As I noted recently, I'm blogging now at the Trib's ChicagoNow site. Below is a feed from there. Click and find me at my new home.
[...]edited by: Douglas Welch,
Illinois Editor
As I noted recently, I'm blogging now at the Trib's ChicagoNow site. Below is a feed from there. Click and find me at my new home.
[...]It's Moving Day at CTA Tattler. We're moving to ChicagoNow, a network of blogs hosted by the Chicago Tribune. From now on, you'll find fresh news and notes from CTA Tattler here. Read today's post: Transit riders three times more fit than [...]
It's Moving Day at CTA Tattler. We're moving to ChicagoNow, a network of blogs hosted by the Chicago Tribune. From now on, you'll find fresh news and notes from CTA Tattler here.
Check back here around noon or so for more details. We're still moving furniture at [...]
Just read last week's report on the weekend Blue Line work and say "ditto." Only change the dates and we still have the Blue Line closed from 10 pm Friday till 4 am Monday for slow zone work from Grand to Western. Shuttles will be in place.
I' [...]
Here's a roundup of interesting CTA stuff in the news recently.
Complaints down; but don't pass us up! The Tribune notes that while overall passenger complaints are down this year, bus drivers who don't stop for passengers accounted for the most common complaint -- 468 of them in the first quarter of the [...]
Do not be alarmed! And for gosh sakes, do not self-evacuate!
As part of a emergency preparedness exercise, the CTA will close the Washington Blue Line station from 9:30 pm Wednesday (May 20) till 5:30 am Thursday. Eight bus routes also will be detoured in the area of the emergency test [...]
The I-Go and CTA smart card partnership was given a big thumbs up this month by Fast Company magazine as "almost too simple":
The Smart Card is Chicago-based nonprofit I-Go Car Sharing's idea to extend public transportation to include public cars. According to a recent study, most cars' [...]
The CTA will transfer almost $129 million in cash originally earmarked for station fixups and new buses to help fill $155 million budget hole this year.
CTA officials laid out these details for the agency's board at last week's meeting:
Reduce the injuries and damages reserve fund: $10 million Savings on labor [...]Once again, the Blue Line will be closed from Grand to Western starting at 10 pm Friday through 4 am Monday for slow zone repair work. Bus shuttles will serve stations in that stretch.
Certainly this is an inconvenience, but the CTA says the end is near. CTA Tattler quoted a [...]
My Chicago Card Plus was on death's door. I could see a hairline crack in it, and it stalled in registering at the reader. But I was going out of town for a few days and knew I wouldn't be using the card and could [...]
I just cringe when I hear crying fights on the phone. Last week it was a young woman in her late teens who seemed to have her head on straight -- except perhaps for her choice of boyfriends. She made quite the scene as she yelled/cried on the phone to [...]
Starting Monday, May 18, CTA riders can get estimated times for bus arrivals at preferred stops via scheduled email or text message. And by the summer, the CTA will test-pilot "on-the-go" two-way texting for riders to get arrival times for the next four buses at a specific stop.
These cool new [...]
It took about a year, but give the CTA credit -- they finished putting almost 150 bus routes on Bus Tracker, starting next Monday, May 18.
Bus Tracker beganin 2006 with the No. 20 Madison as a pilot project. It took two years for the CTA to learn from that project, get the right [...]
Last week's report on the Blue Line slow zone work brought out the skeptics and conspiracy theorists. And many of you asked some good questions; I in turn asked the CTA for further clarification.
The questions primarily are: Did the CTA tear out recently replaced concrete ties, and if so, why? And, [...]
South Loop Red Line riders will have to board the Harrison stop even further south at Polk Street starting Monday, May 11, when the Harrison entrance closes so the CTA can replace the escalator.
The work will extend into October. And it will give college and Jones College Prep kids [...]
Overheard on the Red Line, from a male high school student:
"Hey Mom, if you go to the Jewels tonight, can you get me some:
Starburst Hershey kisses Fruit roll-ups Snickers Sweet Tarts and Doritos.... Oh, well, I was just feeling kinda hungry...."
(Photo by Conor O'Toole/Medill [...]
Since the CTA announced in April that federal stimulus dollars would fund more slow zone elimination work on the Blue Line, we've all had questions. And one of the biggest is: 1. What about all the work done in 2007-08? 2. How is this different? 3. And what's the full scope?
The [...]
The last few weeks constitute what I call the "tweener" season for weather. It's hard to figure out what to wear to work when it's cool in the morning and it's supposed to get warmer.
But many of us folks go [...]
