by Aaron M. Renn
Chronicling life riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
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From now through November there will be delays on the Congress L between Halsted and Forest Park due to track reconstruction.
CTA President Frank Kruesi wants everybody to know he feels your pain. The Tribune's Jon Hilkevitch followed him around on a transit trip or two and wrote a puff piece that contained such items as detailing how Kruesi picked up and threw away a stray candy wrapper at an L stop. Way to go, Frank. Now if only the trains and busses ran on time.
Apparently the CTA's fare card vending machines are not able to recognize the new twenty dollar bills that just came out. Ditto for ticket kiosks on the Metra Eletric line. The CTA plans to update machines soon, but in the meantime they say "You don't have to use a $20" (Noelle Gaffney, CTA spokesman). Transit agencies across the country are facing the same problem, so this is not a unique CTA screwup. And it could be worse. The Postal Service has to perform hardware upgrades on 12,000 vending machines. [ The currency redesign has been planned for some time. The CTA's vending machines are almost brand new. It seems to me they could have developed a system to rapidly update the bill recognition in software. Look for more pain the future since the $10, $5 and $1 are also being redesigned - AMR ] [ Source: Chicago Sun-Times 9/23/98 ]
The CTA and RTA are in danger of losing $7.8 million in transit funds due to their failure to meet the deadline for filing a rail safety plan. The CTA claims they have a valid plan and blame RTA bureaucrats for the delay. They say, for example, one RTA complaint was that the CTA's Vice President of Real Estate was not on the notification list for a rail emergency. [ On the other hand, the CTA has still not replied to my inquiries about the two door interlocking failures on the Red Line, so my guess is they can't take safety all that seriously - AMR] [ Source: Chicago Tribune 9/21/98 ]
A dump truck accident caused delays on the CTA on 9/21. I only saw this briefly on television, but it appeared to be on the O'Hare L on the west leg of the Kennedy. Debris was scattered all over the tracks. Details, anyone?
One other brief mention. One morning this week there was some sort of problem on the L near downtown as there were substantial delays on my inbound rush hour train from Sedgwick to the Merchandise Mart. The announcer said something about the problem, but I didn't catch what it was because I was too engrossed in my reading.
Sheila Kessler (nospam-s-kessler@nwu.edu) wrote in with the following incredulous story:
"One Tuesday morning knowing I owned over $40 worth of fares on my card, I inserted my card into those "trusty" turnstile slots, that might as well be classified as legalized gambling, only to find the read out claiming it contained only 40 cents. I turned to locate the customer service attendant and spied a white shirt (signifying some sort of superiority) CTA employee. This was not the usual person who sits at that post but it wasn't mine to wonder where that person was and so I approached the booth to excuse myself and ask for assistance. He ignored me. I further stated that I was on my way to work and could he please help me. After saying excuse me two more times, the man in the white shirt asked me, "who do you think you are, bothering me?" I relayed my concern that I feared my card was cheating me of $39.60 and would he mind checking the card for me. He responded by calling me a white bitch (he was African-American) and slammed the window of the toll collectors booth in my face. I was livid. About this time, the regular customer service agent emerged from the ladies' room. I told her my concern with my card and relayed the story of the uncalled for insults. She told me to report it to the CTA because there was little she could do as he was her supervisor; that comment did little to comfort me.
Upon reporting the incident of the surly supervisor, CTA contacted me to let me know the supervisor had denied all allegations and I have never seen the regular customer service agent in that station again. And the CTA wonders why ridership is down."
The Weekly Breakdown is a small Internet journal devoted to the trials and tribulations of being a regular rider of the Chicago Transit Authority. I would be happy to hear about and include your experiences. Just send mail to breakdown@urbanophile.com.
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