Evanston Express EXpanded Summer 2015

[Juniorz]

This is a pilot run beginning June 1st through July 10th weekday service only. An official count will be made by CTA planning staff on Thursday June 25th to determine if the service is feasible to continue past the pilot schedule. For the run to become successful, 468 passengers will need to be on board during the trip. More details should become available this week.

[TripleTransit1]

468 passengers? Do they mean 468 passengers a day? Also, how many riders use the Purple Line on an average basis?

[Busjack]

468 passengers? Do they mean 468 passengers a day? Also, how many riders use the Purple Line on an average basis?

​Since it is a 6 car train, undoubtedly so. You can use the Ridership Reports to figure out how many get on in Evanston or Wilmette (about 10,000), but then you have to make the assumption that an equal amount get off.

[ajm522]

Does anyone know if the test was conducted yesterday and the outcome?

[Juniorz]

The test was conducted on Thursday, not yesterday

[orionbuslover]

The tests have actually taken place every Wednesday since the service started. I was on the train two weeks ago when a CTA staffer came thru and did the manual count. I was able to ask a few questions. The CTA is only looking at ridership on the express portion of the route, Howard to Belmont.

[Juniorz]

But the official count was Thursday

[Busjack]

Heard on the radio that the trial failed Tribune story.

[joechicago]

Heard on the radio that the trial failed Tribune story.

Too bad. One wonders the wisdom of doing this when northwestern was ending their year.

[garmon757]

The ridership has failed. No extension will be considered. However, my blame of this failure is towards CTA for one reason: slow zones

I really didn't understand why did they launched this pilot program when there's a lot of construction going on (Wilson) and now to be track work between Lawrence and Jarvis to rectify the issue of slow zones.

I don't think majority of riders wants to ride nearly 6 miles while going 20-25 mph. 

[Juniorz]

The ridership has failed. No extension will be considered. However, my blame of this failure is towards CTA for one reason: slow zones

I really didn't understand why did they launched this pilot program when there's a lot of construction going on (Wilson) and now to be track work between Lawrence and Jarvis to rectify the issue of slow zones.

I don't think majority of riders wants to ride nearly 6 miles while going 20-25 mph. 

That could be a deciding factor, but it also had the fact that the pilot was conductied while people (and families) were vacationing and that the pilot was conducted during a major holiday. Other than an official press release and service decals posted along the Evanston portion of the Purple Line, it smelled liked it was doomed. The CTA anticipated for the pilot and allocated the dollars necessary for pilot within it's 2015 budget, no grants were applied for the pilot, just $7,000 of CTA's own hard cash. I had very high hopes for the pilot, but the stacks were built against this pilot from the start. As a Northwestern-City of Evanston joint venture, maybe officials of both establishments should have been curiously cautious when those dates were decided. It's an unfortunate decision, but the numbers speak louder than words.    

On average, the trip had 89 customers on board (22 per car). 

A little arithmetic

To calculate the on average 89/2=44.25/2=22.25 (round to about 22)

To calculate the suggested average by the CTA 39*6=234*2=468

[Busjack]

The ridership has failed. No extension will be considered. However, my blame of this failure is towards CTA for one reason: slow zones

,,,

The comparison should be the difference between riding the Purple Line "Express" and the usual of taking the Red Line and transferring at Howard to the Purple Line shuttle. If either the slow zones are that bad, or if it is held up by local stops south of Belmont, it doesn't really have an advantage.

As Juniorz indicates, the trial might have been poorly conceived, but given that there was the Red Line alternative, maybe the ridership never would have been there.

[See Tea Eh]

It's not surprising this didn't really succeed, and I don't think the slow zones had much to do with it.

The reality is, scheduling just a single trip at some random time in the evening isn't going to do enough to draw passengers to it.  It requires too precise of timing for your trip for a ridership that is used to just showing up at random times and having a train show up within a few minutes.  I seriously doubt more than a small, tiny sliver of the rail ridership (outside of first train/last train, or owl hours) really times their trip to a specific run.  You go to the station when you're ready, and you wait on the platform until the train you want shows up.

So, if you happen to be at Linden at 8:00 pm, or somewhere along the line to Howard a few minutes later, and you get lucky, then great, you get the direct express train to downtown.  Otherwise, you transfer at Howard to the Red Line like you normally would.  Even an express that saves 10-15 minutes Howard-Belmont simply means that, at best, you wind up in a tie with whoever got on the Purple Line in front and transferred at Howard to the Red.

