Parades and Inadequate Transit Service

[BusHunter]

But not one extra bus, don't you find that strange? Like I said before the Blue line doesn't go to Boystown, so what is an extra train going to do for you if there is not an extra bus to pick you up?

[MetroShadow]

One problem with that. Traffic conditions were good. What works for Wrigley should work for the masses. If they are drawing 1 million people and Wrigley seating capacity is 45,000. Then why are they not running extras? Even if you say, "well divide it by 7" as 7 east west routes are covering the high traffic area, (81 t0 74) that's still over 100,000 per route, double Wrigley capacity. That why I say it needs to go downtown. Multiple routes can serve it. It's not walled in to a few possible exits.

Not entirely sure if that's the right analogy you are using, considering Wrigley patrons only use two buses and at least one rail line to get to Wrigley. I understand the context, but we're also talking Enhanced Sunday service, which assumes ~12 buses plus extras plus the neighborhood which isn't traffic friendly.

At least this year there's not a crosstown game on the same day. I am still ambivalent on whether or not it needs to go downtown (I've lived in the neighborhood until I walked from NIU a few years back). But this may be filed under "one must be smart with what transit service you've got." You want more buses, someone's got to pay for it. Sending it downtown really won't change things other than more ridership.

[MetroShadow]

Not entirely sure if that's the right analogy you are using, considering Wrigley patrons only use two buses and at least one rail line to get to Wrigley. I understand the context, but we're also talking Enhanced Sunday service, which assumes ~12 buses (Belmont as an example) plus extras plus the neighborhood which isn't traffic friendly.

At least this year there's not a crosstown game on the same day. I am still ambivalent on whether or not it needs to go downtown (I've lived in the neighborhood until I walked from NIU a few years back). But this may be filed under "one must be smart with what transit service you've got." You want more buses, someone's got to pay for it. Sending it downtown really won't change things other than more ridership.

[BusHunter]

Not entirely sure if that's the right analogy you are using, considering Wrigley patrons only use two buses and at least one rail line to get to Wrigley. I understand the context, but we're also talking Enhanced Sunday service, which assumes ~12 buses plus extras plus the neighborhood which isn't traffic friendly.

At least this year there's not a crosstown game on the same day. I am still ambivalent on whether or not it needs to go downtown (I've lived in the neighborhood until I walked from NIU a few years back). But this may be filed under "one must be smart with what transit service you've got." You want more buses, someone's got to pay for it. Sending it downtown really won't change things other than more ridership.

One day shouldn't break the bank, they sure have money to invest in 63rd yard.

East west traffic was good, the N-S on Clark probably not so good. Shuttles to the blue line would be something, they wouldn't have to do a full route, so that's a 50 percent cost savings. If the city is going to put on these parades they should help pay for it. This is Chicago, one of the biggest cities in the world, not sticksburg, USA. 

[artthouwill]

The two largest parades in this city are not downtown.   The largest,  the Bud Billiken is next month.   All east west routes are split into two route between 35th and 6 1st.  There is no east split on the north side. 

[orionbuslover]

But not one extra bus, don't you find that strange? Like I said before the Blue line doesn't go to Boystown, so what is an extra train going to do for you if there is not an extra bus to pick you up?

Extra buses do get added for major events. In years past, I've noticed the Belmont bus short turning at the Blue Line on Pride Sunday. Very rarely do you see that, so I'm assuming the short turned bus you saw this year was part of the planned extra bus service. Before getting so riled up, you actually have to know for sure CTA did not add extra buses.

[BusHunter]

I'm not riled, just debating, this is a talk site so let's talk. The bus I saw was full to the door and said it was going to Cumberland. I'm sure all those riders were not going to the blue line, or so they thought!!  The east end had no buses behind my pack, so it was probably an assist, but they screwed the west end and all those buses just became later as they are now one short. 

