4000-series DE60LF - Updates - Rehabs

[artthouwill]

11 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Which gets us back to the subject. I didn't live in Hyde Park long enough to see the roof collapse, but it didn't seem coincidental that the garage closed just about when Jeffery went artic.

The roster from 2018 you posted said that K was the most over capacity, and I asked at the time how it could house artics in that situation, and the only answer given here was that some were in the employees' parking lot. The (I assume unofficial) roster recently posted by @YoungBusLover seems to have K under control, but it sure looks like C now can't take any, and apparently they didn't work when they were on 66.

Now that you mentioned it,  I believe that CTA already had intentions to close 52nd garage when they received those artics.  The roof collapse indeed gave them a valid reason to cexpedite the closure but even without the collapse,  52nd didn't have the space to house  those artics, and the bulk of their work was the 6 and the 14.   Therefore the decision to close that garage was a simple one and 77th had ample space to absorb the new artics.

My question would be once 77th gets rebuilt,  will CTA  attempt to shrink the garages capacity and sell off excess land?  I think 77th needs to maintain its capacity even if some of it is unused.   It could come in handy in the electric bus future. The 103rd garage can't be the South Side's only artic capacity garage. 

[Sam92]

18 hours ago, Busjack said:

I'm sure the run numbers don't dictate anything. One can always put another digit in the run box, or, for instance, assign 7 and V run numbers to 77th/Vincennes.

What does make a difference is the length of the block (time or distance between when the bus leaves the garage), which the electrification consultants' say governs whether garage charging is sufficient or remote chargers are needed. The consultants preferred garage charging, but CTA seems to be headed in the other direction, by announcing a grant for 6 chargers at 95th, even though that's 3 miles from 103/Stony Island. On the other hand, if a transit authority has to shorten blocks, the consultants say more buses are needed.

Back to the articulated bus issue, NF announced that it increased the number of batteries in its 60-foot buses.

What I was point out was 77th now is still not at capacity (450 buses) but because the routes they have use so many drivers and runs you can't assign anymore work/runs to them cause all 1000 runs are used by the current routes.

[Busjack]

4 hours ago, artthouwill said:

...

My question would be once 77th gets rebuilt,  will CTA  attempt to shrink the garages capacity and sell off excess land?  I think 77th needs to maintain its capacity even if some of it is unused.   It could come in handy in the electric bus future. The 103rd garage can't be the South Side's only artic capacity garage. 

There was the attempt to sell off a lot near the strip shopping center and build a new employee lot in the dead lot that went nowhere. I'm sure that demand for land on 79th St. that needs remediation after 120 years of abuse isn't there. If you are thinking about Limits, North Ave., or Archer, there wasn't enough property to rebuild L and A, and while CTA gave N away as part of the L deal, I don't know what motivated CTA to leave N for C, when it had already moved operations back to Lawndale.

The only real question is that whether the facilities portion of the electrification plan has enough foresight to provide the necessary facilities, or whether CTA again would be as short-sighted as it was with 74th, which could have at least used artics on Ashland (and apparently was the impetus for the now-dead Fisk site).

4 hours ago, Sam92 said:

What I was point out was 77th now is still not at capacity (450 buses) but because the routes they have use so many drivers and runs you can't assign anymore work/runs to them cause all 1000 runs are used by the current routes.

Understood, but I pointed out why it was not a real constraint. Also, @andrethebusman99 and I pointed out that at various times, 77 had plenty of other routes (6, 14, 26, 27, 28, 29, 95W, 100), and it didn't seem to cause that problem. Apparently you think reprogramming stuff (which CTA couldn't do until about 2000)  is a real problem. In fact, it was thought a real leap in 1972 that CTA went from 3 roller to 4 roller windshield run boxes.

[Sam92]

5 hours ago, Busjack said:

There was the attempt to sell off a lot near the strip shopping center and build a new employee lot in the dead lot that went nowhere. I'm sure that demand for land on 79th St. that needs remediation after 120 years of abuse isn't there. If you are thinking about Limits, North Ave., or Archer, there wasn't enough property to rebuild L and A, and while CTA gave N away as part of the L deal, I don't know what motivated CTA to leave N for C, when it had already moved operations back to Lawndale.

