The Purple Line Is Riding the Bus This Weekend

By Sean Corbett in News on Oct 27, 2006 1:05PM

Chicagoist loves riding the train when we’re not biking, blogging, or … drinking beer. We were planning a leisurely trip to Evanston this weekend to see some sites, maybe catch a movie. Those plans are going to have to change, however; the Purple Line is going to be closed this weekend. Fortunately there will be buses stopping at every stop along the line from 7:30 p.m. on Friday until 1:30 a.m. on Monday, but we were really looking forward to the El experience.

The staff contemplated the shortcomings of our dear CTA over a few beers yesterday on our way home from the office. It seems like The Authority is spread a bit too thin these days. They are invested in several large-scale projects to improve the system, but at the same time performance at the basic levels of providing timely and useful transportation to the city is lacking. Like everything in Chicago, and the USA in general, in the end it comes down to money. They are, of course, over budget again this year, but instead of setting aside money to fund an effective CTA, lawmakers give us all kinds of “new and improved CTA” public works projects.

That’s our perspective at least; we know the readers have some pretty strong opinions about where and how the CTA should operate, so let the comments fly. Maybe we should make a point of telling the people in charge what we think?

Thanks to josephp for the image!