New CTA President

[artthouwill]

3 minutes ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

I'm just saying they need better mfs who can do a better job at managing this entire bus system or make them ride it for 2 weeks straight so they can see how it suck what everyday people have to deal with see they don't know that cause their riding in their 150k cars getting paid big bucks to do nothing 

No executive can fix day to day operations.  Things happen like traffic, breakdowns,  accidents, staffing issues, sick passengers, etc.  I didn't even mention railroad crossings, trains blocking streets. 

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

make them ride it for 2 weeks straight so they can see how it suck what everyday people have to deal with

Essentially, you are asking for a repeat of the Jane Byrne publicity stunt, when she lived in Cabrini Green for a week.

I'm sure they know the CTA is messed up, but also that most other transit authorities are facing the same thing. Why do you think Pace buses are flashing PACE IS HIRING signs?  Then there are such articles as MTA Blames Canceled Express Bus Trips on Driver Shortages; The T’s Bus Driver Shortage Persists, In Spite of New Labor Contract; SEPTA Ghost Bus-ting: "The main problem causing most missed bus trips is the shortage of bus operators faced by transit agencies nationwide.", MARTA blames dozens of trip cancellations on staffing shortages, ‘absenteeism’ ; King County Metro Continues to Face Labor Pinch. But so much for my abusing Google; I'm sure you get the point.

[strictures]

13 hours ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

I'm just saying they need better mfs who can do a better job at managing this entire bus system or make them ride it for 2 weeks straight so they can see how it suck what everyday people have to deal with see they don't know that cause their riding in their 150k cars getting paid big bucks to do nothing 

At the very least, require them to ride to 567 every day using some form of the CTA!  Trains or buses, I don't care, but at least they will see how enshittified the CTA has become!  Make them go to all meetings & even trips to O'Hare or Midway also, using CTA only.  get rid of their chauffeur  driven cars.

Now the Red Line has been wrecked by becoming a rolling homeless shelter, made worse by those appallingly stupid sideways seats where you almost always have at least one bum per car sleeping across five of them.  That must end!

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, strictures said:

At the very least, require them to ride to 567 every day using some form of the CTA!  Trains or buses, I don't care, but at least they will see how enshittified the CTA has become!  Make them go to all meetings & even trips to O'Hare or Midway also, using CTA only.  get rid of their chauffeur  driven cars.

Now the Red Line has been wrecked by becoming a rolling homeless shelter, made worse by those appallingly stupid sideways seats where you almost always have at least one bum per car sleeping across five of them.  That must end!

This is old stuff. While the press has been replete with articles about Carter not riding CTA, there were articles in 2007 that Kruesi rode CTA, but not that much, and Board members didn't at all, and in 2012 with Claypool saying that he rode the L, but not bus. If it is to be a requirement, write your state legislators and State Senator Ram Villivalam and tell them to write the riding requirement in the reform law (like that will have as much effect as the provision in the Metropolitan Transit Authority Act that members of the Chicago Transit Board be "persons of recognized business ability").

Similarly complaints go back to 2012 about the seats in the 5000s, although this source quotes a Hilkevitch  column calling for flat NY-style benches, which I'm sure you'll say will make the bums more comfortable. Anyway, CTA authorized in Ordinance 024-147 "an Intergovernmental Agreement with the City of Chicago through its Department of Family & Support Services for outreach to individuals in need of shelter."

[Shannon tahoeppv]

6 hours ago, strictures said:

At the very least, require them to ride to 567 every day using some form of the CTA!  Trains or buses, I don't care, but at least they will see how enshittified the CTA has become!  Make them go to all meetings & even trips to O'Hare or Midway also, using CTA only.  get rid of their chauffeur  driven cars.

Now the Red Line has been wrecked by becoming a rolling homeless shelter, made worse by those appallingly stupid sideways seats where you almost always have at least one bum per car sleeping across five of them.  That must end!

I agree they need to ride it & have to wait 20-30 Mims in the heat or cold to see how much service suck 

[Shannon tahoeppv]

19 hours ago, artthouwill said:

No executive can fix day to day operations.  Things happen like traffic, breakdowns,  accidents, staffing issues, sick passengers, etc.  I didn't even mention railroad crossings, trains blocking streets. 

No bro i get that but what i am saying is that the schedule itself sucks do you know how many times I've been asked what's taken so long to show up & I on time most of the time 5-10 mins late but the bus in front of me already turned around & heading back a different way as I did the 54 last Wednesday I pulled up to north Ave guess where my leader was already turned around at 24th & was heading back & we crossed each other at Madison it there is no reason mfs in the real Chicago should have to wait that long for a bus but go down town or the rich area they got buses running back to back 

[Shannon tahoeppv]

18 hours ago, Busjack said:

Essentially, you are asking for a repeat of the Jane Byrne publicity stunt, when she lived in Cabrini Green for a week.