The only real question is that whether the facilities portion of the electrification plan has enough foresight to provide the necessary facilities, or whether CTA again would be as short-sighted as it was with 74th, which could have at least used artics on Ashland (and apparently was the impetus for the now-dead Fisk site).

Understood, but I pointed out why it was not a real constraint. Also, @andrethebusman99 and I pointed out that at various times, 77 had plenty of other routes (6, 14, 26, 27, 28, 29, 95W, 100), and it didn't seem to cause that problem. Apparently you think reprogramming stuff (which CTA couldn't do until about 2000)  is a real problem. In fact, it was thought a real leap in 1972 that CTA went from 3 roller to 4 roller windshield run boxes.

Yeah I retrospect it's mainly a space thing and not a run thing because if you were to make 77th primarily artic to make them work on the routes it would be the same amount of buses but taking up 1.5x the space so I take back the run number issue. 

[andrethebusman99]

Lawndale was always intended to be a temporary replacement for North. The plan was to build a new garage at North & Cicero, but "neighborhood activists" decided a shopping center was much more to their liking, and the city had some vacant land they had inherited from the CNW railroad that needed a new use, so Chicago Ave was hatched.

[andrethebusman99]

8 hours ago, Busjack said:

There was the attempt to sell off a lot near the strip shopping center and build a new employee lot in the dead lot that went nowhere. I'm sure that demand for land on 79th St. that needs remediation after 120 years of abuse isn't there. If you are thinking about Limits, North Ave., or Archer, there wasn't enough property to rebuild L and A, and while CTA gave N away as part of the L deal, I don't know what motivated CTA to leave N for C, when it had already moved operations back to Lawndale.

The only real question is that whether the facilities portion of the electrification plan has enough foresight to provide the necessary facilities, or whether CTA again would be as short-sighted as it was with 74th, which could have at least used artics on Ashland (and apparently was the impetus for the now-dead Fisk site).

Understood, but I pointed out why it was not a real constraint. Also, @andrethebusman99 and I pointed out that at various times, 77 had plenty of other routes (6, 14, 26, 27, 28, 29, 95W, 100), and it didn't seem to cause that problem. Apparently you think reprogramming stuff (which CTA couldn't do until about 2000)  is a real problem. In fact, it was thought a real leap in 1972 that CTA went from 3 roller to 4 roller windshield run boxes.

Until 1959 CTA had four digit run numbers at 77th. Not a garage designation, but actual 4 digits. Yates-95th started with 1281 if I remember right, for instance.

[andrethebusman99]

Part of the South Shops property was sold off for that store on 79th between Wentworth and Perry. The original shop property was bounded by 79th, Perry, 77th, Vincennes, with a lot of empty space used for storing dead streetcars until their turn in the bonfire east of Wentworth and track materials (and a bunch of old trailers used as sheds) between 78th and 79th west of Wentworth. Nothing had to be torn down to build the New Shop in 1961.

[Busjack]

10 hours ago, sw4400 said:

I did not know that the 4000's are also carbon steel frames, reading back how 4000-4207 are suffering the same issues as 1630-2029 are. That can be bad as 4300-4399 aren't enough artics to maintain all artic routes in the CTA, I would surmise. Will this mean an order for more artics will be forthcoming by 2025 or 2026?

2024 CTA budget says replace 208 artics with electric buses.

Quote

Title: Purchase up to 208 Electric Buses (4000-Series)
Budget: $185.4M
Core Requirement: Meet regulatory requirements.
Description: Funding will provide for a new procurement intended to replace 208 Articulated 4000-Series buses with the equivalent number of electric buses.

 

[jajuan]

On 11/8/2023 at 10:27 PM, sw4400 said:

I did not know that the 4000's are also carbon steel frames, reading back how 4000-4207 are suffering the same issues as 1630-2029 are. That can be bad as 4300-4399 aren't enough artics to maintain all artic routes in the CTA, I would surmise. Will this mean an order for more artics will be forthcoming by 2025 or 2026?

