the snow pile.

I then made the connection that CTA is legally responsible for stopping at a safe location.

I'm not going to make a prediction about what would be reasonable care under blizzard circumstances, and whether it is CTA's or Streets and San's responsibility to shovel the bus stops, but someone should.

That's a good question about clearing the bus stops. We know JC Decaux is responsible for the sheltered bus stops, but who's responsible for the rest of them. Plus we've been focused on CTA here since this is a CTA themed thread, but I wonder how Pace riders commutes are still being affected. A good number of Pace's bus stops are at spots that don't even have paved sidewalks.

[Busjack]

..We know JC Decaux is responsible for the sheltered bus stops, but who's responsible for the rest of them....

I don't think we even know that, as far as responsibility for shoveling. About all revealed in this Crain's article is that JCDecaux is paying the city a certain amount for the right to occupy city sidewalks. Aside from the lobbying stuff, this Tribune article mentions maintaining the shelters, but not necessarily that maintenance means snow removal, as opposed to replacing cracked panels (this blog indicates the latter and removing graffiti). And, of course, someone would have the obligation to shovel snow piles between the shelter and the street.

There is a bit or irony of the picture in the Crain's article of the Coors pile of ice.

I don't know how Pace passengers fared, but the solicitation for a consultant for a Posted Stop system stressed that the main task was assuring that the posted stops were in safe locations.

Finally, there would be the issue who has the responsibility to shovel the long paver sidewalk connecting the 100-Paxton "station" on the Jeffery Jump with the sidewalk on the cross street.

[jajuan]

I don't think we even know that, as far as responsibility for shoveling. About all revealed in this Crain's article is that JCDecaux is paying the city a certain amount for the right to occupy city sidewalks. Aside from the lobbying stuff, this Tribune article mentions maintaining the shelters, but not necessarily that maintenance means snow removal, as opposed to replacing cracked panels (this blog indicates the latter and removing graffiti). And, of course, someone would have the obligation to shovel snow piles between the shelter and the street.

There is a bit or irony of the picture in the Crain's article of the Coors pile of ice.

I don't know how Pace passengers fared, but the solicitation for a consultant for a Posted Stop system stressed that the main task was assuring that the posted stops were in safe locations.

Finally, there would be the issue who has the responsibility to shovel the long paver sidewalk connecting the 100-Paxton "station" on the Jeffery Jump with the sidewalk on the cross street.

Well I've seen JCDecaux workers clearing snow from inside and around their shelters, so that gave the impression that their responsibility at those stops included the removal of snow.

[KeithmanCTA]

A Tough 2015 Winter! Especially tough on the CTA Buses and Trains!