I'm sure they know the CTA is messed up, but also that most other transit authorities are facing the same thing. Why do you think Pace buses are flashing PACE IS HIRING signs?  Then there are such articles as MTA Blames Canceled Express Bus Trips on Driver Shortages; The T’s Bus Driver Shortage Persists, In Spite of New Labor Contract; SEPTA Ghost Bus-ting: "The main problem causing most missed bus trips is the shortage of bus operators faced by transit agencies nationwide.", MARTA blames dozens of trip cancellations on staffing shortages, ‘absenteeism’ ; King County Metro Continues to Face Labor Pinch. But so much for my abusing Google; I'm sure you get the point.

If cta actually hire & stop having people wait for months before getting on the job that will help solve it no way in hell after they pass the test people should have to wait another month or more to start 

[artthouwill]

6 minutes ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

No bro i get that but what i am saying is that the schedule itself sucks do you know how many times I've been asked what's taken so long to show up & I on time most of the time 5-10 mins late but the bus in front of me already turned around & heading back a different way as I did the 54 last Wednesday I pulled up to north Ave guess where my leader was already turned around at 24th & was heading back & we crossed each other at Madison it there is no reason mfs in the real Chicago should have to wait that long for a bus but go down town or the rich area they got buses running back to back 

It's not the schedulers fault that YOU  were 5 - 10 minutes late.   I'm not saying that you are at fault for being late, but little things add up like catching red lights here and there, or a delivery truck shows up after your leader has passed but before you show up.  The schedule can't be too padded otherwise the bus will slow to a crawl and you will lose passengers that way.  It doesn't matter the frequency of a route.  These things affect everyone all over the city.  Just ask @strictures about Clark Street.  Even the best laid plans get screwed up unexpectedly. 

[Busjack]

10 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

The schedule can't be too padded otherwise the bus will slow to a crawl and you will lose passengers that way.

Pace builds recovery time in the schedules, but you're right; the buses sit too long at intermediate time points.

I'm surprised that this administration, for the first time I know, coordinated the 84 schedule with Metra arrivals.

[strictures]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

It's not the schedulers fault that YOU  were 5 - 10 minutes late.   I'm not saying that you are at fault for being late, but little things add up like catching red lights here and there, or a delivery truck shows up after your leader has passed but before you show up.  The schedule can't be too padded otherwise the bus will slow to a crawl and you will lose passengers that way.  It doesn't matter the frequency of a route.  These things affect everyone all over the city.  Just ask @strictures about Clark Street.  Even the best laid plans get screwed up unexpectedly. 

But it is often the scheduler's fault.  They apparently don't know that on Clark St. there's this huge place called Wrigley Field, which 81 days a year will have 30,000 people pouring out of it when a game is over.  The definitely don't about the fact that the cops take over control of the traffic light at Clark/Irving Park & let NB Clark traffic go for 5 or more minutes straight, with most of the cars turning west onto Irving Park, which screws up the Irving Park bus in both directions & the SB Clark bus.  What's really galling about that is, the second that cop disconnects his hand control from the traffic light control box & walks away, traffic runs perfectly without him.  He makes it worse!  But then if you've seen the total idiots the city has hired as traffic aides around downtown, you'd see how they make a total mess out of things, as those pinheads stand in the street, blocking the cars while parroting the left turn lights!

The schedulers also don't seem to know that from Spring to Fall, on Wednesdays & Saturdays, the Clark & Dearborn bridges, along with all the rest of the downtown bridges open up, thus screwing up the bus schedules.

[Shannon tahoeppv]

3 hours ago, artthouwill said:

It's not the schedulers fault that YOU  were 5 - 10 minutes late.   I'm not saying that you are at fault for being late, but little things add up like catching red lights here and there, or a delivery truck shows up after your leader has passed but before you show up.  The schedule can't be too padded otherwise the bus will slow to a crawl and you will lose passengers that way.  It doesn't matter the frequency of a route.  These things affect everyone all over the city.  Just ask @strictures about Clark Street.  Even the best laid plans get screwed up unexpectedly. 

