Chicagoist: We Came, We Saw, We Sarcastically Laughed

Rob

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 21:53:34 -0600

Our public transit blows so bad, it isn't even funny. NYC's is light years ahead of ours. We have only a handful of lines, and can't even keep them running. You're better off walking then taking the L. When is Chicago going to get off their butt and fire Kruesi...and get the CTA back on track? It's far overdue.

Neal

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:13:59 -0600

Ah, it ate my "less than" bracket. That should read: and coming home you'll be stuck going less than 20 mph because every SUV and Mercedes in the city needs to get off at the Belmont Av. exit. And this all happens in the backdrop of the Ryan disaster and the impending doom on the Stevenson too.

Neal

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:07:44 -0600

I took the CTA for years but because of a change in work location, I've been driving for the past several months. And if you think buying a car is any sort of solution, you're crazy. Lakeshore Drive is completely unreliable after about 7 am, ranging from "parking lot" to "glacial crawl" (I actually switched to taking Western and now get to work faster), and coming home you'll be stuck going At this point, local roads move way faster than the highways, but the city only has a couple of good North/South arteries (and even fewer good East/West routes) and they all happen to be truck routes too. Getting around in this city is going to be really hard for the forseeable future. That immigrant rickshaw thing might actually be a viable strategy...

Carter

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:35:08 -0600

here's a part of this discussion not yet touched on - the fact that for oh, OVER A DECADE, people have been pointing out that adding tons and tons of residential density along the brown/red line was eventually going to wear out the CTA's infrastructure. did they act, even though the giant condo buildings and the Census were clearly showing the usage was growing? oh, lord, no. "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" was the attitude. welcome to the bridge. it seems to be like the ones downtown, except stuck in the "unusable" position. right now the same lame game is going on in the west side neighborhoods, "oh, we need more density and more development, it's a win-win situation" well, perhaps it could be, but that would require the City to actually be PROACTIVE and to start adding infrastructure in anticipation of the added residents, instead of the tail-wagging-the-dog method we use now. I'd suggest that a good way to make people start thinking about this is to force recipients of zoning density increases to put some cash in a pot dedicated for infrastructure. Posted by Carter

NSH

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:53:14 -0600

If you were recently using the 33rd st entrance then you were boarding during the heart of the red line reconstruction. I don't think its fair to paint such a bleak picture since your example clearly is not in the present tense. Kinda like me complaining about not being able to take the green line in 1994 since it was in pieces along State St. Or like me complaining about taking the brown line in 2007 because it is under construction and delays are to be expected while crews repair and or replace track.

dbt

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:31:40 -0600

to answer one of your questions -- I imagine the reason capacity drops north of belmont is because of the delays associated with clark junction. after that the red & brown lines are completely separated.

jocelyn

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:19:11 -0600

oh ... and i lived at 32nd and princeton, NSH ... the 35th street red line was right by my house. i wasn't really near the orange line at all as far as walking was concerned. and the green line was a possibility i suppose, but i would have had to add a considerable chunk of time to my commute in walking further to get to it. it seems unfair to expect me to pass up an el that is *right there* just because it sucks.

jocelyn

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 12:16:50 -0600

the comedy tag is being sort of cruel -- "sarcastically laughed." also, the title of the photo is "packed train pablo." the dude in the forefront? i don't know. i didn't take the picture, but i also found his sort of questioning/dumbfounded expression sort of apropos.

Sabrina

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:05:56 -0600

Why is this post listed in "Comedy?" The content and the telling are decidedly unfunny.

agreed

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:31:38 -0600

I agree with Sean. That mug in that picture bothers the hell out of me.

Sean

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 08:12:53 -0600

Forget all these comments - what is with that picture?

NSH

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:46:14 -0600

Jocey, agreed the red is a crapshoot with all the dan ryan/cta reconstruction going on, but you were in bridgeport, you could have done the orange or green, I take the green from 35th to clark and lake every other day or so and can make my 9 am meetings as long as i catch the 8:38 train. Also, for the converted north siders, the green to the Cell in the summertime is the only way to go.

Unindicted Co-conspirator

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 22:44:44 -0600

I've also noticed that the express buses are almost always in the right lane lately. It never used to be like that. I wonder what CTA weasel came up with that idiocy!

jocelyn

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:47:27 -0600

interesting comments ... hey, if you can get me the money, i'll do the reality show. oh, wait. if you can get the money, maybe we should donate it to a private company to fix the CTA. as far as short-term pain? umm. three years is hardly short-term in my world. that's a pretty significant chunk of time. JKM -- as far as the CTA 'not being in a rush,' it was weird. when people would suggest that they do things in segments or something, the construction manager would keep harping on their December 2009 deadline and how they wouldn't meet that deadline if they did these other things. i wish i would have asked who came up with this deadline. maybe they wouldn't have gotten the federal monies if they didn't promise a certain timeline? to NSH -- i just lived in bridgeport for six months, and i experienced delays quite a few times. i thought i'd be getting off easy, but i can't tell you the number of times i'd get stuck in the tunnel between roosevelt and cermak/chinatown while construction was being done. so, it's not like it's all peaches and cream going southbound, either. not to mention waiting for a train every morning going north was always sort of a weird crapshoot as well. bopo: there was also a gentleman there who mentioned the fact that LSD was badly in need of some major repairs (potholes, anyone), and if that ever happens, there will be lanes closed, etc. he also mentioned that the buses are always in the right hand lane competing with merging traffic, etc. (there's no bus only lane, for instance.) that the bus option really doesn't shave a lot of time off for a lot of people.

