Random CTA

[Shannoncvpi]

47 minutes ago, Mr.NewFlyer1051 said:

idek when #1600 was on the 56

Aw dam

[Shannoncvpi]

Today while I was doing the 7 I was coming up to homan I had the green light & jumpout boyz team the light right front of me no lights no nothing I tried to smack they ass just they hit the gas I was like dam I could have got paidddd from the city & teach they ass about running lights for no reason but I filed a complaint & come to find out a driver that was doing the 52 said they did the same to her just to go park at the district man I cant wait for 1 of them lawbreakers to hit me 

[jajuan]

Friday evening while riding home from work on the 147, I noticed that CTA added an announcement that plays inside the bus when the operator keys the code into the Clever Device unit that flags the "BUS IS FULL" message on the bus's destination signs after hitting COVID capacity. The announcement says something along the lines of "To improve service reliability, this bus will now run express. Please see bus operator for more information". It kind of had the desired effect of knocking down any questions or complaints to the operator of why he couldn't let more people on when there were still empty seats in the bus. I was on a 40 foot NF which is why I had more a chance to observe its use. I tend to go for the 40 foot buses on the 147 when possible because those operators more strictly follow the COVID capacity limits while the artic operators on the route tend to more often than not load more than the limit and leave less room to comfortably spread out in the seats. And depending on how many riders are grabbed by the artic or rush hour Devon short trip that may be up front, a 40 footer during rush can hit capacity anywhere Tribune Tower and Ontario and not really make any more stops before getting on the Drive.

[BusHunter]

On 3/12/2021 at 12:07 AM, Shannoncvpi said:

Today while I was doing the 7 I was coming up to homan I had the green light & jumpout boyz team the light right front of me no lights no nothing I tried to smack they ass just they hit the gas I was like dam I could have got paidddd from the city & teach they ass about running lights for no reason but I filed a complaint & come to find out a driver that was doing the 52 said they did the same to her just to go park at the district man I cant wait for 1 of them lawbreakers to hit me 

Yeah what they like to do to me is cut right in front of me to get ahead of me. I always say who has the bigger vehicle. I'm not worried. I got cameras watching me so when they say this reckless driver rear ended me I say that's not what my camera shows. Actually had that happen with an instructor. He said as long as you have control of the lane your ok. 79th is bad when they have a freight everyone cuts you off. The cta operators try to block them out though. I did that and the crazies drove on the sidewalk to go around me. 

[Shannoncvpi]

46 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Yeah what they like to do to me is cut right in front of me to get ahead of me. I always say who has the bigger vehicle. I'm not worried. I got cameras watching me so when they say this reckless driver rear ended me I say that's not what my camera shows. Actually had that happen with an instructor. He said as long as you have control of the lane your ok. 79th is bad when they have a freight everyone cuts you off. The cta operators try to block them out though. I did that and the crazies drove on the sidewalk to go around me. 

Yea they are the biggest lawbreakers I want one of them to hit me while I'm in my personal car I csn get my tahoe ppv & get paidddd from the city 

[Sam92]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

Friday evening while riding home from work on the 147, I noticed that CTA added an announcement that plays inside the bus when the operator keys the code into the Clever Device unit that flags the "BUS IS FULL" message on the bus's destination signs after hitting COVID capacity. The announcement says something along the lines of "To improve service reliability, this bus will now run express. Please see bus operator for more information". It kind of had the desired effect of knocking down any questions or complaints to the operator of why he couldn't let more people on when there were still empty seats in the bus. I was on a 40 foot NF which is why I had more a chance to observe its use. I tend to go for the 40 foot buses on the 147 when possible because those operators more strictly follow the COVID capacity limits while the artic operators on the route tend to more often than not load more than the limit and leave less room to comfortably spread out in the seats. And depending on how many riders are grabbed by the artic or rush hour Devon short trip that may be up front, a 40 footer during rush can hit capacity anywhere Tribune Tower and Ontario and not really make any more stops before getting on the Drive.

Sounds like something they’re gonna hold on to in the future after the pandemic if they worded it that way. They might have seen the benefit that skipping stops can do to regain schedule as a side effect of having to be more aggressive on keeping crowds down. 

[BusHunter]

2 hours ago, Sam92 said:

Sounds like something they’re gonna hold on to in the future after the pandemic if they worded it that way. They might have seen the benefit that skipping stops can do to regain schedule as a side effect of having to be more aggressive on keeping crowds down. 

Soon though they will probably ease the mitigations. Or everyone will be complaining cause theyll all be left on the corner. 

[Sam92]

Just now, BusHunter said:

Soon though they will probably ease the mitigations. Or everyone will be complaining cause theyll all be left on the corner. 

