CTA Follies

By Scott Smith in News on Sep 19, 2006 6:53PM

Today’s CTA Tattler discusses this morning’s RedEye article on the oft-heard but rarely understood CTA public address system. The CTA promises that new fiber-optic cables will soon allow you to know exactly how slow the Red Line is moving today. The Tattler also gives another plug for its CTA wireless alerts system and the transit status website run by friend of Chicagoist Tony Coppoletta. The CTA itself plans on evaluating its online CTA Bus Tracker service to see whether or not expansion of the program would be feasible. We’re already compiling our wish list of bus routes.

In other transit news, the Tribune picks up on a story first reported by the Pioneer Press and the Sun-Times over a month and a half ago. The Trib discusses a piece of sculpture intended for the Kimball station on the Brown Line that some have found to be a bit more eye-catching than perhaps the artist intended.

We said our piece on this back in August, but the thing that we’re stuck on now is this: the sculpture is supposed to be for people to sit on, right? All resemblance to the male anatomy aside, does anyone think that thing looks the least bit comfortable? At all?

Finally, if you ever wondered if the CTA reads Hilkevitch's columns, wonder no more. Perhaps the CTA follows the "out of sight, out of mind" theory our grandmother always espoused when she used to hide the cookie jar on top of the fridge when we were kids.