The bus ads for Gameloft's Block Breaker Deluxe 2 certainly are tempting:
"Beat the first level in under a minute to make this bus express! Text block to 82174."
Who wouldn't want the bus to go express? But hey, it's just another sales ploy. And the CTA is [...]
One expert at saying one thing and meaning another was correcting his counterpart Thursday on whether public transit customers should avoid trains for fear of contracting swine flu.
Yes, it was Mayor Daley calling "balderdash" on Vice President Joe Biden's assertion that people should stay away from subways: "I would not be at [...]
A new rap video about the CTA articulates all the thoughts many of us have about our transit experience.
Bino White, aka, comedian Joe Hanson, has many good lines in the video, including:
"You can ride the El, you can ride the bus, if you don't mind the smell."
"There's no reason [...]
A Red Line delay on the morning commute last week showed some real improvements in passenger communications. That's a topic I've been harping on for years, and one for which the CTA has been showing some improvement.
First, I noticed all the station turnstyles were out of order and the gate [...]
The CTA reader guys have rallied and overtaken the women in the latest CTA Tattler UNscientific poll on who's reading what on their commute.
Last month, you may recall I reported seeing 21 El readers, and 17 of them were women. I encouraged guys to put down their RedEyes and [...]
Weekend service alerts over the next few months certainly will contain these words:
"We are making track improvements to prevent slow zones and improve rail service along the Blue Line."
From 10 pm Friday till 4 am Monday, trains will operate on one track between Grand and Damen. Folks will board and [...]
The Red Line motorman starts to get chatty with instructions as we head south during the morning commute.
Between North Avenue and Clark and Division, he implores standing passengers to move into the middle of the cars and away from the doors. He warns that more people would be boarding [...]
The CTA over the next week will complete the Alternatives Analysis phase of studies on the Orange and Yellow line extensions.
Riders can view preliminary findings and recommendations of the proposed Orange Line extension to Ford City Mall from 6 till 8 pm tonight (April 22) at Richard J. [...]
Almost $88 million in federal stimulus funds will allow the CTA to repair all the slow zones in the Blue Line tunnel, from Clinton on the Forest Park branch to Division heading to O'Hare.
The CTA in March had announced a $56.6 million construction contract to repair the slow zones [...]
State legislators on Friday got a firsthand -- and uncomfortable -- look at just some of the myriad public transit capital projects that need funding for fixing.
The uncomfortable part came in an un-air-conditioned ride on a Pace bus from a Cicero Metra station to a Loop CTA El platform, according [...]
The BeerAdvocate is sponsoring its 4th Annual CTA Pub Crawl at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Local Option. The beery jaunt is focused on the North Side around DePaul, Wrigley and Andersonville. Check the map here.
CTA Tattler hope to pull off its own pub crawl sometime in May. [...]
The CTA late last week installed digital information screens at the Red Line Addison station -- just in time for the Cubs opening day, rain-soaked win over the Colorado Rockies.
The 52-inch monitors provide next train arrival information and serve up ads. [...]
Here are some further tidbits and notes shared at the April CTA board meeting last week:
Early budget surplus, good. Chief Financial Officer Karen Walker reported that the CTA showed a $12.9 million surplus for the first two months of the year, due to lower operating expenses and higher farebox revenue than [...]
We reported last week that the CTA was adding 19 more routes to Bus Tracker next Monday, April 20. Yesterday the CTA released the route names and numbers. They are:
#2 Hyde Park Express #108 Halsted/95th #N5 South Shore Night Bus #112 Vincennes/111th #30 South Chicago #123 Illinois Center/Union Express #53AL [...]I've been remiss (for a year now) in not sharing with you a fascinating report by the Illinois Public Research Interest Group Education Fund called Voices of Transit. It was one of those things that I squirreled away to post later, but never got to it. No matter. It's still pertinent.
The [...]
Here's a note of good cheer from Tamara to kick off the weekend:
The CTA REALLY helped me out, and Lord knows they get plenty of grief when things goes wrong on a daily basis:
This morning I was on my way to work on the 151 bus. Ten minutes after I [...]
Last month I got an update from the CTA on the NABl bus inspections, but didn't have a chance to post it.
A CTA spokesperson said engineering consultants who are experts in bus structures "have done an initial inspection and are now doing an analysis and evaluation based on modeling [...]
A combination of unanticipated federal and state funding and internal CTA cuts may help the agency avoid service cuts and fare hikes this year, the Tribune is reporting:
"We are making progress,'' said CTA chairman Carole Brown, who only a month ago warned that a looming budget crisis could lead [...]
