Results tagged “frankkruesi”

Pop quiz: There's a certain amount of time to put together a grant proposal for matching Federal funds for transportation projects we've been promised going back months. It doesn't go through. Do we blame:

Ex-CTA head Frank Kruesi broke his era of silence just in time to disavow any responsibility for the clusterfuck of mismanagement, power jockeying and buck-passing also known as the transit funding crisis, telling the Sun-Times "I made the decisions that I thought were right at the time. I don't think anything is gained by going back and rehashing things." Because learning from the past is for assholes.

Remember Frank Kruesi, and how he fucked up the CTA all the time, and was BFF with Daley, but he screwed the pooch in Springfield? He just got a new job! For the City! As our chief lobbyist in DC! Wait, what the eff? Mayor Daley announced today that he has appointed Kruesi manage the City's federal legislative, regulatory and administrative agendas in Washington, DC. In the statement, Daley says Kruesi's job is "to help...

The Lake County Sheriff says the crash that killed 14 horses was "completely avoidable and inexcusable." The driver, James E. Anderson, 34 of North Dakota, was hauling 59 Belgian draft horses in a double-decker semi truck. He's been charged with disobeying a traffic control device and failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, and he may face additional charges. Apparently 59 horses is way too many to pack in one truck; according to one...

Ever since Frank Kruesi got kicked to the curb back in April, we’ve been nothing short of elated. We looked forward to a new reign of … whatever the opposite of ineptitude is. (Eptitude?) With time comes sobriety, as the usual problems have started cropping up once more. Two trains shutting down in one week? Bad form. Honestly, though, we weren’t expecting that kind of mechanical stuff to be cleared up overnight, especially when the...

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...

Nearly all of us agree that Frank Kruesi was a big DB that couldn't keep the CTA from being in a continuous state of CF always leaving everyone going WTF? And it was with great hope that Chicagoist saw Ron Huberman come on board with promises of administrative cuts and just not being Frank Kruesi. However, over at Time Out Chicago, our old pal, Scott Smith, posted that, yet again, the CTA is threatening fare...

As far as we know, we never rode a CTA train or bus in the presence of Frank Kruesi. Rumor has it he did it quite often, judging by the kinds of comments we heard when he was fired. We imagine the yellow jacket would be hard to miss. In the past, we doubt the CTA's new sheriff in town rode much with Kruesi, either. Ron Huberman (who for all the world looks to us...

Last week, the Illinois Restaurant Association named Sheila O'Grady as its new president. Her first order of business will be working to get the foie gras ban repealed. The press release announcing O'Grady's appointment said that "she brings an incredible depth of knowledge and experience to the position at a very dynamic time in the restaurant industry." Much of that experience is in City Hall. O'Grady is a former chief-of staff for Mayor Daley and...

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay...

Mister C, you win! Your guess of May 1 for the end of Frank Kruesi's career in our Frank Kruesi Dead Pool has won you a lovely Chicagoist T-shirt. Email Rachelle@chicago.com to claim your prize. For the rest of you — well, you can rejoice as well because the glory days of CTA President Frank Kruesi are over. Mayor Daley announced at this morning's press conference that Kruesi is retiring. Ron Huberman, the Mayor’s chief...

Chicagoist wants you all to go to this story and look at the expression on CTA Board President Carole Brown's face as she rides a bus this February. Classic. The picture accompanies an article detailing Brown's plan to have the CTA's Office of Inspector General do an audit to see if buses and trains are cleaned as often and thoroughly as they should be. At a board meeting Wednesday, Brown was given the party line...

If you use the Clark/Lake station as a mini-hub to catch the Blue Line to O'Hare or the Orange Line to Midway, you soon will be able to get up-to-the-minute flight information on display boards. Mayor Daley introduced the intergovernmental agreement at Wednesday's City Council meeting — the city has agreed to buy the boards, install them, and maintain them, and the CTA will cover the cost of electricity. Daley wants install similar display...

It's only a delicious rumor right now, but Crain's Chicago Business is whispering hints that with the recent mayoral election taken care of, King Daley can now turn his focus to other things. Like getting rid of Frank Kruesi. Of course, it can't be as cut and dry as that, but we can get our hopes up, can't we? Apparently, the Sun-Times reported that ol' Frank would take over the job runnning the O’Hare Modernization...

If you are near a window of some type, then this isn't news to you; it's disgusting outside. Cold, snowy, windy — all the trademarks of our beloved Chicago winters. And not surprisingly, commutes of all types are screwed up. While there are many reasons to dump on the CTA, we hold the Pink Line above almost all others as evidence of why things need to change. Maybe the fact that it derailed this...

