Dear CTA Riders, I M Sorry. Luv, Ron.

By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 11, 2007 3:33PM

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 the rule. Those measures include sending out extra CTA personnel to provide information on delays and evacuate passengers from stranded trains and buses, if necessary.

Before we get accused of riding Huberman's jock, we should point out that it's that sort of acquiescence that already puts him light years ahead of his predecessor Frank Kruesi. If they want to keep riders abreast, maybe they should help promote the text message CTA Alerts started up by Daniel X. O'Neil, whose brother Kevin runs CTA Tattler. When you have riders beating you to innovations you should be doing, you realize you have a lot of work to do.

By the way, apology accepted.

Image courtesy of www.cartoonsoup.com.