by Aaron M. Renn
Chronicling life riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)
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Happy birthday to me. Yes, I'm a Halloween baby.
nospam-TR1150@aol.com wrote in to say:
I arrived at the Lawrence Avenue Red Line station at 8:07 a.m. 10/6/99 to board the first southbound train. I expected to move soon because a southbound was about to leave Argule, two blocks north. But it did not move. Five minutes passed, then six, then seven. I took out my timetable for Metra's Union Pacific North Line and found a southbound scheduled to leave the Ravenswood Station, a mile west on Lawrence, at 8:27 a.m. I saw a westbound Lawrence Avenue bus approaching from two blocks away, so I raced downstairs, caught it (I have a CTA monthly pass), and got to Ravenswood in plenty of time to catch the Metra train. Does anybody have any info on what the holdup was on the Red Line yesterday?
I don't. Anybody else?
Our friendly CTA bus driver Jonothan is back this week with a few thoughts:
I have been giving a lot of thought to the CTA holding in runs these past few months, and what I have realized is that this is just a blatant and sneaky way of cutting bus service. Every day, I look at the sheet posted in my garage that lists the runs that were held in, and I have begun to notice that there are some runs that are held in regularly, and in some cases, every day. Let me give you an example - on the #56 Milwaukee, there are, on average, at least 2-3 runs that are held in daily.
On a seperate note, I would like to talk about the #56 Milwaukee, which I believe is the worst bus route in the city of Chicago. I have had the displeasure of driving this route many times, and I have sworn to myself that I will never drive it again. There simply are not enough buses on that street, and they don't give us enough time to get down the street. I could never understand why the CTA lets a route as bad as the #56 stay bad, until another bus operator pointed out the reason. The #56 serves mostly a large Polish neighborhood from Addison to Diversey, and then it's primarily Hispanic from Diversey down to Ashland. From Ashland to about Chicago, it's primarily an African-American neighborhood (Noble Square). Then, the route goes through downtown to Navy Pier, serving mostly commuters and tourists. Because the #56 serves a large number of Polish and Hispanic riders, these people are less likely to call in and complain about the bad service. And that is something that people have got to realize. If you let CTA get away with providing bad service, they will continue to give bad service. If enough people were to call in and complain, write letters, contact their aldermen, and even the mayor, then you would see some real change. And that goes with any bus route. But people don't do it. They wait 40 minutes, get on the bus that is crowded, yell at the bus driver about waiting so long, and that's as far as it goes.
Speaking of yelling at the bus driver, I could never understand why people do that, especially when it isn't our fault. We go out there and we get whooped, and people can see that we are getting whooped, and yet, they still have to yell at us. They act as if we do it on purpose. Well, we don't do it on purpose. And blaming us for waiting an excessive amount of time for the bus is like walking into Jewel, buying a gallon of milk, and yelling at the cashier because the price is too high. We have no control over the conditions on the street! If the traffic is heavy, the weather is bad, or there is major road construction, then you can expect to wait a long time for the bus. Just expect it. We do the best job we can with the conditions that we are given. If CTA gives me a slow bus, I'm going to run late. If there is a ball game on Addison, the buses are going to run late. Foster Avenue has a major reroute on it during viaduct construction, so the buses on that street run late every single day. Now that I have singled out the bus operators, whose fault is it anyway? Well, to start with, it is the city of Chicago's fault for allowing traffic congestion to get so bad without doing anything to remedy the situation. It's also the CTA's fault for not revising their bus schedules to keep up with current ridership and traffic patterns. Also, the CTA rarely ever puts extra service out on the street if a major construction project is going to force the reroute of bus routes. A good example is that #92 Foster bus, which has a reroute that adds two miles to the route. But, I don't see any extra buses out there. And, of course, because there are no extra buses to compensate for the reroute, there usually ends up being a gap in service, which forces people to wait and wait and wait.
Anyway, back to the subject of service cuts. Because the CTA is holding in runs on a daily basis, I would think that this would be classified as service cuts. I like to call them "rolling service cuts" because they are not permanent, and can vary from day to day. I do believe that it is only fair that the CTA let the public know that they have been cutting service. I do believe that CTA is required to inform the public when this happens. But they never do, except when there are a large number of cuts or changes. CTA has, for years, gotten away with cutting service without informing the public. They do it by lengthening the headways on a route or cutting certain trips out. One example that I remember is on the #11 Lincoln, which used to have service every 12 minutes during the middle of the day, but CTA one day changed midday service to run every 15 minutes. And there was no notice posted anywhere informing the public of this. Many other public transportation companies realize that schedules are important, which is why they print schedules for all their bus routes and adhere to them. In Washington D.C., MetroBus lets its passengers know when any change of service is made - no matter how minor. If just one trip is changed, even just by a minute or two, there are notices posted on the buses and new schedules are printed. MetroBus realizes that the public depends on these buses to run on schedule, and when the schedule is changed, the public has a right to know about those changes. And CTA needs to understand that too. CTA bus schedules and the changes that are made to the schedules are not top secret information. And it is time that the CTA stopped treating it like it was.
Last item: All buses out of Chicago Ave. and 74th/Wood Garages now have brand new, graffiti free windows on them. These garages are partaking in "Operation Clearview", which is CTA's program to keep its buses graffiti free. More and more, you are seeing a significant amount of buses with clear windows. Eventually, all buses will have graffiti free windows by next year. Chicago Ave. garage operates bus routes #19,20,33,53,54,57,65,66,70,72,73,74,76,& 128. 74th/Wood garage operates bus routes #8,9,44,48,55,59,63,67,&75.
Thanks as always, Jon.
And I'm running out of stories here, so I expect you all to tell me about the latest transit screw ups and rumors. Thanks in advance.
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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