[andrethebusman]

Artics or extra buses. The buses are running in packs because they are overwhelmed. What ever happened to staging buses like at Wrigley and pulling them out, when their full. #77 could've staged at Belmont/Halsted. This way a regular scheduled service does not have to serve those heavy stops and can serve the rest of the route. It's not called the #77 Halsted but that was indeed what was running. CTA made a choice with their decision it was to serve the pride parade and no one else.

Because CTA can barely make schedule without resorting to forced overtime. Right now, every day clerks are begging drivers to do additional pieces of runs after their regular work. Remember, Clayhead said CTA had too many extra board drivers.

[jajuan]

But not one extra bus, don't you find that strange? Like I said before the Blue line doesn't go to Boystown, so what is an extra train going to do for you if there is not an extra bus to pick you up?

As pointed out, it's debatable whether or not they really didn't add any extra buses. But's let's say for the sake of argument they didn't, no I don't find it strange that they added extra service on  the Blue Line, or the Pink or Green for that matter. More people ride the trains regularly than they do the buses for one thing. That keeps coming up in each report about ridership on buses dropping slightly. And no the Blue, Pink and Green Lines don't operate near Boystown, but they all connect to the Red and Brown Lines, both of which do stop in and near Boystown. Plus the Red Line also stops near the northern end of the parade route in Uptown. So it makes perfect sense to concentrate on enhancing rail services more than the bus side especially when concentrating on rail enhancements takes less payroll dollars than adding buses since trains carry far more than buses and you can simply lengthen trains first and then make the assessment after that whether additional trains are actually needed. Either way they're taking advantage of it taking less rail operators to transport a given number of riders than it does bus operators and thus less money from a payroll standpoint.

[BusHunter]

While i was waiting for my #1783 photo op this afternoon, i noticed that 3 np buses were running one after the other about 7-10 minutes apart. Now if you take those away that's a service disruption of 30-35 minutes. So the extra buses do help with service. Buses were packed out to the blue line, they needed some artics, they were all 40 footers. It didn't help they had #6461 out there and it died but what do they expect when they run old equipment like it's new.

[jajuan]

While i was waiting for my #1783 photo op this afternoon, i noticed that 3 np buses were running one after the other about 7-10 minutes apart. Now if you take those away that's a service disruption of 30-35 minutes. So the extra buses do help with service. Buses were packed out to the blue line, they needed some artics, they were all 40 footers. It didn't help they had #6461 out there and it died but what do they expect when they run old equipment like it's new.

Well keep in mind too that CTA, Metra and Pace ran on Sunday schedules yesterday (and CTA will operate normal Saturday schedules today) because of that law passed roughly a decade ago during the George W. Bush administration that says if a major national holiday falls during the weekend, it gets observed on that Friday immediately before if the holiday falls on Saturday and observed on the immediate following Monday if the holiday fell on Sunday. That's to keep workers from losing their paid holiday off on a Monday-Friday schedule from losing their paid holiday off when holidays fall on a weekend due to the calendar. So Easter doesn't count of course since it always falls on Sunday. Getting back to the transit question, since service was on a Sunday/holiday schedule yesterday that meant the regular 152s out of FG would have been on a larger 15-20 minute headway anyway game day or no and if just one is delayed you're going to possibly run into a wait of about 30 minutes if the delay is 10. But again, even on their best days Cubs home games just don't draw anywhere near the number of folks into Lakeview as Pride does. So you're going to notice crowd induced delays a lot quicker with Pride than you will the Cubs home baseball games despite what preparations made. You've got a large number out of up at least 1 million people all trying to use transit at the same time for several hours out of that day, Andre's contention that Claypool got rid of a big chunk of extra board bus operators through the De-Crowd Plan, the rest of the city outside of Lakeview needing to be served, and they have to contend with this on a Sunday. It goes back to my original question. What more do you think they could have realistically done especially when you add in the money factor and that they have a very limited amount?

[busfan2847]

Well keep in mind too that CTA, Metra and Pace ran on Sunday schedules yesterday .......