Press conferences called for Friday and Saturday generally are used to bury bad news. But this past weekend transit users across the Chicago area got great news: the state Legislature passed a $900 million capital spending bill for mass transit this year. Almost half a billion dollars will fund CTA [...]
The CTA recently has been adding, moving or eliminating various bus stops, with the expressed goal of providing faster travel times or adding service. I think these are laudable goals and important to note, since many of us here have complained about too many bus stops, or stops located on [...]
Shocker: The Trib published a CTA story Tuesday, and it didn't appear in the RedEye! That's probably because it was too long, and too well-written to be effectively edited. But commenters here noted the piece about the Nicest Train Operator in Chicago, and our Google News feed picked it up. [...]
About 400 people will find jobs fixing slow zones after work begins in the Dearborn subway this month. Those jobs are being paid for by $56.6 million in federal stimulus funds under a contract approved at the March CTA board meeting.
Kiewit-Reyes was awarded the contract to renew approximately 36,000 feet of track in [...]
On a recent morning Red Line commute, a dad dragged his 6-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter on the train at Bryn Mawr and found three adjacent empty seats. His daughter was right behind him, yakking away, while the son played a handheld game.
The daughter was looking all around when a advertisement caught her attention: [...]
A glimmer of hope shined through the dank, dark platforms at the Grand and State Red Line station, which has been undergoing renovation since April of last year: the unearthing of a small section of the new tile wall.
At the north end [...]
Saturday was the "official" ribbon-cutting to mark the completion of the Howard Street station, a rehab of roughly $60 million. The usual dignitaries were present, including Mayor Richard Daley, CTA President Richard Rodriguez, Board Chairwoman Carole Brown, 49th Ward Alderman Joe Moore, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, State Sen. Heather Steans, [...]
CTA Board Chairwoman Carole Brown hopes to avoid service cuts and fare increases with a smorgasborg plan that "faces a very tough sales job in Springfield," Greg Hinz reports on his Crain's Chicago Business blog:
"Under the proposal from CTA Board Chairwoman Carole Brown, about half of the projected $155-million hole [...]
Since the CTA signed a deal with Titan Worldwide to sell advertising space on trains, buses, platforms and now digital advertising, I think Titan's been doing a good job with some innovative campaigns.
But it can always do better. And Toxel.com has some great ideas from around the globe. (Thanks to [...]
Women are four times more likely to read a book on their El ride than men.
That stunning conclusion is the result of a highly UNscientific study I've conducted over the last few months. It's based solely on what I observed during my daily Red Line commute. Must be right then, [...]
As usual these days, there is plenty to report in CTA news and only so many posts to contain them. Regular readers know I generally post once a day and take weekends off. In an effort to catch up some more, here are more news of notes gleaned from other [...]
A two-and-a-half-year construction project to rebuild the Howard Street station effectively ends today with the opening of the north "auxiliary" entrance at 1649 W. Howard.
The roughly $60 million project included the construction -- completed last summer -- of a new south entrance near a new bus staging [...]
About $1.5 billion in new state mass transit projects would fund preliminary engineering for the CTA's Circle Line and replace and modernize rail cars.
Those transit projects are part of the "Illinois Jobs Now" capital spending plan that Gov. Pat Quinn proposed Wednesday in his 2010 budget. The overall plan for highway, school, transit [...]
The CTA on Monday, March 23, will add more express service to three of its nine express bus routes that also have local service. The routes are the X49 Western Express -- the third busiest in the system -- the X80 Irving Park Express and the X55 Garfield Express.
The CTA [...]
A video posted on YouTube last month shows four Guardian Angels "detaining" two alleged taggers at the Western Blue Line station. The problem here is this detainment seems to cross the line to assault, especially when one Angel yanks and twists a guy's leg while two other Angels sit astride [...]
In his only board meeting as acting president, Dorval Carter last month got to report some good news: CTA ridership continues to grow system-wide. And at President Richard Rodriguez's first meeting this week, the good ridership news continued -- perhaps the only good news at the board meeting.
Overall ridership [...]
Talk about an unwelcome welcoming gift! At the same meeting Wednesday where CTA board members ratified Mayor Daley's appointment of Richard Rodriguez as the transit agency's new president, Board Chairwoman Carole Brown said service cuts and more fare hikes are definitely under consideration to plug this year's $155 million [...]
The guy made the usual loud racket as he came banging through the door connecting the Red Line train cars. He began his begging rap right away, except there was a twist.
