Last August, the CTA began testing out new deep-cleaning equipment on Red Line trains, resulting in train cars with brighter, bluer fabric seat covers and floors that were so clean many people thought they were wet. Now, in addition to weekly carwashes and regular deep-cleaning, the CTA plans to send each car in their almost 1200 car fleet in for major detail work at the ‘CTA beauty shop’ at least once a year. The CTA......

World's most expensive bullet point. CTA President Ron Huberman, quickly becoming our favorite public official, unveiled an epic improvement plan for the CTA yesterday. Whew! The 75-page .pdf outlines his plan, though questions like "where will this money come from" remain. Huberman says the slow zones are on their way to being eliminated, that he's increasing the efficiency of bus repairs, generating more non-ride money by wooing advertisers and vendors, and he promised that......

Wednesday, some of you were upset at the thought of a short-term solution to the CTA's ongoing budget crisis. We were upset at the thought of bus lines being cut, fares being raised and people losing their jobs just because the legislature couldn't give the transit budget deficit one more serious consideration. We said we think it would be a good idea for the CTA to take the $24 million dollars that the governor offered......

Looks like CTA President Ron Huberman might be reading Chicagoist. Yesterday he admitted that he made a mistake by dismissing the "L" track shutdown last week as an "inconvenience in the Loop." Said Huberman, "We didn't communicate effectively or give people the reassurances they needed. It was scary. Passenger needs took a back seat. I apologize to our riders." Huberman also introduced measures aimed at ensuring that incidents like last week's are the exception, not......

We didn't attend the fireworks display downtown Tuesday night. But we did see waves of humanity flocking to the lakefront as early as noon flowing off the trains with their coolers and lawn chairs, staking their claims to Monroe Harbor like it was the Oklahoma land rush. We wonder what time most of those same folks made it back home Tuesday night, because the elevated tracks were shut down for over an hour. The shutdown......