CTA south restructuring vs pace south restructuring

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Why is the CTA doing a south restructuring going all the way the Harvey at 159th street when Pace has been working on a much larger study for over a year?

CTA should be concerned about their own issues inside the Chicago border and let Pace handle the suburbs.

[Busjack]

Exactly. That's what the Auditor General said.

[artthouwill]

Why is the CTA doing a south restructuring going all the way the Harvey at 159th street when Pace has been working on a much larger study for over a year?

CTA should be concerned about their own issues inside the Chicago border and let Pace handle the suburbs.

Let me revisit some of the areas where CTA and Pace operate together

17 Westchester/317 Madison-Westchester: CTA has no business running a route in this area. How much moneywould be saved in deadheading and such if CTA would just hand it over to Pace completely.

353 - 95th/Riverdale/Homewood - Though this is a suburban route, the bulk of the ridership is within the city limits, mainly along King Drive, which probably should be a 3A S. King Dr route. If you restore the 111 111th/115 route separate from Pullman (Cottage Grove), CTA could interline the two routes. Pace probably won't balk at CTA's encroachment of Rt 17 because 353 is a moneymaker for them.

49A/349 S Western. - A great compromise would be to extend the 49 local to 95th and cut the 349 to 95th and eliminate the 49A period.

21 Cermak/322 22nd - CTA claimed the extension of this route (eliminating 25 W Cermak) was to provide a one seat ride for passengers east of Laramie to N. Riverside Mall I don't buy it and I don't think CTA should be in this area.

90/307 Harlem - Most people don't think the CTA should be operating Rt 90 south of Grand, I disagree. You can make a case for transporting people within the city limits north of Grand to a CTA rail line (GReen) or south of Grand AVe to the Blue Line (O'Hare).

Evanston routes - One route could be justified in that CTA would have an alternate service for the Purple Line in case of an emergency. The 97 Skokie does that for the Yellow Line which is the only reason this route is legal in my estimation. Otherwise, the Evanston routes should be handled by Pace.

96 Lunt/290 Touhy. This could operate similar to the 95W/381 with 290 running ''Express" within the city limits. The same could be said for the 56A/270

I know this is a Pace bus forum, but what if Metra pulled out of the local service on the ME between 115th and 67th?

[jajuan]

Let me revisit some of the areas where CTA and Pace operate together

17 Westchester/317 Madison-Westchester: CTA has no business running a route in this area. How much moneywould be saved in deadheading and such if CTA would just hand it over to Pace completely.

353 - 95th/Riverdale/Homewood - Though this is a suburban route, the bulk of the ridership is within the city limits, mainly along King Drive, which probably should be a 3A S. King Dr route. If you restore the 111 111th/115 route separate from Pullman (Cottage Grove), CTA could interline the two routes. Pace probably won't balk at CTA's encroachment of Rt 17 because 353 is a moneymaker for them.

49A/349 S Western. - A great compromise would be to extend the 49 local to 95th and cut the 349 to 95th and eliminate the 49A period.

21 Cermak/322 22nd - CTA claimed the extension of this route (eliminating 25 W Cermak) was to provide a one seat ride for passengers east of Laramie to N. Riverside Mall I don't buy it and I don't think CTA should be in this area.

90/307 Harlem - Most people don't think the CTA should be operating Rt 90 south of Grand, I disagree. You can make a case for transporting people within the city limits north of Grand to a CTA rail line (GReen) or south of Grand AVe to the Blue Line (O'Hare).

Evanston routes - One route could be justified in that CTA would have an alternate service for the Purple Line in case of an emergency. The 97 Skokie does that for the Yellow Line which is the only reason this route is legal in my estimation. Otherwise, the Evanston routes should be handled by Pace.

96 Lunt/290 Touhy. This could operate similar to the 95W/381 with 290 running ''Express" within the city limits. The same could be said for the 56A/270

I know this is a Pace bus forum, but what if Metra pulled out of the local service on the ME between 115th and 67th?

