Transit punditry

[Busjack]

This is a philosophical question. Pass by it if you want, but deal with it honestly.

I can't figure out:

• Videos such as CTA Bus Ride 55 Garfield CTA Nova bus Lfs 2014 #8024 From Garfield/King Drive To 55th/Kimbark , in which the photographer gets in the back seat and doesn't show anything out the window or anything else other than whether the bus bounces around, and maybe the stop announcement screen. There isn't any view from the windshield or out any window. It isn't just this guy but most of them. What's up with that?
  • On the other hand, D'Angelo Hartley's and Chicagoland Transit's videos are good.
• Pundits (we have one trolling here) with little knowledge of the Chicago area making unsupported assertions such as Metra Exemplifies Everything Wrong with American Passenger Rail.  Apparently, the egoist has no idea that the reason why there are so few trains on the NCS and HC is that the freight railroads control the tracks, and won't let a passenger train there when his bar announces "last call." Similarly, someone on @Sam92's cell phone was an authority on who was the worst transit executive.
• What do foamers have against EMDs? Are MP36-PHs EMDs? What do they know that Metra doesn't that EMDs can't be rebuilt? What else should Metra buy and where does Metra have the money to buy it?

That's probably enough to chew on for now, but stay tuned.

[artthouwill]

16 minutes ago, Busjack said:

This is a philosophical question. Pass by it if you want, but deal with it honestly.

I can't figure out:

• Videos such as CTA Bus Ride 55 Garfield CTA Nova bus Lfs 2014 #8024 From Garfield/King Drive To 55th/Kimbark , in which the photographer gets in the back seat and doesn't show anything out the window or anything else other than whether the bus bounces around, and maybe the stop announcement screen. There isn't any view from the windshield or out any window. It isn't just this guy but most of them. What's up with that?
  • On the other hand, D'Angelo Hartley's and Chicagoland Transit's videos are good.
• Pundits (we have one trolling here) with little knowledge of the Chicago area making unsupported assertions such as Metra Exemplifies Everything Wrong with American Passenger Rail.  Apparently, the egoist has no idea that the reason why there are so few trains on the NCS and HC is that the freight railroads control the tracks, and won't let a passenger train there when his bar announces "last call." Similarly, someone on @Sam92's cell phone was an authority on who was the worst transit executive.
• What do foamers have against EMDs? Are MP36-PHs EMDs? What do they know that Metra doesn't that EMDs can't be rebuilt? What else should Metra buy and where does Metra have the money to buy it?

That's probably enough to chew on for now, but stay tuned.

To answer the first question, I think many posters are only interested in the interior of the bus and the sound of the engine and transmission, which can be heard the best from the back seat.  Generally this seems to apply for brand new equipment.  One could argue safety as to why some videos may be short, especially in nir so ideal neighborhoods.   Others,  like Chicagoland Transit tend to make his videos downtown or elsewhere. 

Even the New York City videos are mostly rear of the bus, especially the New Flyer electric artics. 

I have no answer for the locos.

[Busjack]

8 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

To answer the first question, I think many posters are only interested in the interior of the bus and the sound of the engine and transmission, which can be heard the best from the back seat.  Generally this seems to apply for brand new equipment. 

Maybe, but this guy has 100s of videos. A few NFs, a few Novas of various builds, and a few artics would suffice. I could possibly see this one of a TTC BYD, which was new and appears to show that the bus is a rattletrap, and may have been just in time, because TTC cut the order short.

[YoungBusLover]

I'll just add my two cents, outside of ChicagolandTransit a majority of these new content creators are just doing the same thing en mass that was once a rare occurrence a decade or so ago. They're really messing the youtube algorithm up with the redundant posting of onboard video content.  

[Busjack]

12 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

They're really messing the youtube algorithm up with the redundant posting of onboard video content.

That's also something I admit I don't know much about. Obviously, these videos come up near the top of a search, but does that mean they are getting paid based on click count? Or do they just get some rush from superimposing their portrait at the start of a poorly-produced video?

