Tribune Mess Up

[michael]

I wrote the following letter to John Hilkevitch. I've not received a response. The tribune wrote this article:

"A reality check for commuters?"

The article was accompanied by a graphic showing ridership data for CTA, Metra, and Pace; the top bus routes, the train routes, and car data for the highways in Chicago.

Click here for the Tribune graphic

As I was reviewing the top bus routes, I just couldn't be convinced that the #152 Addison bus was the third busiest in the system. That made absolutely no sense to me. So I researched myself, and found out that the Addison bus didn't even make the top thirty of the routes. I listed out the top twenty-plus routes and sent them to Hilkevitch. The bus routes they listed were all on the north side and serving the communities mostly on the lake shore. Only four of the ten listed would be cut in the up-coming contingency plan. So I couldn't figure out why those were listed. In the report, the top routes by weekday boardings are listed very clearly. So, who ever generated that graphic that accompanied the article did something wrong, or if those were the routes chosen, I'm not sure why. Those most affected routes are absolutely saved in the plan.

Click here for the March 2007 CTA Bus Ridership Report

What do you guys think? Northsiders thinking everything revolved around them? Just bad data? Something else?

Anyway, here's what I wrote to the Trib:

--------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Hilkevitch,

"A reality check for commuters?" More like a reality check of your facts. I was just reviewing CTA bus ridership included in the graphic that accompanied your piece. (found here). I just couldn't believe that the #152 Addison bus was the third busiest in the system. According to the figures I reviewed in the CTA's Bus Ridership Report for March 2007 (found here), the Addison bus does have many boardings, in fact, your numbers are correct. However, it is not the third busiest, nor is the #151 Sheridan the first. Looking at the numbers, the top twenty bus routes are as follows:

01) #79 - 79th

total: 33,766

02) #20 - Madison

total: 24,437

03) #9 - Ashland

total: 23,475

04) #66 - Chicago

total: 22,621

05) #63 - 63rd

total: 21,979

06) #77 - Belmont

total: 21,974

07) #3 - King Drive

total: 21,314

08) #53 - Pulaski

total: 21,233

09) #4 - Cottage Grove

total: 21,125

10) #22 - Clark

total: 20,178

11) #151 - Sheridan

total: 20,156

12) #8 - Halsted

total: 19,857

13) #49 - Western

total: 19,125

14) #82 - Kimball-Homan

total: 18,679

15) #87 - 87th

total: 17,590

16) #67 - 67th-69th-71st

total: 15,643

17) #36 - Broadway

total: 15,467

18) #29 - State

total: 15,438

19) #72 - North

total: 15,430

20) #62 - Archer

total: 14,289

Your data was decidedly "northside-centric." Only four (4) of the routes you listed are affected by service cuts in the doomsday scenario; the #135, #136, #156, and #157. All of those don't even make it into the top twenty in terms of weekday boardings. If there's some other reason you chose to list only those bus routes, please let me know, as it is not immediately clear in the graphic or the copy.

Best,

Michael Kmak, Pilsen

[Kevin]

You're right. This graphic is very deceptive.

I was a bit confused when I first saw it, but didn't pay much attention and assumed it was refering to routes that would be cut. As you've pointed out, that's clearly not the case as many of those routes would not be affected.

I'm wondering what Hilkevitch's response will be to this, if he responds at all.

[Busjack]

According to the CTA Tattler, the Tribune printed a correction, although as just part of its inconspicous corrections column, without retracting the previous map. The initiator of this thread is credited, but through Live Journal.

[michael]

According to the CTA Tattler, the Tribune printed a correction, although as just part of its inconspicous corrections column, without retracting the previous map. The initiator of this thread is credited, but through Live Journal.

i sent it to kevin at the ctatattler, along with the posted corrections.

regardless, it was extremely sloppy reporting.

[MetroShadow]

This something that has irritated me for the longest about the Tribune and Red Eye: they make a lot of articles about the CTA, yet when they get the data or the interviews, they do seem to be "northside-centric" and frequently leaves out commuters from other places.

I was featured in a editorial about the three track in march...but I decided to change my location from "Lakeview" or "austin" to "Dekalb"; luckly I was still printed <_<

[Busjack]

Talk about north side centric, Channel 41's file footage is always of the North Park Garage. Could it be that Channel 41 is located in the Foster Bank Building, at 5225 N. Kedzie?

