Biggest CTA artic joke

[Busjack]

Somewhat inspired by the What would you do with surplus artics topic.

Personally, I wouldn't choose #1 as it resulted in better quality control inspections, and CTA got a settlement.

[jajuan]

For me it was a toss up between making the actual solicitation for up to 900 artics in the first place and buying the 4300s instead of just leasing artics for use long enough to make it through the Red Line project. Buying the 4300s won out because we still feel the effects of that decision by virtue of the fact that CTA has just over 300 artics on hand but barely 160 of them are even on the road during peak times. Adding insult to injury is that knowing this CTA is rehabbing all 208 4000-series artics when at this point they can probably get away with only rehabbing the ones they actually bought and letting the ones they leased go into retirement in the next few years. That would at least cut down on the ridiculously high current spare ratio of about 45%.  

[chitowndude84]

I remember riding on a "Leaky" NABI on the 147 years ago and getting wet with rain water dripping on me.

 

Dave

[artthouwill]

18 hours ago, Busjack said:

Somewhat inspired by the What would you do with surplus artics topic.

Personally, I wouldn't choose #1 as it resulted in better quality control inspections, and CTA got a settlement.

You can make a strong case for all of the above, but settlement aside, it is a joke to knowingly accepting faulty buses, especially on an unproven new model.  If CTA spotted  problems during inspection, they should've  demanded NABI fix them before accepting delivery.   I know CTA was desperate to replace the aging MAN artics, but we're  talking a major safety issue. 

The other choices were mostly based on politics, especially the 4300s and 4333s so chalk them up to Rahm.  On the NABIs, this was strictly CTA.

[Busjack]

12 hours ago, jajuan said:

Buying the 4300s won out because we still feel the effects of that decision by virtue of the fact that CTA has just over 300 artics on hand but barely 160 of them are even on the road during peak times.

I distinguished from 4333, because the hybrid artics (4300-4332) were a separate federal grant for hybrid buses. For a possible instance of where CTA did do something that may make sense (depending on how things turn out), was that CTA filed the application to redirect the money to convert 33 of the diesel artics to hybrid to applying the grant money to electric buses. Someone either a) figured out that more hybrid artics weren't necessary, or b) a hybrid artic bus does not save fuel to the same extent a Toyota does.

5 hours ago, chitowndude84 said:

I remember riding on a "Leaky" NABI on the 147 years ago and getting wet with rain water dripping on me.

A lot of buses of that and earlier eras leaked. Luckily CTA didn't have too many buses with plastic seats without inserts; those on other TAs filled up with water, and that's why there is the eyelet in the bottom seat cushion.

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

 If CTA spotted  problems during inspection, they should've  demanded NABI fix them before accepting delivery.  

Again, that's retrospect (which I see I misspelled in the poll). The question basically was how much inspection was necessary in about 2004. CTA did send its own inspectors to the plant about when production got about to 7650 when problems started cropping up, but that was not the practice before then, and, based on the definition of conditional acceptance in the contract documents, CTA never accepted any of the buses. Stuff like NICTD hiring consultants to inspect the NS plant in Japan and CTA sending inspectors to the Bombardier plant came later.