Well CTA will have to replace the 4000 soon anyway. Hopefully CTA can work through the teething problems with the 600s as far as kinks with holding a charge and the chargers themselves because as @Busjack points out, the replacements will be electric per CTA's budgetary documents along with CTA's ordinance mandating all future bus purchases beyond the 8350s be electric (point about the electric mandate being made by me and not Busjack). The question there is as the 4000s get replaced and later the 4300s when it's their turn, does CTA really need 300-plus artics? Numerous rush period deployment checks done with the aid of BusTracker and Maths22's tracker over the years since the completion of the Dan Ryan Red Line rebuild suggests that CTA only really needs the 200-plus that started out with when all they had were the 4000s.

 

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

Well CTA will have to replace the 4000 soon anyway. Hopefully CTA can work through the teething problems with the 600s as far as kinks with holding a charge and the chargers themselves because as @Busjack points out, the replacements will be electric per CTA's budgetary documents along with CTA's ordinance mandating all future bus purchases beyond the 8350s be electric (point about the electric mandate being made by me and not Busjack). The question there is as the 4000s get replaced and later the 4300s when it's their turn, does CTA really need 300-plus artics? Numerous rush period deployment checks done with the aid of BusTracker and Maths22's tracker over the years since the completion of the Dan Ryan Red Line rebuild suggests that CTA only really needs the 200-plus that started out with when all they had were the 4000s.

 

I think CTA should have been looking into extra artics.  I know MTA had some they were testing.   I believe they were New Flyers.  I know they are expecting about 50 plus electric buses in 2024.  I don't know how many of them,  if any, will be artics.

[Sam92]

3 hours ago, jajuan said:

Well CTA will have to replace the 4000 soon anyway. Hopefully CTA can work through the teething problems with the 600s as far as kinks with holding a charge and the chargers themselves because as @Busjack points out, the replacements will be electric per CTA's budgetary documents along with CTA's ordinance mandating all future bus purchases beyond the 8350s be electric (point about the electric mandate being made by me and not Busjack). The question there is as the 4000s get replaced and later the 4300s when it's their turn, does CTA really need 300-plus artics? Numerous rush period deployment checks done with the aid of BusTracker and Maths22's tracker over the years since the completion of the Dan Ryan Red Line rebuild suggests that CTA only really needs the 200-plus that started out with when all they had were the 4000s.

 

Maybe some extras due to charging, block changes or just some extras to safely cover any teething issues. Maybe they can work out a better way to make artics work at 77th or Chicago cause honestly 79th can use some back. Maybe this time running more buses to make up for the increased running times. Heck Clark is narrow as 79th, has more  congestion and makes it work. Same with Sheridan. Heck 77th needs to just have a good 100 artics which will allow them enough to convert 4, 8, and 79. Running mixed 40fts and artics on artic routes vs running all artics isnt recommended according to some report I found a while back. I'll look for it and post it. 60 artics wasn't enough and another thing I'm starting to notice 77th tends to purge artics when they only have on artic route (sending 6 to 103rd, purging them after splitting artics with Chicago and only running the on 79th.) At least they tried to work with them more when they had 60. Heck they ran 3 and 79 exclusively on weekends. 

 

[Sam92]

3 hours ago, jajuan said:

Well CTA will have to replace the 4000 soon anyway. Hopefully CTA can work through the teething problems with the 600s as far as kinks with holding a charge and the chargers themselves because as @Busjack points out, the replacements will be electric per CTA's budgetary documents along with CTA's ordinance mandating all future bus purchases beyond the 8350s be electric (point about the electric mandate being made by me and not Busjack). The question there is as the 4000s get replaced and later the 4300s when it's their turn, does CTA really need 300-plus artics? Numerous rush period deployment checks done with the aid of BusTracker and Maths22's tracker over the years since the completion of the Dan Ryan Red Line rebuild suggests that CTA only really needs the 200-plus that started out with when all they had were the 4000s.