Metra ran normal weekday service on Friday 3rd ( http://metrarail.com/metra/en/home/service_updates/july-3rd-early-quit-schedules.html )

[Busjack]

Well keep in mind too that CTA, Metra and Pace ran on Sunday schedules yesterday (and CTA will operate normal Saturday schedules today) because of that law passed roughly a decade ago during the George W. Bush administration that says if a major national holiday falls during the weekend, it gets observed on that Friday immediately before if the holiday falls on Saturday and observed on the immediate following Monday if the holiday fell on Sunday. ...

I mentioned to you six years ago that there was no such law.

The U.S. Mail was delivered yesterday.

Also, ti does not explain the insanity of operating a Saturday schedule today, when a lot of the places (such as hospitals) were open yesterday, but did not have Pace service.

Edited July 4, 2015 by Busjack

[BusHunter]

Well keep in mind too that CTA, Metra and Pace ran on Sunday schedules yesterday (and CTA will operate normal Saturday schedules today) because of that law passed roughly a decade ago during the George W. Bush administration that says if a major national holiday falls during the weekend, it gets observed on that Friday immediately before if the holiday falls on Saturday and observed on the immediate following Monday if the holiday fell on Sunday. That's to keep workers from losing their paid holiday off on a Monday-Friday schedule from losing their paid holiday off when holidays fall on a weekend due to the calendar. So Easter doesn't count of course since it always falls on Sunday. Getting back to the transit question, since service was on a Sunday/holiday schedule yesterday that meant the regular 152s out of FG would have been on a larger 15-20 minute headway anyway game day or no and if just one is delayed you're going to possibly run into a wait of about 30 minutes if the delay is 10. But again, even on their best days Cubs home games just don't draw anywhere near the number of folks into Lakeview as Pride does. So you're going to notice crowd induced delays a lot quicker with Pride than you will the Cubs home baseball games despite what preparations made. You've got a large number out of up at least 1 million people all trying to use transit at the same time for several hours out of that day, Andre's contention that Claypool got rid of a big chunk of extra board bus operators through the De-Crowd Plan, the rest of the city outside of Lakeview needing to be served, and they have to contend with this on a Sunday. It goes back to my original question. What more do you think they could have realistically done especially when you add in the money factor and that they have a very limited amount?

You sort of make my case for me. If Pride is drawing more why no extra service, just 'L' service? They surely didn't expect blue line riders to go downtown and come back on the red or they would've mentioned it. i think it's just one of those instances where they were caught providing bad service and I called them on it. Whether they care if they are providing bad service is up to them. Maybe next year will be different. If they don't pass a budget in springfield soon, that kind of service will be normal anyway and alot of people will probably go to their cars.

Back to the point, if they can provide extra service for the water show or a cubs game, what stops them from providing it here? Did the extra board people suddenly disappear into thin air on this day in question?

[jajuan]

I mentioned to you six years ago that there was no such law.

The U.S. Mail was delivered yesterday.

Also, ti does not explain the insanity of operating a Saturday schedule today, when a lot of the places (such as hospitals) were open yesterday, but did not have Pace service.

Alright to satisfy our resident legal expert,  I will correct ,myself and provide that under US Code Title 5 section 6303, if due to the calendar a holiday falls on a Saturday it's observed the immediate Friday before and if falling on a Sunday it's observed the immediate Monday after for workers on a Monday through Friday workweek. And to answer the postal aspect, it explicitly states it does not apply to the US Postal Service so the mail would have been delivered. This particular observance of national holidays might have already been on the books, but as far as I can remember was not as wide spread especially on the transit side of things until after George W Bush became president.

[jajuan]

You sort of make my case for me. If Pride is drawing more why no extra service, just 'L' service? They surely didn't expect blue line riders to go downtown and come back on the red or they would've mentioned it. i think it's just one of those instances where they were caught providing bad service and I called them on it. Whether they care if they are providing bad service is up to them. Maybe next year will be different. If they don't pass a budget in springfield soon, that kind of service will be normal anyway and alot of people will probably go to their cars.