You might not agree with the 21 extension to N. Riverside Mall, but it does perform just as CTA stated: a one seat ride from the West Side to the mall. There are plenty of people who happen to travel to shop or work at the mall and the surrounding shopping areas. It was a hassle having so many people get off at 54th Ave just to ride to the mall and the same would be true for having to do so between the 21 and 322. There were often times full busloads of people making the transfer when the 21 terminated at 54th Ave and the 25 was still around. The CTA was already there for years so why shouldn't they have made the service more efficient and less trouble free? If you have an efficient way of getting people from point A to point B between the city and border suburbs without making it too much of a hassle for riders, who cares which agency provides the service? As for the Evanston CTA service, from what I understand of the history of Evanston bus service no one else other than CTA was there to really take on the slack when the original Evanston bus agency went bust. I still say a better argument would be to scrapped the RTA along with the three service boards and replace them all with one agency if the idea is too cut down on the expense. Other metropolitan areas seem to have made it work with having one agency handle service for that city and its surrounding suburban areas, so why have the convoluted mess the current service boards here have degraded to with all the backdoor politics be it from the Daley administration in Chicago or from the suburbs.

[artthouwill]

You might not agree with the 21 extension to N. Riverside Mall, but it does perform just as CTA stated: a one seat ride from the West Side to the mall. There are plenty of people who happen to travel to shop or work at the mall and the surrounding shopping areas. It was a hassle having so many people get off at 54th Ave just to ride to the mall and the same would be true for having to do so between the 21 and 322. There were often times full busloads of people making the transfer when the 21 terminated at 54th Ave and the 25 was still around. The CTA was already there for years so why shouldn't they have made the service more efficient and less trouble free? If you have an efficient way of getting people from point A to point B between the city and border suburbs without making it too much of a hassle for riders, who cares which agency provides the service? As for the Evanston CTA service, from what I understand of the history of Evanston bus service no one else other than CTA was there to really take on the slack when the original Evanston bus agency went bust. I still say a better argument would be to scrapped the RTA along with the three service boards and replace them all with one agency if the idea is too cut down on the expense. Other metropolitan areas seem to have made it work with having one agency handle service for that city and its surrounding suburban areas, so why have the convoluted mess the current service boards here have degraded to with all the backdoor politics be it from the Daley administration in Chicago or from the suburbs.

It is definitely political. The RTA was formed in part because suburbanites didn't want to give CTA money without having any say. It is amazing the CTA gets as much as it does seeing that the RTA has a heavy suburban slant. It is also political since politicians place people on this board. How would one board operate? Mayor Daley could care less about the burbs and most suburban reps abhor the city.

[jajuan]

It is definitely political. The RTA was formed in part because suburbanites didn't want to give CTA money without having any say. It is amazing the CTA gets as much as it does seeing that the RTA has a heavy suburban slant. It is also political since politicians place people on this board. How would one board operate? Mayor Daley could care less about the burbs and most suburban reps abhor the city.

I admit with the current political environment it's not be easy, but something needs to be done. There's got to be some way of cutting through this us against them garbage that seems to be so prevalent these days in local politics. A start would have to be finding a way of getting across to people that everybody benefits from a decent transit system in the region, not city over the suburbs or vice versa but everybody. Somehow key figures from across the region need to be brought together to hammer out a way to make governance over transit a bit more equal. How about having one board with an even number of members rather than an odd number as is currently the case with the current RTA, with the mayor of Chicago picking more members than the governor or the suburbs in terms of how the allotted picks are divided between each, and split the number of appointments equally between city and suburbs. Or maybe take the say away from the politicians and somehow place it more directly to the people. If anything examine how metro areas that make it work with one agency and see if what's working for them can be tested and tried here. We really need to start expecting more from these guys since ultimately it's us who are paying them through our tax dollars. As long as the politicians figure we're not watching as closely and don't care, we'll keep getting more of the same regardless of whether it's those who live in the suburbs or those of us who live within the city.