 

Also a recent equipment report a while back showed that CTA was actually gonna have 400 artics at some point so maybe the idea is to buy enough artics to make them work using at 77th then implement them there. 

[Sam92]

19 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Maybe some extras due to charging, block changes or just some extras to safely cover any teething issues. Maybe they can work out a better way to make artics work at 77th or Chicago cause honestly 79th can use some back. Maybe this time running more buses to make up for the increased running times. Heck Clark is narrow as 79th, has more  congestion and makes it work. Same with Sheridan. Heck 77th needs to just have a good 100 artics which will allow them enough to convert 4, 8, and 79. Running mixed 40fts and artics on artic routes vs running all artics isnt recommended according to some report I found a while back. I'll look for it and post it. 60 artics wasn't enough and another thing I'm starting to notice 77th tends to purge artics when they only have on artic route (sending 6 to 103rd, purging them after splitting artics with Chicago and only running the on 79th.) At least they tried to work with them more when they had 60. Heck they ran 3 and 79 exclusively on weekends. 

 

Another thing... If 103rd and kedzie shed their extras, they'd have enough to convert, 20, 53 and 66 at Chicago since they'd have enough. I think the over all issue is, if only on route is artic worthy, CTA would rather consolidate them to nearby garages. 77ths artics went to 103rd to run them on 26 and some 28 trips, the same happened with 6  heading to 103fd in the 2010 cuts.  Chicago's artics went to Kedzie and NP and ran artics during AM rush on 22 and maybe to fill in some runs that switching artics from 135, 136 at the lighter PM rush times to get them on Clark earlier. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Busjack]

28 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Another thing... If 103rd and kedzie shed their extras, they'd have enough to convert, 20, 53 and 66 at Chicago since they'd have enough. I think the over all issue is, if only on route is artic worthy, CTA would rather consolidate them to nearby garages. 77ths artics went to 103rd to run them on 26 and some 28 trips, the same happened with 6  heading to 103fd in the 2010 cuts.  Chicago's artics went to Kedzie and NP and ran artics during AM rush on 22 and maybe to fill in some runs that switching artics from 135, 136 at the lighter PM rush times to get them on Clark earlier.

The converse question is how many garages have room to store and service them? CTA garage capacity numbers usually don't take into account that an artic is 1-1/2 buses. Also, artics were tried and yanked off 66, and, unless CTA is going to go off-track, is supposed to be electric.

[Sam92]

38 minutes ago, Busjack said:

The converse question is how many garages have room to store and service them? CTA garage capacity numbers usually don't take into account that an artic is 1-1/2 buses. Also, artics were tried and yanked off 66, and, unless CTA is going to go off-track, is supposed to be electric.

77th definitely has the room. If Chicago ships at least 100 40fts out for the artics it could clear some space. And all the artics would be electric by then so that could be some electric 40fts going somewhere else to get them placed around quicker. Same with 77th. 

[jajuan]

11 hours ago, Sam92 said:

77th definitely has the room. If Chicago ships at least 100 40fts out for the artics it could clear some space. And all the artics would be electric by then so that could be some electric 40fts going somewhere else to get them placed around quicker. Same with 77th. 

Then the question becomes what routes do you shed from Chicago or decrease the number of buses on to make that work? Remember that 100 40-footers becomes 67 artics, meaning 33 less total buses available for C's current run schedule and service load. And NP isn't making artics work on the 22 as much as you think. The route is one of NP's worst performers in terms of on time performance, and it's consistently one of those quoted in local news stories as being one of CTA's worst performers when the local media puts spotlight on long wait times for CTA service. Matter of fact, NP has eased back up on its artic deployments on the 22. It had been deploying artics on weekdays similar to how they do on weekends: primarily artics throughout most of the service day with a transition to 40 footers during late evening and owl periods. Now in recent weeks, they've been going back to a high number of 40 footers buses during midday on weekdays. Also the number of PM peak runs done with artics has noticeably been lower. Even before NP first tweaked artic deployments and trying to have the 22 mostly artic run from very early until late evening on a daily basis, I'd see mostly artics on the route in my area by the 4 PM hour during PM rush on weekdays. Now even in the 5 PM hour I'm still seeing a high number of 40 foot buses on the route. 