Back to the point, if they can provide extra service for the water show or a cubs game, what stops them from providing it here? Did the extra board people suddenly disappear into thin air on this day in question?

My point is things were still going to get so overwhelmed that anyway it went the extra service on either side would not fall under anyone's perception. The only thing they would perceive and notice that everything on their transit ride is ridiculously crowded and slower than normal. Hence several people saying to you that you can't definitive say for sure with absolute certainty that CTA did not enhance bus service at all in any way. 

[BusHunter]

Do you have factual proof that I'm wrong? They wouldn't have gaps if they had extra service. Example. Cubs extras yesterday. While crowded, service was every 7-10 minutes 

Now I understand if they don't have the resources to put extras on #81-#74 on the north side, but not even putting anything at least on the #152 or #77 cause those bookend boystown was a mistake. It would have been better if they had a cubs game, at least they wiuld've got some extras.

[jajuan]

Do you have factual proof that I'm wrong? They wouldn't have gaps if they had extra service. Example. Cubs extras yesterday. While crowded, service was every 7-10 minutes 

Now I understand if they don't have the resources to put extras on #81-#74 on the north side, but not even putting anything at least on the #152 or #77 cause those bookend boystown was a mistake. It would have been better if they had a cubs game, at least they wiuld've got some extras.

You posed that they didn't. Sooooo that means the onus is on you to prove that they didn't. You're dealing with much larger crowds for Pride and other city parades than you are a Cubs game. So you can't just say 'Oh they didn't put out extra buses' just because a large portion of that crowd all looked to use transit at pretty much the same time and caused delays that are typical when you're boarding a lot of people at the same time. More people means more dwell time and more dwell time means more delays. And you still have to balance any extra service against the fact that more than just that particular area still has to get served. You keep trying to compare this to how they prep for Cubs home games, and I submit there is no comparison. I point to as evidence when the Taste of Chicago was still a two week event that began in late June and the city still did the big Grant Park Fireworks Show on July 3rd as part of it toward the end of the Taste festivities. CTA had a long standing practice of staging extra buses for several west and south side routes that operated downtown, beefed up service on the 56 and several of the north side routes that served downtown out of NP including running downtown only shuttles on the 146 for any who took the suggestion to view the fireworks from the Museum Campus near the Shedd and Adler Planetarium on the bus side of things (remember our "More Bus Moves" discussions in past years during the time of the Taste?). Red, Blue, Green, Orange and Brown Lines (and later Pink in the final years of the July 3 fireworks schedule) got beefed up service. And still getting out of downtown on the bus and train after the Fireworks Show would a lot of times be a huge headache because of crowding and delays. I experienced that firsthand from my own experiences viewing the July 3rd fireworks. So to be honest I'm a bit perplexed why some of us are acting so surprised that events that draw larger spectator numbers than even the local home sporting events cause larger transit delays. I always kept the practice of if a big annual event was taking place in the city in an area I at least occasionally pass through in a commute, I avoid that area completely if and when possible or give myself extra time to make it through the area to where I need to get to. And if it's an event I have an interest in being an audience to, I just go ahead and plan to be in the area for a while outside of the event itself so that I don't run into the transit delays that are still a given to come with the event at hand despite CTA's planning ahead.  

[orionbuslover]

Do you have factual proof that I'm wrong? They wouldn't have gaps if they had extra service. Example. Cubs extras yesterday. While crowded, service was every 7-10 minutes 

Now I understand if they don't have the resources to put extras on #81-#74 on the north side, but not even putting anything at least on the #152 or #77 cause those bookend boystown was a mistake. It would have been better if they had a cubs game, at least they wiuld've got some extras.

Like Jajuan said, the ball is in your court to prove  there was no additional buses out. The fact that there were gaps in service doesn't prove no extras went out. It does prove that when there are large events, increased demand and traffic will cause delays like they do any other day of the year. Buses in Chicago travel the length of the city north and south or east and west. If you're west and the event is taking place in the east you'll experience those delays.

