by Aaron M. Renn
Chronicling life riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
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It's official, bicycles are now allowed on the L on weekends.
The CTA's Douglas and Ravenswood L projects took a hit this week in Congress. The Transportation Appropriations subcommittee in the House gave each project only $2 million for next year, far less than had been sought. Metra, however, received virtually full funding on all of its requests, including $25 million for its Wisconsin Central double tracking project. [ Source: Chicago Tribune 28 May 1999 ]
A Metra train collided with and demolished a semi-trailer that was blocking the tracks in LaGrange this week. No one was injured, but there was plenty of debris scattered over a wide area. [ Source: Chicago Sun-Times 28 May 1999 ]
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was in the news this week complaining about the treatment of guard dogs used by security personnel on the CTA. Among other things, PETA objects to the use of muzzles on the dogs. CTA spokesman Noell Gaffney said, "Let's think about this for a minute. These are trained attack dogs that are on board right next to the passengers. If you were a rider, wouldn't you want the dog muzzled and under control?" [ Source: Chicago Sun-Times 27 May 1999 ]
Jack Pagan (nospam-jackpagan@hotmail.com) wrote in to say:
"Today, I was riding the Douglas Branch of the Blue Line when the train went express from Polk to Pulaski. The operator gave everybody plenty of warning before Polk and during boarding at Polk. He explained what to do and everything, at least ten times. Anyway, after we passed Kedzie, a genius gets up and says, 'Hey, he passed my stop.' And so even though the train is in motion on a 35-foot elevation, Albert Einstein gets up and pulls the emergency door opener. The trains stops, the driver comes running back and the guy says, 'You forgot to stop at Kedzie.' I don't know how this particular knucklehead thought he was going to get down from the elevated tracks. Was he going to parachute? So, the guy gets off at Pulaski to get the next train back and the operator says on the speaker, 'Thanks to the passenger who tried to open the door while the train was in motion, we now know that the only way to exit between stations is to fall 30 feet. See, you can learn a lot from a dummy.'"
The CTA set a new all time world record for incompetence this week. I took the L home from a class on Wednesday evening and ended up stuck at Howard St. for 25 minutes waiting for a transfer to the Evanston L. The Evanston train was scheduled to arrive five minutes after I got to the station. There had been a derailment earlier when a rookie motorman ran a Skokie Swift train through the bumping post on the stub track. That could have caused some delays. However, even after an Evanston train finally did arrive, we sat at Howard with the doors closed waiting for five more minutes. At least one person was so fed up he pulled the cherry and left. There was no explanation and we were not waiting for the next Howard train to come in. I'm giving serious thought to walking home from Howard in the future, since I live only about a mile away from the station.
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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