by Aaron M. Renn
Chronicling life riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
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Pace may hike its bus fares by $0.10 soon. This is in response to a directive from the RTA to increase its fare box recovery ratio to 40%. [ Source: Chicago Sun-Times 25 September 1999 ]
A sexual harrassment lawsuit filed against the CTA alleging misconduct by former CTA president David Mosena was dismissed by the judge this week. After the plaintiff presented her case, the judge rules that her evidence was insufficient to prove her case, even when viewed in the most favorable light. [ Source: Chicago Tribune 24 September 1999 ]
nospam-BartShore@aol.com wrote in last week to tell us about a major service disruption on 9/14. Sorry this one got in a week late:
"About 1:45PM the call came out that a Bull Dozer had overturned onto the Blue Line Tracks West of the The Austin Street station on the Forest Park Leg of the Blue Line.
"On the Lombard Street overpass in Oak Park, stones were being dumped onto the side of the Blue line tracks by CTA workers, a second bull dozer piled the stones up in preperation to spread the stones along the tracks for support purposes.
"Something went wrong and the bulldozer overturned on to the north side tracks, snarling rail service for almost 3 hours.
"A large crane was called in to upright the bulldozer, that took almost two hours to arrive, the two right lanes at Lombard on the inbound Ike were blocked off creating a monster traffic jam, with a travel time of 1hour and 45 minutes in from the North-South Tollway to the old Post Office. There were huge outbound gapper delays too.
"The CTA set up shuttle service from Austin to The Forest Park Terminal to shuttle Blue Line Riders.
"There were no injuries, but a lot of people were late on Tuesday afternoon."
He also had this story for us this week:
"At about 5:25 pm during the peak of the afternoon rush on Monday September 20, 1999, A 35 year old female hispanic CTA Bus driver had enough.
"She must have said, "Take this Job and Shove it" I ain't working here no more. She pulled her bus to a stop, and left the bus filled with passengers. The bus was on the Irving Park run at Springfield Avenue on the city's Northwest Side.
"The incident was confirmed by Chicago Police, Citywide 7. And reported on the air by me on WMAQ AM 670!"
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. BartShore is a WMAQ traffic and transit announcer who forwarded me these good tips.
Jim Makinen wrote in to report yet another Red Line fire:
"Yesterday when I was coming home from work I had a problem with the CTA. I caught the Red Line at Grand and noticed a smell. It got worse and worse. Finally at the North & Clybourn stop the people in my car had to abandon the train because it was on fire. You could see the flames under the car. I just left and walked home so I'm not sure what happened after that. This was around 5 p.m. or so." [ Note that this comment was actually submitted by Jim's wife and I edited it into a first person account - AMR ]
Finally, the grande dame of chi.general, Amanda, wrote in to tell us:
"This isn't a complaint about CTA...just an anecdote.
"On Saturday night (9/4) I took the Red Line from Grand/State. My friend had a bike, and we had no trouble at all bringing it along. But I digress. We switched to the Brown Line and got off at Montrose. On the way out, we greeted the CTA employee at that station. We chatted for a bit, and learned that she was in the middle of a 16 hour shift...by choice. Turns out that she was scheduled for a normal 8 hour shift, but the train she needed to get home didn't start running for another 8 hours after her shift end, so she just arranged to work an 18 hour shift. She was okay with it, but it seemed a little extreme.
"Also, in response to the suggestion that CTA actually enforce the no smoking rules...I wholeheartedly agree. I see people smoking in the stations (and worse, in the subway stations) all the time and it drives me nuts. I have occasionally seen people smoking on the train or even on a bus. Instead of those muzzed drug-sniffing dogs, they should bring up some cigarette-sniffing dogs and set 'em loose."
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. The views expressed by contributors are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the publisher.
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