[andrethebusman]

Personal observations re Lawrence. Friday service was a total mess. Short-turns galore, with buses 20+ minutes behind all afternoon. This, I hate to say it, is crazy. CTA is not the federal government. There is nothing in the Federal Code that says CTA has to run Sunday service on the "federal" holiday just because the gov't says Independence Day is no longer the 4th, but the 3rd this year (and next year will be the 5th?). People have become fixated on three day holidays. Remember, they moved Christmas and New Years too, so New Years Day is no longer always January 1st. What's next? Moving Christmas and New Years to June so people can have more 3-day weekends in the summer? Way I see it, if a holiday falls on the weekend, sorry pal, you got screwed out of a day off. Take your holiday pay and shut up.

[Busjack]

Alright to satisfy our resident legal expert,  I will correct ,myself and provide that under US Code Title 5 section 6303, if due to the calendar a holiday falls on a Saturday it's observed the immediate Friday before and if falling on a Sunday it's observed the immediate Monday after for workers on a Monday through Friday workweek.....

Sorry, buddy, that section has to do with annual leave for Federal Employees. Does not use the word holiday, and since when are CTA and Pace employees Federal? I don't think you even cited the section you intended. Maybe you meant 6103, but that applies to federal employees only, too. That provision is prefaced by "For the purpose of statutes relating to pay and leave of employees, with respect to a legal public holiday and any other day declared to be a holiday by Federal statute or Executive order, the following rules apply:" NOT that Metra has to run a Sunday schedule on Friday, which it did not do, or that Pace and CTA had to.

 

[BusHunter]

All the service on Friday was virtually the same. The midday on the #54 was a disaster, 3 packs and two packs on the whole route, the #90 in the afternoon was the same with gaps of 30 minutes and packs of two in multiple spots on the route. Sunday service the day before a holiday is a disaster as that's when alot of people ride. It's a good day to stay off the CTA.

[Busjack]

All the service on Friday was virtually the same. The midday on the #54 was a disaster, 3 packs and two packs on the whole route, the #90 in the afternoon was the same with gaps of 30 minutes and packs of two in multiple spots on the route. Sunday service the day before a holiday is a disaster as that's when alot of people ride. It's a good day to stay off the CTA.

You confirm the point I just made. Metra apparently felt it necessary to provide regular service on Friday. CTA and Pace, for some inexplicable reason (maybe it was their union contracts) decided that the riding public didn't count when it was there, and then provided better service when all but federal employees thought it was the holiday.

And, for what you cite, if the new Clever Devices system was in operation, someone tell Dorval Carter that it doesn't work, either. At least 54 is supposed to be a major route.

[andrethebusman]

This reminds me of day years ago, the first year King Day was a federal holiday. CTA decided to run a Sunday schedule. However, since it was in the middle of the week and even they recognized almost nobody would be off, and at that time there was no Lake Shore Dr express service on the weekends, CTA ran all the express routes as extras. Some drivers made upwards of 40 hours doing a couple of hours work that day. Figure being a "Sunday", a split was continuous pay start to finish, which was over 10 hours, plus time and a half over 8, plus holiday pay, plus time and a half extra for working your day off? No wonder next year CTA made King Day a "floating holiday". (Note that the pay arbitraries have changed since, so it wouldn't be as bad now, but it would still be expensive!)

Edited July 5, 2015 by andrethebusman

[BusHunter]

You confirm the point I just made. Metra apparently felt it necessary to provide regular service on Friday. CTA and Pace, for some inexplicable reason (maybe it was their union contracts) decided that the riding public didn't count when it was there, and then provided better service when all but federal employees thought it was the holiday.

And, for what you cite, if the new Clever Devices system was in operation, someone tell Dorval Carter that it doesn't work, either. At least 54 is supposed to be a major route.

Tell that to the 20-30 people I saw on both sides of the street at Cicero/North. I got off there, it was like that and I came back out it was like that again.