Let's face it, the big reason CTA always ends up reverting back to artics assigned only at 103rd, Kedzie and NP after trying to have them spread out to include Chicago and 77th is the high level of dwell time at stops among CTA artics. And the reason for that high dwell time is because CTA keeps insisting that its artics be two door models instead of getting three door models like other large big city TAs have done.

[jajuan]

14 hours ago, artthouwill said:

I think CTA should have been looking into extra artics.  I know MTA had some they were testing.   I believe they were New Flyers.  I know they are expecting about 50 plus electric buses in 2024.  I don't know how many of them,  if any, will be artics.

For sure CTA should replace a significant number of its current artics with electric artics as it makes the transition to a completely zero emission fleet. But does it truly need to be the current 300-plus when even pre-pandemic data consistently showed roughly 100 not being on the road during weekday rush periods once CTA got beyond the Dan Ryan rebuild? If they can find a way to keep Chicago and 77th artic assigned as opposed to those two always finding ways to shed artics, I can see keeping the 300-plus total. If not then maybe they need to go back to just over 200 like it was when all they had was the 4000s.

[Busjack]

18 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Let's face it, the big reason CTA always ends up reverting back to artics assigned only at 103rd, Kedzie and NP after trying to have them spread out to include Chicago and 77th is the high level of dwell time at stops among CTA artics. And the reason for that high dwell time is because CTA keeps insisting that its artics be two door models instead of getting three door models like other large big city TAs have done.

I'm sure part of the problem is the lack of a dedicated bus lane on most streets (hard to get now because the city would have to pay off LAZ Parking) resulting in short bus stops (with @Shannoncvpirightly complaining that cars are parked in them). Having 2 or 3 doors isn't going to make much difference if those doors aren't at the curb. You mentioned Clark, but 79th between Halsted and Stony Island is the same. I'm sure we could name other streets.

[jajuan]

1 minute ago, Busjack said:

I'm sure part of the problem is the lack of a dedicated bus lane on most streets (hard to get now because the city would have to pay off LAZ Parking) resulting in short bus stops (with @Shannoncvpirightly complaining that cars are parked in them). Having 2 or 3 doors isn't going to make much difference if those doors aren't at the curb.

Fair and true point. And the flip side is a dedicated bus lane doesn't necessarily mean as much for an artic if your dwell time is constricted by a lower number of available doors to board. Another possible solution is all door boarding given so many riders pay fares with cards, be it Ventra or their credit and debit cards equipped with RFID chips. There were the various tests with that on J14 with 103rd artics equipped with Ventra readers at the back door, the 77 at the Kimball/Belmont terminal and the 135 and 146 at the SB Belmont stop. But all seemed to fizzle out in some way as CTA had to shake up fleet deployments in response to the pandemic. Long story short CTA is in a pattern of high artic dwell times with no easy solutions.

San Francisco has been using the bulb out bus stop configuration for some roadways where it doesn't have bus lanes available as well as bus boarding island configurations at bus stops on streets that have protected lanes. Both have the benefit of the bus boarding area meeting the lane in which the bus travels so that it doesn't have to leave and merge back into that travel lane. Chicago started creating both configurations at a few stops along Clark Street where protected bike lanes are being or have already been installed. In the most recent projects, the southbound stop at Elmdale/Peterson has been converted into a bulb out configuration with the bike lane rising as it passes through the bus stop, and as part of a larger project to put in protected bike lanes between Irving Park and Montrose the northbound stop at Belle Plains is currently being converted to a similar setup with a designated bus staging area to the south of the stop for buses on the 9 to do layovers.

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

For sure CTA should replace a significant number of its current artics with electric artics as it makes the transition to a completely zero emission fleet. But does it truly need to be the current 300-plus when even pre-pandemic data consistently showed roughly 100 not being on the road during weekday rush periods once CTA got beyond the Dan Ryan rebuild? If they can find a way to keep Chicago and 77th artic assigned as opposed to those two always finding ways to shed artics, I can see keeping the 300-plus total. If not then maybe they need to go back to just over 200 like it was when all they had was the 4000s.

