scotthilly Posted June 16 Report Share Posted June 16 As some of you may know, Doval Carter said the other day that CTA would return to pre pandemic levels of service by the end of the year. Is that seriously the case? ill use brown & blue as an example in attached images. As you can see, service was anywhere from 50-90% higher. How are they going to achieve that? —— From 715-815 leaving Kimball 2019 Brown - 18 trains 2024 Brown - 10-12 Midday 2019 Brown 7-8, 8 trains per hour 2024 Brown 7-20, 5 trains per hour From 430-530 downtown 2019 Blue - 23 trains (every 2-4) 2024 Blue - 12 trains (every 5 mins) Midday (not too different) 2019 Blue - 6-8 2024 Blue - 6-10 —— and this doesn’t include weekends which are a way bigger difference. Can anyone from CTA chime in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam92 Posted June 16 Report Share Posted June 16 1 hour ago, scotthilly said: As some of you may know, Doval Carter said the other day that CTA would return to pre pandemic levels of service by the end of the year. Is that seriously the case? ill use brown & blue as an example in attached images. As you can see, service was anywhere from 50-90% higher. How are they going to achieve that? —— From 715-815 leaving Kimball 2019 Brown - 18 trains 2024 Brown - 10-12 Midday 2019 Brown 7-8, 8 trains per hour 2024 Brown 7-20, 5 trains per hour From 430-530 downtown 2019 Blue - 23 trains (every 2-4) 2024 Blue - 12 trains (every 5 mins) Midday (not too different) 2019 Blue - 6-8 2024 Blue - 6-10 —— and this doesn’t include weekends which are a way bigger difference. Can anyone from CTA chime in? That does seem like a stretch considering the red line alone would take another hiring event to staff up. Plus prepandemic brown line service means the orange line needs to be boosted along with it since midway supplied 7 trains in the AM. If they were smart; when phase one of rpm is done they should start using argyle to put trains in for the rush hour on the red line 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted June 16 Report Share Posted June 16 4 hours ago, scotthilly said: As some of you may know, Doval Carter said the other day that CTA would return to pre pandemic levels of service by the end of the year. Is that seriously the case? You're looking at frequency, but reading the CTA Press Release, they were mostly talking about passenger statistics, stressing the 1 million daily ridership numbers. I don't know if they are packing more passengers per vehicle or people rding midday are more willing to wait for a train. Only thing tangible in that statement was "bus routes that received additional scheduled service was up 10% on weekdays in May compared to March, while the other bus routes also saw gains of 3%." Since you only posted comparative rail schedules, there was the previously discussed CTA announcement that it was implementing "dynamic rail schedules," but @Elkmn and @artthouwill quickly discovered that CTA deleted trips it couldn't cover. Similarly, it was discussed starting here that Pace said it had recovered 78% of its ridership, but since it also said that it recovered all of its ADA ridersship, it had recovered only 62% of its fixed route ridership. The Propaganda spokespeople, while not as bad as 20 years ago, must still be taken with a silo full of salt. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotthilly Posted June 17 Author Report Share Posted June 17 Thank you both. Heres a clip from a recent ABC news article - “In a statement, Carter said he expected all bus and rail service to reach pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year. He said he was optimistic that average weekday ridership would consistently hit the 1 million mark soon.” This seems to indicate to me that they do in fact mean service (as in, same amount of trains per day as in 2019), not just ridership. As crazy as it would be for the CTA to return to pre pandemic service levels, that seems more likely than ridership. Ridership would have to go up 80% in a year to be back at pre covid levels. Service increases wouldn’t be that high. with that said, I can’t find the statement - just news outlets paraphrasing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted June 17 Report Share Posted June 17 4 hours ago, scotthilly said: with that said, I can’t find the statement - just news outlets paraphrasing. I provided the link in my post above. Except for a face-to-face with an editorial board or the like, all official statements are on the Press Releases page. Two rules I learned from college and work: Always rely on the original source, which is the Press Release, because... "Reporters are lazy," and unless it is a special investigation, they rely on press releases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotthilly Posted June 17 Author Report Share Posted June 17 17 minutes ago, Busjack said: I provided the link in my post above. I should’ve taken a closer look! In that quote, he says “our bus and rail services are more reliable and we’re also providing more services,” said CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. “As planned, we will continue to deliver on our promise of providing pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year,” So, he did actually say it! I’ll open the thread back up for answers 😀 - will they actually get pre covid levels of service by EOY?!” - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted June 17 Report Share Posted June 17 1 hour ago, scotthilly said: So, he did actually say it! I’ll open the thread back up for answers 😀 Again, one trick of the PR trade is to insert uotes from the boss, regardless 1 hour ago, scotthilly said: will they actually get pre covid levels of service by EOY?!” - . No one knows. I suppose one can make projections based on how many workers they say they wanted to hire and how long it would take to hire them. But I happened to see over someone's shoulder the Tribune headline CTA could play a key role in reducing Chicago emissions. But first, it will have to get riders back. i thought it had to do with electric buses, but only tangentially so. The point relevant here is : "The Regional Transportation Authority doesn’t project the region’s ridership will come back this decade. In 2022, the agency estimated ridership could hit 74% of pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2031 if current circumstances persist, though RTA staff said the figures are likely conservative. In May, the CTA carried 69% of the passengers it transported in 2019." Also, the 2019 Annual Ridership Report says "CTA bus and rail ridership totaled 455.7 million in 2019," with the system having 1,468,731 average weekday boardings." So based on that metric, CTA is something like 30-40% short. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotthilly Posted June 30 Author Report Share Posted June 30 Anyone else got anything on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted June 30 Report Share Posted June 30 25 minutes ago, scotthilly said: Anyone else got anything on this? If they did, they would have posted. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.