[Sam92]

On 10/14/2023 at 7:34 PM, Busjack said:

This is a philosophical question. Pass by it if you want, but deal with it honestly.

I can't figure out:

• Videos such as CTA Bus Ride 55 Garfield CTA Nova bus Lfs 2014 #8024 From Garfield/King Drive To 55th/Kimbark , in which the photographer gets in the back seat and doesn't show anything out the window or anything else other than whether the bus bounces around, and maybe the stop announcement screen. There isn't any view from the windshield or out any window. It isn't just this guy but most of them. What's up with that?
  • On the other hand, D'Angelo Hartley's and Chicagoland Transit's videos are good.
• Pundits (we have one trolling here) with little knowledge of the Chicago area making unsupported assertions such as Metra Exemplifies Everything Wrong with American Passenger Rail.  Apparently, the egoist has no idea that the reason why there are so few trains on the NCS and HC is that the freight railroads control the tracks, and won't let a passenger train there when his bar announces "last call." Similarly, someone on @Sam92's cell phone was an authority on who was the worst transit executive.
• What do foamers have against EMDs? Are MP36-PHs EMDs? What do they know that Metra doesn't that EMDs can't be rebuilt? What else should Metra buy and where does Metra have the money to buy it?

That's probably enough to chew on for now, but stay tuned.

Id say Carter is just catching flack because he happens to be in charge during a situation he really can't control without proper staff levels. I'd say claypool was the worst and least transparent. If the decrowding plan was strictly about taking under performing routes and giving resources to other routes then the 1, 30, 100 165 and 55A/N would've been eliminated. The truth is, all garages were strained due to picking up archer's work and even the 2010 cuts didn't do enough for relief so consolidating service was the real need. Huberman and Rodriguez I'm on the fence about, at least they cracked down on repairs and slow zones even though operating budget took a partial hit to make that happen. However just blindly cutting all the X routes vs doing something similar to the decrowding in 2010 wasn't a smart move on Rodriguez's part. 

[Busjack]

29 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Id say Carter is just catching flack because he happens to be in charge during a situation he really can't control without proper staff levels. I'd say claypool was the worst and least transparent. If the decrowding plan was strictly about taking under performing routes and giving resources to other routes then the 1, 30, 100 165 and 55A/N would've been eliminated. The truth is, all garages were strained due to picking up archer's work and even the 2010 cuts didn't do enough for relief so consolidating service was the real need. Huberman and Rodriguez I'm on the fence about, at least they cracked down on repairs and slow zones even though operating budget took a partial hit to make that happen. However just blindly cutting all the X routes vs doing something similar to the decrowding in 2010 wasn't a smart move on Rodriguez's part. 

Claypool wasn't transparent, but the Crowd Reduction Plan at least got rid of some of the overlaps with Pace, something the RTA wouldn't do, and although Claypool would not say publicly that CTA was talking with Pace, which took over routes 17 (317) and 49A (349), and a few other services. After that CTA stated that it was cooperating with Pace on the two North Shore projects and the South Halsted one. Before Claypool, CTA thought it could afford to overrun Pace. Reportedly, Brandon Johnson has similar ideas.

Canceling the X routes turned out to be a dumb idea, but not as dumb as Kruesi's and Carole Brown's dud of running Sunday schedules 7 days a week, which would have deprived many areas of any transit. It was just a threat until Carole got her tax increase. Similarly Carole was all in favor of turning over city paratransit to Pace, until she realized that the money was going with it.

Someone posted at the time that the proposed restructuring of 55A-N was killed by the alderman, which means Marty Quinn, backed by Mike Madigan. 165 goes to an industrial area, so there's a reason for it. The routes west of Midway are basically extensions of 59, so they don't use that many resources.

I mentioned lying Huberman a couple of hours ago in connection with the NABIs and a couple of days ago in connection with Block 37.