No not saying the schedule fault I'm late but you missed the point I was saying the there wasn't any bus in front of me to begin with that's cta fault mfs had to wait 20-30 mins for a bus already on top of me being late that's cta fault for not having a bus in between me & the bus way ahead

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, strictures said:

But it is often the scheduler's fault.  They apparently don't know that on Clark St. there's this huge place called Wrigley Field, which 81 days a year will have 30,000 people pouring out of it when a game is over.  The definitely don't about the fact that the cops take over control of the traffic light at Clark/Irving Park & let NB Clark traffic go for 5 or more minutes straight, with most of the cars turning west onto Irving Park, which screws up the Irving Park bus in both directions & the SB Clark bus.  What's really galling about that is, the second that cop disconnects his hand control from the traffic light control box & walks away, traffic runs perfectly without him.  He makes it worse!  But then if you've seen the total idiots the city has hired as traffic aides around downtown, you'd see how they make a total mess out of things, as those pinheads stand in the street, blocking the cars while parroting the left turn lights!

The schedulers also don't seem to know that from Spring to Fall, on Wednesdays & Saturdays, the Clark & Dearborn bridges, along with all the rest of the downtown bridges open up, thus screwing up the bus schedules.

It would be nonsense to try to make a schedule for every single scenario that happens along a given route.  There are 365 days in a year of which 1/4 are for Cub games.  There are some day games and some night games.  It would be impossible and unreliable to try to make a schedule to account for games, bridge lifts, etc.  There's still 3/4 of the year where normal service should suffice.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

No not saying the schedule fault I'm late but you missed the point I was saying the there wasn't any bus in front of me to begin with that's cta fault mfs had to wait 20-30 mins for a bus already on top of me being late that's cta fault for not having a bus in between me & the bus way ahead

But what's the reason? If it is short employees, I noted above that every TA is, and CTA claims CTA Meets Record-Breaking Workforce Milestone: Training 200 New Rail Operators and Hiring 1,000 Bus Operators in 2024. Now maybe it's lying, or maybe having 1000 new Bus Operators out of approximately 4000 (according to salary.xls manipulated) meaning that 25% are inexperienced results in inefficient service, or maybe  CTA continues to misrepresent that the Control Center uses BusTracker to avoid bunching, or maybe CTA has too much OOS equipment or breakdowns, or there are the types of causes @artthouwill mentioned that are beyond CTA's control. It isn't your personal fault, but I doubt that a dispatcher can just tell a driver on the extra board to hightail it to Pulaski and Fullerton and fill the gap. I even wonder if CTA has the resources to schedule 22 Clark at better than every 12 to 20 minutes.

[Shannon tahoeppv]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

But what's the reason? If it is short employees, I noted above that every TA is, and CTA claims CTA Meets Record-Breaking Workforce Milestone: Training 200 New Rail Operators and Hiring 1,000 Bus Operators in 2024. Now maybe it's lying, or maybe having 1000 new Bus Operators out of approximately 4000 (according to salary.xls manipulated) meaning that 25% are inexperienced results in inefficient service, or maybe  CTA continues to misrepresent that the Control Center uses BusTracker to avoid bunching, or maybe CTA has too much OOS equipment or breakdowns, or there are the types of causes @artthouwill mentioned that are beyond CTA's control. It isn't your personal fault, but I doubt that a dispatcher can just tell a driver on the extra board to hightail it to Pulaski and Fullerton and fill the gap. I even wonder if CTA has the resources to schedule 22 Clark at better than every 12 to 20 minutes.

This is exactly why I said they need to actually hire instead of having people waiting a month or more after finding out they passed the test that is why alot of guys from the hood that grew up out of that then went to other jobs because cta emailed them a month or more after passing the test like who's gonna wait that long cta need to speed up the hiring process 

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

This is exactly why I said they need to actually hire

But if they hired 1000 drivers, they say. Maybe you mean more instructors.

[artthouwill]

9 hours ago, Shannon tahoeppv said:

This is exactly why I said they need to actually hire instead of having people waiting a month or more after finding out they passed the test that is why alot of guys from the hood that grew up out of that then went to other jobs because cta emailed them a month or more after passing the test like who's gonna wait that long cta need to speed up the hiring process 

The flipside is if something were to happen involving a new hire, CTA  would be sued for not thoroughly vetting in their hiring process.   I will cede that the process seemingly could be faster  than a month  but trying to hire a bunch of people and see where to send them ( which garage) .