He was dragging his 8-year-old son along, featuring him prominently in his pitch:
"Me and my son are in and out of [...]
The Cermak-Chinatown station will be renovated and Dearborn subway ties replaced with funding earmearked to the CTA from President Obama's economic stimulus law.
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning OK'ed the $240 million from the CTA last week. See this post for general spending categories. In the meantime, a source [...]
A reader last week shared what he called "fantasy" CTA bike enhancements. These enhancements are depicted in a video here. They include:
Bigger, easier fare gates for people rolling bicycles into the station. Wheel channels for rolling bike up stairs. Train interior space for holding bicycles vertically.The CTA has made [...]
The CTA is asking the feds for $80 million in stimulus funding to do preventive maintenance, and more than $83 million for "infrastructure and renewal programs."
That $163 million ask represents more than two-thirds of the total $240 million in requests made for cash available under President Obama's American Recovery and [...]
Guest post by Daniel X. O'Neil.
In light of the American Recovery and Reinvestment act (ARRA)-- otherwise known as the "stimulus bill", the Chicago Transit Authority has revised upwards its budget requests from the federal government by a whopping $323,469,000. This includes $248,827,000 in fresh requests for new projects [...]
There continues to be great angst about whether/when Illinois and Chicago will get their acts together to identify transit projects for funding under the economic stimulus law passed last month.
But I'm taking the Alfred E. Neuman approach: "What, me worry?"
Yeah, yeah, I know. We all need to play [...]
It's been just over two months since the CTA finished it's "three-tracking" project at Fullerton and Belmont on the Red, Brown and Purple lines. On Dec. 20, the CTA opened the fourth track at Belmont, signaling the official end of the three-track project. To its credit, the CTA finished [...]
A bill advanced by a suburban Republican to replace free transit rides for all senior citizens with a plan to only let seniors who pass a means test ride free made it to the House Mass Transit Committee late last week. But hopes for smooth passage were quickly dashed [...]
A new Bus Tracker feature linking to service alerts for your selected bus routes will debut Monday when 24 new routes are added.
When a rider selects a bus route to track, the alerts feature will provide information on service disruptions or reroutes in place for that route. [...]
As was widely rumored, Richard Rodriguez was named Thursday to head the CTA.
As usual, Mayor Daley tapped one of his top "cabinet" member in moving Rodriguez from aviation commissioner to lead the nation's second-largest transit system, which faces deficit spending this year and equipment headaches.
At least naysayers can't whine that [...]
As my southbound Red Line train rolled to a rest at Chicago, I sensed -- ie. heard -- trouble brewing. Waiting to board my car was a couple who were screaming at each other.
As the door opened, the cacophony grew exponentially, especially as she entered the car and took her [...]
I've been reporting on CTA rider behavior now for nearly five years, and observing it for more than 20 years. And of course, certain patterns repeat themselves at certain times of the year.
There's the guy in early April who goes coatless in short sleeves on a 50 degree day.
And [...]
It's time to get back to the final transit details of Obama's stimulus. Last week was such a big news week for the CTA -- from the Olympics to the budget deficit to the articulated bus problems -- that I didn't get to it. So here's a [...]
The 7500 series articulated buses from North American Bus Industries have had a checkered "career" at the CTA. And now all 226 of the 60-foot buses first introduced in 2003 to serve high-volume express routes have been pulled from service pending inspection for cracks in the articulation joints and [...]
A mistake by a CTA employee this week led to the cancellation of U-Pass privileges for about 5,000 DePaul students -- a third of the student population. But quick teamwork by the CTA and DePaul helped minimize the pain for students.
Here's what happened, according to Noelle Gaffney, CTA spokesperson:
The [...]
An incredulous CTA board shook their collective heads at Wednesday's board meeting and pointed their index fingers squarely at the RTA. And the RTA returned the favor, as internecine squabbling over the projected $87 million deficit for 2008 ensued.
The Tribune reports that CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown expressed " 'disbelief' [...]
Two big projects affecting CTA Red Line stations are the Grand-State station reconstruction and escalator replacement at the Adams entrance of the Monroe Street station. Here are updates on both projects.
At the Grand station, workers keep plugging away, though they lost some ground during the cold, harsh month [...]
I was not at all surprised to read that the CTA and other transit agencies are facing big budget gaps this year.
The Trib's Getting Around column reported Monday the CTA is looking at a $155 million shortfall for 2009, on top of.a $58 million deficit for 2008.
Nope -- it [...]