[Sam92]

On 10/16/2023 at 3:22 PM, Busjack said:

Claypool wasn't transparent, but the Crowd Reduction Plan at least got rid of some of the overlaps with Pace, something the RTA wouldn't do, and although Claypool would not say publicly that CTA was talking with Pace, which took over routes 17 (317) and 49A (349), and a few other services. After that CTA stated that it was cooperating with Pace on the two North Shore projects and the South Halsted one. Before Claypool, CTA thought it could afford to overrun Pace. Reportedly, Brandon Johnson has similar ideas.

Canceling the X routes turned out to be a dumb idea, but not as dumb as Kruesi's and Carole Brown's dud of running Sunday schedules 7 days a week, which would have deprived many areas of any transit. It was just a threat until Carole got her tax increase. Similarly Carole was all in favor of turning over city paratransit to Pace, until she realized that the money was going with it.

Someone posted at the time that the proposed restructuring of 55A-N was killed by the alderman, which means Marty Quinn, backed by Mike Madigan. 165 goes to an industrial area, so there's a reason for it. The routes west of Midway are basically extensions of 59, so they don't use that many resources.

I mentioned lying Huberman a couple of hours ago in connection with the NABIs and a couple of days ago in connection with Block 37.

Yeah the fact that claypool didn't just say they were eliminating overlap and consolidating instead of claiming 145 was "low ridership" when they really wanted to push for the original plan of taking 145 off inner lake shore (albeit this time pulling all service off Wilson) to decrowd that section made him kinda untrustworthy. As far as lying about the NABIs I thought the 4000s ended up as replacements because they were already seeking more artics for both BRT/replacing some flxibles 2 for 3 to place artics on more routes anyway and the 7500s were falling apart? I forgot about fumble with block 37 and them wasting the money and time closing Washington. I think the Sunday service only thing was a scare tactic to get the operating money they needed since they figured getting the city riled up enough to call in about it would put pressure on the government for the cash. I remember seeing the numbers posted in red-eye back in highschool. 

[Sam92]

On 10/16/2023 at 3:22 PM, Busjack said:

Before Claypool, CTA thought it could afford to overrun Pace. Reportedly, Brandon Johnson has similar ideas.

 

I thought outside of 205 pushing some routes out of Evanston that CTA and pace started at least somewhat coordinating in the early 2000s even though they didn't eliminate some overlap? I know 352 is limited stop along with 381 close to 95th red. Pace retreated/coordinated when CTA extended 21 and that was a somewhat justified extension. I think the only iffy thing was 307 and 90 

[artthouwill]

48 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

I thought outside of 205 pushing some routes out of Evanston that CTA and pace started at least somewhat coordinating in the early 2000s even though they didn't eliminate some overlap? I know 352 is limited stop along with 381 close to 95th red. Pace retreated/coordinated when CTA extended 21 and that was a somewhat justified extension. I think the only iffy thing was 307 and 90 

Well the 25 was coordinated with Pace 322 with supplement service from the 304.  When CTA combined the 21 and the 25. Coordination went out the window.  As a result,  the 304 eventually was cut back to N Riverside Mall before the route eventually was eliminated outright. 

The 90 extension to the Green Line led to the first truncation of the 305 which had its northern terminal cut from Division and Thatcher to the Harlem Green line.   It took awhile bur eventually Pace m made changes to the 307.  Due peak times some buses short turned SB at Ogden with all if the NB byses terminating at Elmwood Park Village Hall.   This was changed to all SB buses going to 63rd ( now Bridgeview at 71st and Harlem) and some NB peak buses short turning at Harlem Green Lune.  That was also made possible by further truncating the 305 northern terminal to Forest Park terminal. 

There was also the CTA realigning the 111 Pullman 111th/115th, splitting it into two routes.  The. 111 King Drive/111th effectively forced Pace to reroute the 353 which took away the heaviest portion of that route's ridership.   The 353 went from 10 munute frequencies between 95th and Riverdale to 30 minutes frequencies between 95th and 170th and Cottage Grove. 