[MetroShadow]

On 1/20/2025 at 4:34 PM, strictures said:

But it is often the scheduler's fault.  They apparently don't know that on Clark St. there's this huge place called Wrigley Field, which 81 days a year will have 30,000 people pouring out of it when a game is over.  The definitely don't about the fact that the cops take over control of the traffic light at Clark/Irving Park & let NB Clark traffic go for 5 or more minutes straight, with most of the cars turning west onto Irving Park, which screws up the Irving Park bus in both directions & the SB Clark bus.  What's really galling about that is, the second that cop disconnects his hand control from the traffic light control box & walks away, traffic runs perfectly without him.  He makes it worse!  But then if you've seen the total idiots the city has hired as traffic aides around downtown, you'd see how they make a total mess out of things, as those pinheads stand in the street, blocking the cars while parroting the left turn lights!

The schedulers also don't seem to know that from Spring to Fall, on Wednesdays & Saturdays, the Clark & Dearborn bridges, along with all the rest of the downtown bridges open up, thus screwing up the bus schedules.

This is an operations and scheduling issue, not a planning one. See some info on SFMTA's Policy Toward Headway Management, Active Bus Dispatch Management, Swiftly Youtube. However, you'd think they would coordinate efforts with CDOT and CPD on how to move traffic when everyone is descending upon the ballpark. Being that Clark is an angled street, movement is hard there as is with the rest of the actual grid. Unless there's active parking management (or a red transit lane) on top of moving cars away from the epicenter, that bus is going to be delayed. It's inevitable.

Additional references (1) (2) 

On 1/20/2025 at 5:48 PM, artthouwill said:

It would be nonsense to try to make a schedule for every single scenario that happens along a given route.  There are 365 days in a year of which 1/4 are for Cub games.  There are some day games and some night games.  It would be impossible and unreliable to try to make a schedule to account for games, bridge lifts, etc.  There's still 3/4 of the year where normal service should suffice.

Correct. See above. This is where the Red/Brown or Ashland might be better. I'd defer to the previous statement. Road supervisors can do a much better job with spacing and a SOP to reflect "Next Bus Please" if you're running behind.

On 1/20/2025 at 9:59 PM, Shannon tahoeppv said:

This is exactly why I said they need to actually hire instead of having people waiting a month or more after finding out they passed the test that is why alot of guys from the hood that grew up out of that then went to other jobs because cta emailed them a month or more after passing the test like who's gonna wait that long cta need to speed up the hiring process 

HR is gonna HR, lmao. Along with a training schedule, it is hard to turn around that fast, but processing the applications and DOT requirements should also not take forever.

[Busjack]

3 minutes ago, MetroShadow said:

Road supervisors can do a much better job with spacing and a SOP to reflect "Next Bus Please" if you're running behind.

Except that street supervision has apparently been eliminated at CTA, with the control center using the tracker. But despite assurances that CTA has eliminated bus bunching and the like, there still appear to be control issues, and I don't what the control center can do about traffic congestion.

CTA used to have extras stationed at stadia when events were scheduled to let out. Has that been eliminated? It apparently had sufficient resources to handle the DNC, but that reportedly involved massive overtime.

[MetroShadow]

5 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Except that street supervision has apparently been eliminated at CTA, with the control center using the tracker. But despite assurances that CTA has eliminated bus bunching and the like, there still appear to be control issues, and I don't what the control center can do about traffic congestion.

CTA used to have extras stationed at stadia when events were scheduled to let out. Has that been eliminated? It apparently had sufficient resources to handle the DNC, but that reportedly involved massive overtime.

Drawing back to SF (and even Oakland): even with advancements in Tracker Technology, that still isn't enough (and judging from issues with CTA and the Ghost Buses on the tracker, they need to switch up).

[geneking7320]

On 1/20/2025 at 4:14 PM, Busjack said:

Pace builds recovery time in the schedules, but you're right; the buses sit too long at intermediate time points.

I'm surprised that this administration, for the first time I know, coordinated the 84 schedule with Metra arrivals.

I was actually on a northbound Metra UPN at Peterson Ridge today and saw the westbound #84 pull up at the light.

As for the CTA would it be too much to ask for westbound #95s caught by outbound MED South Chicago trains pulling into the 93rd street terminal to wait at the Baltimore stop for potential passengers?

[strictures]

6 hours ago, geneking7320 said:

I was actually on a northbound Metra UPN at Peterson Ridge today and saw the westbound #84 pull up at the light.

As for the CTA would it be too much to ask for westbound #95s caught by outbound MED South Chicago trains pulling into the 93rd street terminal to wait at the Baltimore stop for potential passengers?

They also appear to coordinate the 96 with the Metra schedule at Rogers park.  But since this bus only runs every 20 minutes, has few riders & no traffic problems, not a difficult thing to do.

And at first I thought they were coordinating the 84 with the Metra Milwaukee North line, just a block away from the west terminal of the 84.  I used to take the 84 to catch that train on occasion.