In the official Chicago 2016 Olympics bid book released Friday, the city tries to put some meat on the bare-bones transportation plans submitted last year and judged third at that time behind Tokyo and Madrid.
Complaints at that time were distance from [...]
As I write this Wednesday night, details are scarce on exact provisions of the alleged compromise agreement struck between the House and Senate on the economic stimulus package. I say "alleged" because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hadn't yet endorsed the deal.
I will bring you details on the mass transit [...]
The Senate Tuesday passed its own version of the economic stimulus bill totaling $827 billion. You might think that the House version at $820 billion would be similar to the Senate version. You would be wrong.
Take, for instance, the mass transit and passenger rail portions of the bill. This analysis [...]
Disgraced and deposed ex-Gov. Blago always made it clear he didn't want to raise taxes to fund a capital works bill. He preferred other methods -- that failed -- such as a new casino.
Now with his departure, the Democrat leaders of the state Legislature have floated a trial balloon of [...]
What the House giveth, the Senate taketh away.
The Senate on Friday cut $3.6 billion in public transit money from Obama's economic stimulus bill. That was after the House at the last minute plugged $3 billion in transit funds to total $12 billion and sent it to the Senate.
At this [...]
Here's another catch-all post with a roundup of news items I didn't get to this week. So much CTA news, so little time. And just for the record, I really only have time to do one post a day, since I have a day job that keeps me busy. So [...]
Last month was the 10th-coldest on record with an average temperature of 15.9 degrees. And today we woke up to below-zero wind chills.
Certainly the frigid temperatures adversely affect both bus and rail travel on the CTA. In one stretch of seven work days last [...]
Last month I asked you to share the most clever CTA begging lines you had heard. Since then, I've had a few more notable experiences with beggars. It seems like I can go months without seeing one, and then there's a veritable beggars flood. Blame the economy this time?
Putrid [...]
WBEZ, Chicago's Public Radio station, focused Monday afternoon on the transition in leadership at the top of the CTA from Ron Huberman to Dorval Carter, named last week as acting president after Daley appointed Huberman Chicago Public School superintendent.
Maria Choca Urban, Program Manager for Transportation and Community Development at [...]
The CTA tells us about the new acting president for the agency in this press release. (This is a straight-up copy-and-paste job from the release. This is updated with the photo of Carter.)
Chicago Transit Board Appoints Acting President
Experienced Executive to Provide Stability and Continuity During Transition
The Chicago Transit [...]
A change of pace.
I can't be the only one around here who is a little tired of posts about where Huberman is working now and who's the boss at the CTA.
Don't get me wrong, Of course it's important But for one day, I figure we can talk [...]
Dorval Carter, the CTA's executive vice president for operations support, will be appointed acting president at a special board meeting set for this Friday, according to the agenda posted Wednesday on the CTA Web site. (Hat tip to my brother Dan.)
Carter returned to the CTA in 2000 [...]
So I heard there's a job opening at the CTA. The top job in fact. CTA President Ron Huberman has been tapped by Mayor Daley to run the Chicago Public Schools in the wake of the DC departure for former Supt. Arne Duncan.
All in all, I think Huberman served [...]
Earlier this month, Google added a public transportation layer to 59 big city maps, including Chicago.
Charles, my CTA Tattler tipster on this, writes: "My favorite use is to find my destination in Google Maps, then look for the nearest train station or bus stop. I have the [...]
CTA Board Chairwoman Carole Brown on Thursday testified before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, hoping to get her hands on some of Barack's economic stimulus dollars.
President Obama is looking for so-called "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects to create jobs and stimulate a moribund economy. Brown told ABC7 News that [...]
Chicago newcomer Jake yesterday wondered about what happened to the "Tattler" part of CTA Tattler. Other longer-term readers correctly chimed in that I originally started writing this blog about things "seen and heard on the Chicago Transit Authority."
There's no question the focus [...]
I don't ordinarily give up an entire post to debating a single commenter. But I feel Rusty's comments to my post yesterday deserve a reply, because he may represent a small, but horribly misinformed number of CTA riders.
Rusty wrote:
"The metrics shown are hand chosen." Yes, but the metrics [...]
Over the last few days, our pal Rusty (and others) have questioned the worth of the Ron Huberman's President's Report, calling it a "self-written job review," "self-generated PR" and "spin." Rusty says, ". . . let's get the numbers parsed and crunched in a way that comes up with conclusions [...]
After a little poking around on the CTA Web site, I found CTA President Ron Huberman's report to the board for January. So here are details from some of the news out of the meeting.
Eight more rail stations to get digital signs. I reported last week about the [...]