 

[Sam92]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

Well the 25 was coordinated with Pace 322 with supplement service from the 304.  When CTA combined the 21 and the 25. Coordination went out the window.  As a result,  the 304 eventually was cut back to N Riverside Mall before the route eventually was eliminated outright. 

The 90 extension to the Green Line led to the first truncation of the 305 which had its northern terminal cut from Division and Thatcher to the Harlem Green line.   It took awhile bur eventually Pace m made changes to the 307.  Due peak times some buses short turned SB at Ogden with all if the NB byses terminating at Elmwood Park Village Hall.   This was changed to all SB buses going to 63rd ( now Bridgeview at 71st and Harlem) and some NB peak buses short turning at Harlem Green Lune.  That was also made possible by further truncating the 305 northern terminal to Forest Park terminal. 

There was also the CTA realigning the 111 Pullman 111th/115th, splitting it into two routes.  The. 111 King Drive/111th effectively forced Pace to reroute the 353 which took away the heaviest portion of that route's ridership.   The 353 went from 10 munute frequencies between 95th and Riverdale to 30 minutes frequencies between 95th and 170th and Cottage Grove. 

 

Ahh see yeah pace still cut back in those places vs 349 and 317  which overlapped 49a and 17 where one route shouldve handled that route. But I agree with you that the changes pace made in return costed them since CTA didn't communicate how to coexist in the areas you mentioned. I didn't realize 353 was that heavy. I knew it's always been a strong route but didn't think king drive was supplying that many riders for the route to cut 2/3 of the headways when retreating, BUT makes sense to give that service to CTA since the Riverdale shorts were basically city runs

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, Sam92 said:

I thought the 4000s ended up as replacements because they were already seeking more artics for both BRT/replacing some flxibles 2 for 3 to place artics on more routes anyway and the 7500s were falling apart?

What Huberman said was the 3 for 4 replacement for 6000s, but people were pointing out here that the NABIs were going out of service  and the 4000s were showing up on LSD routes instead of routes with 6000s, so, it turned out that the whole replacing 6000s was a lie.

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, artthouwill said:

There was also the CTA realigning the 111 Pullman 111th/115th, splitting it into two routes.  The. 111 King Drive/111th effectively forced Pace to reroute the 353 which took away the heaviest portion of that route's ridership.   The 353 went from 10 munute frequencies between 95th and Riverdale to 30 minutes frequencies between 95th and 170th and Cottage Grove. 

That was part of acknowledged negotiation with Pace. Essentially that freed up 2 Pace buses and responsibility for in-city rides, and Pace agreed to take exclusive responsibility for 349 with the 2 freed buses. I remember that you didn't care for it at the time, but it was not as you now represent it, and it was not an instance of CTA overruning Pace in the suburbs.

[Busjack]

BTW. although I, too, might have strayed, the purpose why I started this topic was to talk about sophomore pundits, not decades old transit policy.

[artthouwill]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

What Huberman said was the 3 for 4 replacement for 6000s, but people were pointing out here that the NABIs were going out of service  and the 4000s were showing up on LSD routes instead of routes with 6000s, so, it turned out that the whole replacing 6000s was a lie.

On the 17/317, I think the CTA ran that route because it eliminated the rail service to Westchester and substituted the bus service as a replacement .  The 317 didn't come into existence until CTA cut back the 17 to weekday rush hour service only.  Pace stepped in and provided service during off peak and weekend hours.  Then eventually CRA just ceded the service to Pace altogether.

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

BTW. although I, too, might have strayed, the purpose why I started this topic was to talk about sophomore pundits, not decades old transit policy.

I don't think these sophomore pundits know the landscape nor the history of our transit.  Sometimes we have to understand the past in order to see how and why we are where we are in the present  and that can help lead to how plans can be made for the future.   

[Sam92]

Fun fact. I delivered doordash to Carter a year or two ?

[strictures]

25 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

Fun fact. I delivered doordash to Carter a year or two ?