While 300 artics might be too many, I think 225 to 250 might be the sweet spot.  Remember the 7500s had 226.  Those were split among 4 garages with 77th being the 4th garage .  Granted they were operating the 6, but also had artics on the 3, 4, and 87.  

Honestly the 4 seemed to work well with artics excluding the right turn issue at 115th and Front.  

The replacement of 208artcs doesn't necessarily mean 208 electric Rica. It could be 100 electric artics and 108 electric 40 ft buses or vice versa.   My thinking was why does this order have to be all electric?

[jajuan]

11 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

While 300 artics might be too many, I think 225 to 250 might be the sweet spot.  Remember the 7500s had 226.  Those were split among 4 garages with 77th being the 4th garage .  Granted they were operating the 6, but also had artics on the 3, 4, and 87.  

Honestly the 4 seemed to work well with artics excluding the right turn issue at 115th and Front.  

The replacement of 208artcs doesn't necessarily mean 208 electric Rica. It could be 100 electric artics and 108 electric 40 ft buses or vice versa.   My thinking was why does this order have to be all electric?

On your last question, CTA's own ordinance mandating bus purchases after the 8350s be electric is the reason. Well that and the recently passed state law mandating it superfluously after CTA and Pace already committed themselves to their future bus purchases being for electric buses.

[artthouwill]

13 minutes ago, jajuan said:

On your last question, CTA's own ordinance mandating bus purchases after the 8350s be electric is the reason. Well that and the recently passed state law mandating it superfluously after CTA and Pace already committed themselves to their future bus purchases being for electric buses.

I got it.  I just question why everyone is so in a hurry to commit to a technology that is still unproven in its infancy..   Manufacturers aren't mass producing these buses yet ( in the sense of volume) and many agencies including CTA AND PACE don't have infrastructure in place to support it whether it is at garages or at ends of routes.  There are supply chain and recall issues, and if thus is mandatory that all future orders have to be all electric,  CTA is boxed in a corner and has to keep the current fleet beyond 20 years or until it completely falls apart. 

[Sam92]

3 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

I got it.  I just question why everyone is so in a hurry to commit to a technology that is still unproven in its infancy..   Manufacturers aren't mass producing these buses yet ( in the sense of volume) and many agencies including CTA AND PACE don't have infrastructure in place to support it whether it is at garages or at ends of routes.  There are supply chain and recall issues, and if thus is mandatory that all future orders have to be all electric,  CTA is boxed in a corner and has to keep the current fleet beyond 20 years or until it completely falls apart. 

They do have a loophole out if things look to dicey as far as the timeline. They probably have to prove that they moved heaven, hell and the kitchen sink in order to be able to use that loop hole 

[andrethebusman99]

The basic issue with artics on 66 and 79 was delays. Cold, hard reality is you need just as many artics as standard buses on a route because artics are slower when passenger volumes are high. However, once you accept this reality and make the schedules slower, there is no good reason artics can not work on ANY route. Case in point: in Vegas there are some routes that get mostly artics, but artics are regularly seen on every route, and a few standard buses are used pretty much every day on "artic routes", with no problems. Delays are very common, but have little or nothing to do with size of bus, mostly the endless road work, and delays boarding, discharging wheelchairs (usually I kid you not, several per trip!). 

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, andrethebusman99 said:

However, once you accept this reality and make the schedules slower, there is no good reason artics can not work on ANY route.

However, that ignores the CTA reality that passengers are complaining about the schedules, even though the schedules  were cut back due to the driver shortage, and while the last cutback was supposed to do away with what the news media characterizes as "ghost buses," it didn't, as indicated by the ABC7 Eyewiness News report frequently cited by others. I don't know what tourists going to casinos expect, but Chicago is not going to accept converting 49/X49 to artics and scheduling them once an hour. It seems as though frequency, rather than crowding, is the current issue. Clearly, the artics are not working on Clark, for whatever reason.