Going northbound it's even worse, because it's no longer a case of catching whatever comes first.  You have to specifically commit yourself to a platform that isn't served by any other train going in the direction you want to go (assuming you're boarding in the Loop; Brown Line to Fullerton/Belmont is on the other side, Red Line is in the subway).  So, if you happen to be at Clark/Lake at 8:45 pm and actually know the schedule for the express, you can go to the platform and catch it.  Otherwise, why bother?

The only way to make such an experiment come even close to being useful is if you ran the service at a continuous headway for a period, so passengers could show up randomly like they're used to doing, and don't have to remember some specific schedule (seriously, who even knows that their train runs on a schedule?).  But doing that would be very expensive, and cost a lot more than the $7000, require a heck of a lot more manpower (going from 4 trains to 10 trains in service at once during the evening period) and other associated costs, and honestly, I doubt that outside of special event times, there would really be enough demand to Evanston to justify more than doubling the cost of the service up there at night.  The Red Line has plenty of room, and even if the Purple Line ran at good speeds, you wouldn't get enough passengers to justify it.

[BusHunter]

It probably would have made better sense to run the train directly behind the last train. Not only would they pick up the riders who missed the last regular scheduled train, but they could tap on to the night time Evanston crowd. That might have worked, but i have to agree with garmon, the slow zones are so bad why would you want to ride a Purple line express?

[Juniorz]

Well, there was a Weekend Express Pilot that would've launched around 2011-2012, but the CTA couldn't find the local match from Evanston and the dollars were allocated elsewhere.

I hope that the negative reception from this pilot doesn't discourage the CTA and/or Evanston from pursuing expanding the Express service.

The demand might not be here now, but just imagine if the pilot got the proper attention it needed in form of a grant instead of the CTA digging into it's own pockets.

http://dailynorthwestern.com/2015/07/13/city/cta-will-not-add-purple-line-express-run-pilot-program-fails/

Here's an article that features Evanston city officials echoing many of our sentiments

[Busjack]

It probably would have made better sense to run the train directly behind the last train. Not only would they pick up the riders who missed the last regular scheduled train, but they could tap on to the night time Evanston crowd. That might have worked, but i have to agree with garmon, the slow zones are so bad why would you want to ride a Purple line express?

Essentially, though, the theory was that there was someone in Evanston who had to get to the city at 8 p.m. or from the city to Evanston at 8:45. The article cited by Juniorz second guessed that after the fact, but the point is that if some specific audience had not been identified before the pilot, See is correct that all one is dealing with is a random run, which doesn't serve much of anyone. You probably can compare it to a school run, where the TA knows that the bell will ring at 2:50. 

[Tcmetro]

I think that in the future (post-Main Line reconstruction), a daytime Purple Express will be viable, with stops at Loyola, Wilson, Belmont, and Fullerton. The big question is if the Purple Express should be moved into the subway at that point. Certainly, it would be a much faster ride, but Red Line schedules in the peak hour probably leave little accommodation for another service in the subway.
Alternatively, the Purple Express could draw ridership away from the Red Line, causing a reduction in service to  Red Line local stops between Belmont and Howard, but more service at the Wilson and Loyola express stops.

Let's hire some consultants to figure this out.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Tcmetro

[Busjack]

I think that in the future (post-Main Line reconstruction), a daytime Purple Express will be viable, with stops at Loyola, Wilson, Belmont, and Fullerton. The big question is if the Purple Express should be moved into the subway at that point. Certainly, it would be a much faster ride, but Red Line schedules in the peak hour probably leave little accommodation for another service in the subway.
Alternatively, the Purple Express could draw ridership away from the Red Line, causing a reduction in service to  Red Line local stops between Belmont and Howard, but more service at the Wilson and Loyola express stops.

Let's hire some consultants to figure this out.

People appear to be doing that. There had to be more to the statements that Wilson will be a Red/Purple transfer point (see, for instance, the Construction Report, page 14) than just rush hour. Any such express would not be express if it had to make the local stops south of Belmont. However, I doubt that anything can be implemented until the RPM construction is done. As it is, the Purple Line a.m. southbound isn't express south of Lawrence.