Well yeah I know they’re gonna do that but what I was saying was from the way jajuan quoted the announcement as “running express to keep reliability” sounds like they may start running buses express when behind 

[BusHunter]

9 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Well yeah I know they’re gonna do that but what I was saying was from the way jajuan quoted the announcement as “running express to keep reliability” sounds like they may start running buses express when behind 

They could do that but imagine coming to your stop to be passed up. People ride because they want it to be reliable. If its unpredictable, they may seek altenative travel. 

I think the rails got away with skip stop service cause service was frequent a few minutes apart. You really didnt wait that long to ride. Now it might work on routes that are frequent like a 3 or 79 or 77 or 151. But driving down 79th it seems that there are fewer buses maybe cause they are artic. In its present condition I would say 79th is a no go. 

[mikeymc77]

On 3/11/2021 at 6:14 PM, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

Wow I like those new flxibles at the time. No I didn't know about this bus but I have a feeling it could've been a demo but not from CTA.

Its 5757 

[Shannoncvpi]

49 minutes ago, mikeymc77 said:

Its 5757 

i remember when 5757 was at C I seen it on the 70 it sounded weird it didnt sound lije the rest but they mostly stayed at 3 from what I know 

[Sam92]

7 hours ago, BusHunter said:

They could do that but imagine coming to your stop to be passed up. People ride because they want it to be reliable. If its unpredictable, they may seek altenative travel. 

I think the rails got away with skip stop service cause service was frequent a few minutes apart. You really didnt wait that long to ride. Now it might work on routes that are frequent like a 3 or 79 or 77 or 151. But driving down 79th it seems that there are fewer buses maybe cause they are artic. In its present condition I would say 79th is a no go. 

I mean in that situation though the follower isn’t too far behind. Frequency doesn’t play an issue because the reason for running express in the first place is because 2 vehicles on the route are too close meaning the wait wouldn’t be too long. If the buses are bunched the service is already becoming unpredictable and unreliable at least this would be a more aggressive action to fixing schedules on the spot

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

8 hours ago, mikeymc77 said:

Its 5757 

Cool

[strictures]

14 hours ago, jajuan said:

Friday evening while riding home from work on the 147, I noticed that CTA added an announcement that plays inside the bus when the operator keys the code into the Clever Device unit that flags the "BUS IS FULL" message on the bus's destination signs after hitting COVID capacity. The announcement says something along the lines of "To improve service reliability, this bus will now run express. Please see bus operator for more information". It kind of had the desired effect of knocking down any questions or complaints to the operator of why he couldn't let more people on when there were still empty seats in the bus. I was on a 40 foot NF which is why I had more a chance to observe its use. I tend to go for the 40 foot buses on the 147 when possible because those operators more strictly follow the COVID capacity limits while the artic operators on the route tend to more often than not load more than the limit and leave less room to comfortably spread out in the seats. And depending on how many riders are grabbed by the artic or rush hour Devon short trip that may be up front, a 40 footer during rush can hit capacity anywhere Tribune Tower and Ontario and not really make any more stops before getting on the Drive.

Now that I'm three weeks after my second vaccine shot, They can fill up the buses a bit more, but I love that no one sits next to me.  I've had a few drivers cutoff boarding people, even though they were also unloading people.  It's ver erratic & depends on the driver.

[NewFlyerMCI]

11 hours ago, BusHunter said:

They could do that but imagine coming to your stop to be passed up. People ride because they want it to be reliable. If its unpredictable, they may seek altenative travel. 

I think the rails got away with skip stop service cause service was frequent a few minutes apart. You really didnt wait that long to ride. Now it might work on routes that are frequent like a 3 or 79 or 77 or 151. But driving down 79th it seems that there are fewer buses maybe cause they are artic. In its present condition I would say 79th is a no go. 

Running express on the 79 is a no-go from the jump, since the busiest portion of the corridor is also one lane from Lakefront to Halsted, barely any buses will pass. And speaking from experience, an irritated group of passengers at a bus stop ends in only bad scenarios

[YoungBusLover]

18 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Running express on the 79 is a no-go from the jump, since the busiest portion of the corridor is also one lane from Lakefront to Halsted, barely any buses will pass. And speaking from experience, an irritated group of passengers at a bus stop ends in only bad scenarios

Trust me its possible and has been done before by operators that know what they're doing, i've done it a few times on cottage especially when I know my follower is close behind. As time has gone from the union meetings i've been to in the past couple of weeks rumor has that with things opening back up and the volume of passengers increasing this notion of 15-22 per 40/60 foot buses will cease to exist and everyone will have to start doing the regular service for pick ups. I did find one thing outside of that interesting though, we're not suppose to deny service to anyone regardless of the 15-22 rule which was kind of confusing until it was further explained by our union president all in all I never liked the rule because it created  to much controversy and really showed more bad apples than good throughout the pandemic.  

