by Aaron M. Renn
Chronicling life riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
Visit The Weekly Breakdown on the web at http://www.urbanophile.com/breakdown/
There are a couple of very interesting CTA web sites that might be of interest to some readers. First is Bill Vandervoort's "Chicago Transit/Metra Railfan Page". It has lots of good info on the RTA, CTA, Metra, Pace, Amtrak and more. Despite the "railfan" in the title, there is plenty of info on the bus systems as well. The site is at http://members.aol.com/chirailfan/railfan.html
The second is the "History of the Chicago 'L'", which you can see at http://nsn.nslsilus.org/graham/transit/CTA/history/. This is an excellent site with tons of information about all aspects of the Chicago L system. Includes lots of photos.
Both of these sites are excellent and deserve a lengthy visit.
Also, I missed this one back when it came out in March. The American Prospect (a liberal political magazine) had an article entitled "The Busses Don't Stop Here Anymore" which describes the implosion of the CTA system under Mayor Daley's administration. It is available on the net at http://tap.epn.org/prospect/37/37masonf.html.
With the recent reductions and continuing chaos in CTA's off-peak Evanston service, Northwestern University has begun express bus service, Friday and Saturday nights, between their campus and Chicago/Michigan. Buses leave Northwestern at 8, 9, 9:30, 10:30, 11, midnight, 12:30, and 1:30 AM, and Chicago/Michigan one hour later (with four intermediate stops). Northbound service has no stops and takes 30 minutes. There are also a couple of runs leaving Howard Street terminal at 2:15AM and 2:40 AM, to Northwestern. Service is free but presumably limited to NU people. Service is apparently provided by two buses. [ Source: Daily Northwestern, 9/30/98 - Thanks to Chuck Metalitz (nospam-taxpayer@ripco.com) for reporting this ]
On Wednesday 10/7, a friend at work reported substantial delays on the Burlington Northern line because of a pedestrian accident.
On Friday 10/9 I waited about 15 minutes at the Davis St. L stop waiting for a southbound train. Two northbound trains passed while I waited and the platform was packed with people by the time the train arrived. (For those who don't know, Davis is a major transfer point and is heavily used by reverse commuters). I checked the schedule when I got home and to my surprise discovered that at the time in question (about 5:15pm), there really is a 15 minute gap between trains. It gets worse though. As Eric Holeman pointed out in WB #21, at 4:00pm there is a 17 minute gap between trains.
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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