Here are some snippets about the CTA experience from friends and family:
"There is a man singing opera on the 151 and I must say he is quite talented." -- Posted on Facebook by ChicagoNow's Tracy Schmidt.
"There is a grown man on the Purple Line working on his PDA clutching a raggedy old teddy bear in his arms for comfort. How sweet." Via text message from my daughter.
"A kid just came through the train car asking for donations for his basketball team, and this old dude said, "Bitch! I'm the one who needs a donation." Via text message from a friend.
"I'm on a brand new bus. It smells like new shoes." Via text message from my daughter.
Condolences for DC train accident victims. CTA Tattler sends heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the people who died Tuesday in the Washington Metro Red Line accident. And a speedy recovery to all the injured.
Post questions for CTA President Rodriguez. This is the last call for Tattler readers to pose questions they have CTA Prez Richard Rodriguez. Write your question in comments on this post.
Filed under: Breaches of etiquete, Crazy Commuting Tales, Just a little odd, Scary shit
My question to Mr. Rodriguez would be:
Say I'm on a street with local and express bus service, such as Western. I've been waiting a bit. I'm at a local bus stop, however there is a red light and an express pulls up and stops at the stop. The driver denies me entry. Why do express buses have to be so hard on allowing passengers on if they are stopped at a red light for 2 to 3 minutes anyway? To me its just frustrating and seems counter productive and an easy way to piss people off.
Condolences to those killed and injured in the Metro Red Line accident. Reading the articles and blogs on the Washington Post website reveals that there were massive communication problems with riders on the affected trains, other trains on the system and passengers waiting on platforms. According to the reports shuttle buses operating in lieu of Red Line service were not particularly well-coordinated. Apparently it's not just a CTA problem.
Question for Mr. Rodriguez,
With most of the renew the brown finished. Are they going to put the bells that used to bell jingle at the Southport station as the train approaches. I know it is a little nostalgic, but it really helps moves you along and up the stairs.
Right now, you have no way to figure out how close the train is to the station.
If they plan to put up ETA sign for the train, it would still be nice via a bell that the train is 30 seconds away.
How is the circle line coming along? There has been very little out of the cta on that matter for a while.
How is the planning coming along for the olympics? Are there any concrete plans for transit to/from the venues by bus, el or coordination with metra.
Well, finally they got it out there. I was afraid they'd sit on this until the Fall.
This should have been somewhat obvious late last Fall when the economy was tanking and the RTA issued a ridiculous budget that didn't take that into account.
Then in about February, it was officially announced how bad things were, and anyone with just some basic math could see where this was leading. We were distracted with things like stimulus money and bailouts. That was just clouding over the structural problems that the recession was only starting to extrememly expose.
Pensions, healthcare, lemon buses, fuel locked in at $4 and way too much dependency on a sales tax on goods and not services.
So it took until June to finally put it out there. They knew back then. It was a political decision to wait this long.
Pay attention not just to what is said, but what isn't said: service cuts, but no mention of fare increases and no mention of labor talks.