[NewFlyerMCI]

19 minutes ago, YoungBusLover said:

Trust me its possible and has been done before by operators that know what they're doing, i've done it a few times on cottage especially when I know my follower is close behind. As time has gone from the union meetings i've been to in the past couple of weeks rumor has that with things opening back up and the volume of passengers increasing this notion of 15-22 per 40/60 foot buses will cease to exist and everyone will have to start doing the regular service for pick ups. I did find one thing outside of that interesting though, we're not suppose to deny service to anyone regardless of the 15-22 rule which was kind of confusing until it was further explained by our union president all in all I never liked the rule because it created  to much controversy and really showed more bad apples than good throughout the pandemic.  

Cottage is far wider than 79th and no offense to you, but not every operator knows what they're doing. Bus bunching occurs on east 79th without this policy, it'll just lead to more of it. And since the 79th has multiple westbound destinations, it's not practical for that reason either, all the buses have to hit all the stops since the driver isn't going to know who needs what bus.

I'm not surprised you all were told not to enforce the rule. I believe I shared on this forum an incident on the 79 my very first day going to FedEx by a bus driver who was ready to take the entire bus out of service over one passenger who needed to get on (we had all boarded at Western and were going to FedEx) and had devolved into a shouting match between the driver, the one passenger that was on her side and the entire rest of the bus who were all FedEx employees. Luckily nothing serious happened, but I imagine that could've gone south very quickly. 

Somewhat related, I know Pace did their blocking of the seats, but I never saw a driver enforce capacity limits. Many a Pace route out of Midway and 95th were crowded, I know those 379s reached standing capacity often.

[YoungBusLover]

8 hours ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Cottage is far wider than 79th and no offense to you, but not every operator knows what they're doing. Bus bunching occurs on east 79th without this policy, it'll just lead to more of it. And since the 79th has multiple westbound destinations, it's not practical for that reason either, all the buses have to hit all the stops since the driver isn't going to know who needs what bus.

I'm not surprised you all were told not to enforce the rule. I believe I shared on this forum an incident on the 79 my very first day going to FedEx by a bus driver who was ready to take the entire bus out of service over one passenger who needed to get on (we had all boarded at Western and were going to FedEx) and had devolved into a shouting match between the driver, the one passenger that was on her side and the entire rest of the bus who were all FedEx employees. Luckily nothing serious happened, but I imagine that could've gone south very quickly. 

Somewhat related, I know Pace did their blocking of the seats, but I never saw a driver enforce capacity limits. Many a Pace route out of Midway and 95th were crowded, I know those 379s reached standing capacity often.

Trust me they know what they're doing out there, all I can say is look at those badge numbers and you'll see what I mean by that. They're playing chess not checkers with the decisions they're making. Regardless of the direction though on 79th I've been on several trips going EB/WB where some operators that were at capacity before the redline they would drop off a load before going to the station and then not even pick up the next load waiting on the bridge adjacent to the station and then they'll continue to run express and drop off passengers along the way away from service stops until they get passed cottage grove before picking up anyone else. Some operators make there own set of rules when they're on 79th and I don't blame them for it but as time has progressed the bad apples like I mentioned before are just messing up that street for everyone. I had one operator nearly pass me up yesterday with a group of people at Ashland going eastbound because she had a full load coming out of Ford City, if it weren't for me being in uniform I would of gotten passed up with the other 5 or 6 people standing there with me, after we got picked up she ran express and did drop offs only until she got to the red line and then the rest is history. ?? 

[jajuan]

17 hours ago, Shannoncvpi said:

i remember when 5757 was at C I seen it on the 70 it sounded weird it didnt sound lije the rest but they mostly stayed at 3 from what I know 

It might have sounded odd to you because 5757 was one of 20 out of the Flxible 5300 series that had a Cummins engine. Cummins L10 to be exact. It was similar to how 74th had the 25 from the 6000 series (6305-6329) to have Cummins C8.3 engines. The fleet numbers of the 5300s that had Cummins engines were 5745-5764. You could easily spot them by the Alcoa wheels similar to those on the Flx 6000s and the flap over the exhaust pipe. If you were trying to grab one of these, you really had to be careful to also look for that flap over the exhaust pipe since 5741-5744 also had Alcoa wheels but still had Detroit Diesel engines just as the other 5300s did with the difference being that they had Detroit Diesel 6L71N engines while the others had Detroit Diesel 6V92TA. The Cummins Flx's and 5741-44 were originally all at Archer. But after Archer got New Flyers before it eventually closed, what were left of them were split primarily between C and K. They may have made their way to 3 after C and K got a second set of New Flyers, but my memory places them at C and K first after moving from Archer.