I've mentioned the Tribune's narrow focus before, including misreporting on Pace's lawsuit against the RTA (the Tribune kept crusading that Pace was wasting the taxpayers' money by pursuing a suit against itself, since Pace is a division of RTA, and never mentioned that it got the relief it sought, even though that started it down the road of exhausting its capital money on operating), and anointing a certain gadfly as a "rail expert," as examples. The Red Eye seems for the ADD set, and has a reporter whose job seems to be to keep a couple of CTA Spokeswomen busy. Also, as I mentioned, the majority of complainers are from Lakeview, whether there or on Ask Carole (although there is an idiot on Ask Carole that responds that everyone from Lakeview is a racist yuppie that should walk).

[Buslover88]

Channel 41's file footage is always of the North Park Garage.

What's Channel 41? Don't you mean Channel 40, CLTV?

I've mentioned the Tribune's narrow focus before, including misreporting on Pace's lawsuit against the RTA

Well, what WAS the lawsuit about? If it wasn't important, then why are you so concern they misreported it?

The Red Eye seems for the ADD set, and has a reporter whose job seems to be to keep a couple of CTA Spokeswomen busy.

Maybe the spokeswomen aren't doing there job

as I mentioned, the majority of complainers are from Lakeview, whether there or on Ask Carole (although there is an idiot on Ask Carole that responds that everyone from Lakeview is a racist yuppie that should walk).

Here we go with juding and namecalling again. That's not nice to call someone an idiot unless you really know them to know if they're an idiot or not.

[trainman8119]

Well, what WAS the lawsuit about? If it wasn't important, then why are you so concern they misreported it?

At the time the RTA did not allow Capital funds to be used for operations. Pace sued...won

and because of their wit and wisdom don't have any capital for improvements because they

used it all for operations.

RTA had a reason for setting the policy...it was a good policing policy. Now, because of

Pace's ultimate wisdom (they always know better), and the fact that the agencies in this town are monkey see, monkey do...none of them have any substantial money to devote to capital projects because they all jumpend on the band wagon to use the capital money for operations.

[Busjack]

What's Channel 41? Don't you mean Channel 40, CLTV?

No, Channel 41, WOCH-CA, Korean Broadcasting, often with English subtitles. Some of the shows are quite interesting, such as one about animals that talk in Korean, where the monkeys are friends with goats, or Animal Control tries to capture stray dogs with bacon and traps a cat instead. There is another show where the Meal Team guesses what food, usually a root, cures every imaginable disease, and the Meal Team always wins. I am referring to an over-the-air station, not necessarily a cable one. I also learned how to pronounce some Korean words from the latter show, such as hormone, broccoli, stress, Schaumburg, Dempster, Pfingsten, and Dundee.

Well, what WAS the lawsuit about? If it wasn't important, then why are you so concern they misreported it?

At the time the lawsuit was important. Pace was suing the RTA to approve its budget. That was the start of the time when the recovery ratio was starting to bite (and Pace's went up to approximately 40% from a lower amount). Pace was trying to meet its recovery ratio by using Federal Capital Cost of Contracting Funds (essentially federal payments that could be used to cover contractors' equipment), and the RTA was against it, so Pace sued in McHenry County Court. The result of the lawsuit (some by the appellate court, others by agreement) was that Pace could do that. At about the same time, the CTA wanted to use Capital Cost of Contracting to pay for paratransit, and, of course, the RTA approved that, apparently no questions asked.

My axe with the newspapers is that the Pioneer Press consistently reported that Pace was asking for $158 million in damages from the RTA when, in fact, it was asking for approval of its $158 million budget. The Tribune ran a long editorial campaign against the lawsuit. The only newspaper that reported what actually happened was the Daily Herald, and the Tribune never did report the court settlement (as far as I know, and I did e-mail Hilkevitch about it after the Tribune continued its campaign after it).

At first glance, Pace's position seemed reasonable, in that it could have used the Federal money to buy equipment instead of using the contractors' equipment and paying for it as part of the contracts out of operating. However, we know that Pace subsequently bought 2600 series buses for Naperville. (Is Glen Ellyn the only place where transit service is provided by school buses?) However my further statement was that the "successful result" of that lawsuit "started [Pace] down the road of exhausting its capital money on operating" is also correct, as Pace says that its current crisis is that it can no longer do so and defer capital expenditures (echoed by CTA, and, to a lesser extent, Metra). Thus, getting what it wanted turned out not to be such a good idea.

[Busjack]

Geez, I see that traimman jumped me while I was composing a more elaborate response. At least we both agree.

I guess we can both agree that this was also the time when Pace started playing with the recovery ratio without realizing that there were limited resources. The Schaumburg Trolley and Downers Grove agreements were similar deals (so long as the municipalities were paying the bulk of the cost, give them a small subsidy and the recovery ratio looks better, even though the subsidy amount went up).