liveforevah

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:46:08 -0600

I wish there was a reality show crew following this up.

spook

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:43:41 -0600

Don't blame me, I voted for William "Doc" Walls! I mean he was certainly more entertaining than Daley is a good Mayor

amy

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:36:10 -0600

Re: Leave Early, Leave Late This am I had to be at work in Streeterville @ 11am. I was at the Brown Line at Damen at 9:55 am. Even with the typical crap Belmont transfer I figure I'm giving myself 25 minutes of extra time. What time did I get to Chicago Ave? 10:57 am. It took 30 minutes to get to Belmont. It took 30 minutes from Belmont to Chicago. The commute is worse and as crowded later in the AM. I cannot wait for the next 3 years of commuting hell. Thanks CTA for this little piece of doom in my everyday commute.

geekgrrl

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:32:55 -0600

You bone head hate everything why not buy a car that solves a lot of the damn problem wow, are our memories so short that we can't remember the horrible gas price spikes of the past couple years? that shit ain't going away. at all.

vise77

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:15:51 -0600

sigh, shrug (no-bid contracts) nod wink, sigh (late trains), shrug nod (indictments) shrug (bad reputation), nod sigh (poor schools), nod, shrug (failing CTA), sigh sigh, nod (higher and higher taxes), shrug (cops beating up people) cheer (we are so great), shout (why doesn't NYC notice us?), repeat OK, can I be a true-hearted Chicagoan now?

Vinny

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:52:50 -0600

bitch [CTA] bitch bitch [CTA] bitch bitch [Daley] bitch [developers] bitch bitch enthuse enthuse enthuse [Gaze at shoes] enthuse enthuse [White Belt] enthuse OK, can I be a Chicagoist editor now?

vise77

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:46:05 -0600

Actually, this comment is so fascinating, I hope you can expand: "Vise you probably need someone to wipe you ass anyway." Are you looking for a job? By the way, when does the "short-term" pain end? Whenever the fuck the Red and Blue lines get fixed?

jwj

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:30:14 -0600

What is funny to me reading from people like Vise that they are so negative about everything. The whole reason they are doing this is to improve the CTA. Short term pain for long term gain. You bone head hate everything why not buy a car that solves a lot of the damn problem or cab it. There are plenty of cabs in Chicago. Or get some immigrents and some rickshaws to take you to work. Vise you probably need someone to wipe you ass anyway.

NSH

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:26:51 -0600

Is there some kind of problem with CTA train lines? I haven't noticed any type of delays? Oh wait, I don't live on the North Side. =) (Sorry if I made anybody spit out there Starbucks(R) coffee right there)

My CTA

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:22:26 -0600

The CTA is for losers, that's why I'll be driving my Escalade ESV from my new Wicker Park Condo to my VP job at my Dad's company, ready to take over as soon as he retires. During my commute, I'll be double parking in front of Starbucks, draining the trust fund at the new Bank of America, yapping on my cell phone while skipping a stop sign, and then driving drunk on my way home.

bopo

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:12:33 -0600

My normal commute is from Berwyn to Monroe or Jackson and back each day. Last week I figured I should check out an alternate* way of getting home. I hopped on the 144, and things were going great until LSD, which was a parking lot. It picked up after we exited, and in all, I'd guess the commute was about 10 minutes longer than normal. So it looks like a decent option, unless a quarter (or more) of the red line follows me. Sigh. * someone in CTA headquarters is still getting a good gut-laugh over the "leave early, leave late" part of that lame jingo

completely useless by september

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:06:21 -0600

Agreed with matty, It's weird when both the republicans at the federal level and the democrats at the local level are so out of their minds clueless with the actual day to day lives (and actual commutes) of their constituents.

matty

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:59:05 -0600

ugh. how frustratingly vague their "spokespeople" are. they just have no fucking clue about what's going to happen here. Instead they seem to be saying "get a car"

vise77

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:58:14 -0600

Nice report. What I don't understand is why this city treats mass transit as an unwanted stepchild. Despite ample evidence that development here has been sparked by proxmity to transit, and ample evidence over the years of the economic benefits of mass transit, City Hall still dumps losers into the CTA, and hardly lobbies in Springfield for mass transit, and doesn't pump more money into the agency. I mean, if City Hall doesn't seem to care, why should the rest of the state, which mostly hates Chicago anyway? At least we got more national coverage, though. Unfortunately, it was a NYT article about how much our transit sucks.

JKM

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:42:25 -0600

What I don't understand is why they can't put the 3 track operation on hold until they can fix all the slow zones on the red/brown lines, at least, to make up for some of the lost time. The CTA obviously isn't in a rush to complete this, so why not wait until you can marginally improve the speed of your rail lines before you add 2 more hours of sitting in crowded, filthy el trains to everyone's day. And if the blue line is supposed to be an alternative, it would be nice if it didn't go 6 miles an hour around division. But somehow that requires 2 years to fix too...