I'll guarantee you were more competent at your job than he is at his!

[MetroShadow]

On 10/17/2023 at 5:40 PM, Busjack said:

BTW. although I, too, might have strayed, the purpose why I started this topic was to talk about sophomore pundits, not decades old transit policy.

In fairness of Alan, though, his takes on SEPTA are on point. Others may not quite get the point (and I say that after being in-industry for 15 years). 

[Busjack]

24 minutes ago, MetroShadow said:

In fairness of Alan, though, his takes on SEPTA are on point. Others may not quite get the point (and I say that after being in-industry for 15 years). 

Basically, though, the title of the piece wasn't SEPTA, and I couldn't care about SEPTA. But he isn't an authority on Metra.

[MetroShadow]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Basically, though, the title of the piece wasn't SEPTA, and I couldn't care about SEPTA. But he isn't an authority on Metra.

Alan is from the East Coast, hence his takes are NEC-Centric.

I didn't mind it (and having used SEPTA more times in the last 2 years, it always helps to understand why they are the way that they are). If they want to poke fun at Metra, by all means (but also, comment boxes are important to tell them why exactly they are wrong). I mean, what we wouldn't do to yeet CN because we can't have more NCS service. 

Edited October 23, 2023 by MetroShadow
Context

[Busjack]

4 hours ago, MetroShadow said:

Alan is from the East Coast, hence his takes are NEC-Centric.

I didn't mind it (and having used SEPTA more times in the last 2 years, it always helps to understand why they are the way that they are). If they want to poke fun at Metra, by all means (but also, comment boxes are important to tell them why exactly they are wrong). I mean, what we wouldn't do to yeet CN because we can't have more NCS service. 

There's a certain point where comment boxes don't accomplish much, and this gets me back to a point I made above whether the algorithm is to get him click count, because stuff like this comes to the top, when I'm looking for something like a cab camera view of the UP-N.*

______

*There isn't one in the Metra Ride Along series. Apparently, there are a couple of unofficial ones.

[Busjack]

On 10/14/2023 at 7:34 PM, Busjack said:

Apparently, the egoist has no idea that the reason why there are so few trains on the NCS and HC is that the freight railroads control the tracks, and won't let a passenger train there when his bar announces "last call."

I looked at it again, and he did mention later on that most of the lines were on freight tracks, but didn't seem to make the connection to his statement about the NCS and HC, and said that Metra built its system on the freight tracks to save money, while the only line so built was the NCS. Most of the commuter lines were established by the steam railroads in something like the 1850s-1870s (e.g. C&NW history).

[Sam92]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

I looked at it again, and he did mention later on that most of the lines were on freight tracks, but didn't seem to make the connection to his statement about the NCS and HC, and saud that Metra buil its system on the freight tracks to save money, while yje only line so built was the NCS. Most of the commuter lines were established by the steam railrads in something like the 1850s-1870s (e.g. C&NW history).

I know NCS wanted to expand service and couldn't because the freights wouldn't allow it at some point. But isn't the HC too lower in ridership to increase service? I don't know the freight volume on that line but I feel like they'd at least bump it up a few more trains even if still peak only if there was a bump in ridership. It's basically metras "purple line" as far as a faster way to Joliet but RI seems to go through areas with much more daily demand. 

[Busjack]

12 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

I know NCS wanted to expand service and couldn't because the freights wouldn't allow it at some point. But isn't the HC too lower in ridership to increase service? I don't know the freight volume on that line but I feel like they'd at least bump it up a few more trains even if still peak only if there was a bump in ridership. It's basically metras "purple line" as far as a faster way to Joliet but RI seems to go through areas with much more daily demand. 

The deal with the HC was that it was originally GM&O, which merged with the IC to become ICG, which later was taken over by CN, which puts it in the same boat as other CN lines.

The Romeoville station, which opened in 2018, may be subject to the YouTuber's criticism of a station with little service, but I see a fall Saturday schedule.