[jajuan]

8 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

Trust me its possible and has been done before by operators that know what they're doing, i've done it a few times on cottage especially when I know my follower is close behind. As time has gone from the union meetings i've been to in the past couple of weeks rumor has that with things opening back up and the volume of passengers increasing this notion of 15-22 per 40/60 foot buses will cease to exist and everyone will have to start doing the regular service for pick ups. I did find one thing outside of that interesting though, we're not suppose to deny service to anyone regardless of the 15-22 rule which was kind of confusing until it was further explained by our union president all in all I never liked the rule because it created  to much controversy and really showed more bad apples than good throughout the pandemic.  

That sounds like it's going to be dicier than when the rule was put in place because even with the vaccines out and the may easing up some restrictions with the bars and restaurants I still see more passengers boarding that like the rule in place than those who don't. Even if the bus is an artic, if the bus feels like it's getting too full and past capacity, I see people put up a very vocal fuss and immediately leave the bus in anger or visible frustration. I thought it was a mainly a north side thing with the NP routes, but I have seen folks grumble about buses being over the lowered capacity even on the 12, which right now is still operating majority artic among the runs from K.

[Shannoncvpi]

35 minutes ago, jajuan said:

It might have sounded odd to you because 5757 was one of 20 out of the Flxible 5300 series that had a Cummins engine. Cummins L10 to be exact. It was similar to how 74th had the 25 from the 6000 series (6305-6329) to have Cummins C8.3 engines. The fleet numbers of the 5300s that had Cummins engines were 5745-5764. You could easily spot them by the Alcoa wheels similar to those on the Flx 6000s and the flap over the exhaust pipe. If you were trying to grab one of these, you really had to be careful to also look for that flap over the exhaust pipe since 5741-5744 also had Alcoa wheels but still had Detroit Diesel engines just as the other 5300s did with the difference being that they had Detroit Diesel 6L71N engines while the others had Detroit Diesel 6V92TA. The Cummins Flx's and 5741-44 were originally all at Archer. But after Archer got New Flyers before it eventually closed, what were left of them were split primarily between C and K. They may have made their way to 3 after C and K got a second set of New Flyers, but my memory places them at C and K first after moving from Archer.

When A closed on doomsday thats when all of the flex was knocked off 5300's 6000's & the 5800's this was in 09 & yea the rims looked werid on those also for the number series

[Shannoncvpi]

3 minutes ago, jajuan said:

That sounds like it's going to be dicier than when the rule was put in place because even with the vaccines out and the may easing up some restrictions with the bars and restaurants I still see more passengers boarding that like the rule in place than those who don't. Even if the bus is an artic, if the bus feels like it's getting too full and past capacity, I see people put up a very vocal fuss and immediately leave the bus in anger or visible frustration. I thought it was a mainly a north side thing with the NP routes, but I have seen folks grumble about buses being over the lowered capacity even on the 12, which right now is still operating majority artic among the runs from K.

Yea it showed how alot of driver dont wanna do nothing only time I went by that rule was when I got close to the garage or to kedize whwre I know a supervisor maybe 

[YoungBusLover]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

That sounds like it's going to be dicier than when the rule was put in place because even with the vaccines out and the may easing up some restrictions with the bars and restaurants I still see more passengers boarding that like the rule in place than those who don't. Even if the bus is an artic, if the bus feels like it's getting too full and past capacity, I see people put up a very vocal fuss and immediately leave the bus in anger or visible frustration. I thought it was a mainly a north side thing with the NP routes, but I have seen folks grumble about buses being over the lowered capacity even on the 12, which right now is still operating majority artic among the runs from K.

So far it has been a mix of everything you've mentioned down here. The only saving grace is with more incoming classes of students I've noticed runs beginning to get filled again which has helped greatly during the rush period. I can't speak for 74th or 103rd though as far as what's going on there. Cottage has roughly gotten back to being fully artics only every now and then I'll see 4 or 5 40 footers out there. 79th has an even split between the 40/60s.

[Shannoncvpi]

26 minutes ago, YoungBusLover said:

So far it has been a mix of everything you've mentioned down here. The only saving grace is with more incoming classes of students I've noticed runs beginning to get filled again which has helped greatly during the rush period. I can't speak for 74th or 103rd though as far as what's going on there. Cottage has roughly gotten back to being fully artics only every now and then I'll see 4 or 5 40 footers out there. 79th has an even split between the 40/60s.

I agree to that the 4 is mostly artics I stay 2 blocks from there & be seeing them 

[Sam92]

So I’m betting the whole idea of a crowded bus is making the most money is out of the window from this point ??