Some of you may be thinking we should just let Festivus go. Seinfeld hasn't been on for many years and afterall, it's just a television show. First of all, we're a little offended by the "just a show" sentiment. Seinfeld brought our friends and families together in comedy and both reflected on pop culture and produced many popular catchphrases. But enough about Seinfeld. This is a time to celebrate Festivus and regardless of the...

The Orange and Green line trains are "back to normal" this morning. With yet another crisis is behind them, the CTA needs to start demonstrating that it’s acting in the best interest of its riders.

Yesterday the original Belmont El station was closed, and a temporary entrance was opened 75 feet to the east, similar to the relocation of the Fullerton stop. The temporary entrance will be in use for the next two years, during construction of a new accessible station with improved lighting, turnstiles and platforms. The old station will be preserved and relocated across the street. Transit superfan Tony Coppoletta’s Flickr stream notes that the station initially “opened as a local and express stop on the Northwestern 'L's initial line from downtown to Wilson.”

For CTA President Frank Kruesi, yesterday was a bad day at the office.

We woke up this morning to news that the CTA’s Orange Line train is running in the opposite direction around the Loop, which strikes us as so ridiculous that we’ve decided to finish the rest of this post in limerick form. The Orange line is all loosey-goosey Or so says its Prez Frank Kruesi A defective switch Has caused the glitch Screwing rush hour for all that you see After Roosevelt, toward Adams you’ll travel...

A $2.4 million pilot project aimed at increasing the mobile security network for buses and trains throughout the city will begin this month. The project, funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, will provide wireless transmission of live streaming video to patrol cars and emergency vehicles from buses and train cars. Frank Kruesi told the Tribune that, "The mobile security network expands the capabilities of security cameras on our buses." In addition,...

Yesterday, When we wrote about the CTA’s plan for high-speed service out to the airports, we wondered if anyone – like CTA President Krank Kreusi – mentioned it to CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown before it hit the dailies. We naïvely thought that Frank wouldn’t be so careless as to let yet another CTA money-making scheme (see last year’s plan to buy fuel from Venezuela) hit the papers before first telling the person who heads the...

Yesterday, Crain’s published an editorial begging Mayor Daley to replace CTA President Frank Kruesi and laying the blame for the agency’s numerous problems at his feet, including spending “hundreds of millions on an ill-conceived ‘super station’ at Block 37.” Today, Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch reveals a new scheme for a private firm to develop express train service to the airports from the “super station” (or, as we like to call it, “Kruesi’s Kastle”) in “an acknowledgment by the Daley administration that the city cannot entrust such a major transportation improvement to the Chicago Transit Authority alone.”

As we headed out of the Chicagoist offices yesterday to meet up with some of our fellow colleagues who had already left the office for the day, we were a little hesitant to jump on the CTA given the morning's snafu (power outage, missing rail, possible suicide?). However, our spirits were strangely lifted by the existential queries on this ever-so-helpful CTA sign. We, too, have asked ourselves these very same questions. If anyone can...

And not in a good way. Chicagoist, along with hundreds of other people, were forced to walk home tonight because of a fire on the rear car of a Blue Line train. No trains were running in either direction between Washington in the Loop and Damen Avenue. The alternate route is the #56 bus that runs up Milwaukee Avenue, but that was so packed that the drivers were not even stopping at the stops....

Everyone's gonna be screwed when construction on the Dan Ryan starts next month. We all know that. But now the CTA is doing their part to help out ... or maybe just trying to figure out a way for them to make some money off it. In an effort to encourage those who would normally take the Dan Ryan to take trains and buses, CTA President Frank Kruesi recommended that the CTA waive the fee for its Chicago Card through May. So waive the fee initially, make a shitload in the end. Of course, it would give all of us the opportunity to get the card for free for a couple months.

Believe it or not, some people actually seem to get off on tragedies such as last week's London transit bombings. While the rest of us try to go about our day-to-day lives, mourning with our English counterparts and nervously eyeing bag-toting passengers near us on the L, a select few bastards out there use these unfortunate events as an opportunity to spread even more fear. What fun! Early yesterday morning, authorities shut down the CTA...

Governor Rod Blagojevich has tried to characterize his first administration with three pledges: No new taxes, more money for schools, and no more "business as usual." The Mell-Blago family feud has made his third pledge hard to believe, but last night's budget deal with Democratic Senate President Emil Jones and Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan will deliver the first two pledges -- as well as avoid the CTA's Five Faces of Death, and probably close the spring legislative session by the end of the month. All significant accomplishments, considering how much wrangling Springfield has endured this year.

For the love of Frank Kruesi, Chicagoist just cannot take it anymore! We’ve been trying to wrap our melons around the CTA’s financial crises ever since they began whining about underwhelming state funding and threatening service cuts last year, but two pieces of news this week leave us scratching our heads extra hard, and wondering if they’ve placed their financial operations under the control of people that lack the economic wherewithal to operate a “My...