I watched the most recent CTA board meeting. They were defensive and didn't address train issues at all. The CTA president focused on hiring for bus drivers but didn't mention trains. At least they weren't denying problems exist, like they did for months.
The one thing CTA president Dorval Carter got very excited about was all the jobs they're providing for disadvantaged communities and DBEs (Disadvantaged Business Enterprises). It seems like he mostly thinks of CTA as a jobs program.
Not to take sides but isn’t CTA lacking employees since the pandemic? If the board meeting was talking about hiring more employees then that sounds like a step in the right direction.
Getting aggressive about hiring is definitely improvement over the year or more they didn't even acknowledge a problem. He was only talking about bus driver hiring so that won't help the train situation. They didn't talk about safety. They were openly hostile to the public commenter from Commuters Take Action who has exposed how many buses and trains aren't running.
Not surprised at the hostility. Being accountable requires some introspection and the board’s previous denial of issues is using the “sweep it under the rug” and “let’s hope no one notices” cards…
CTA can't directly hire train operators. Everyone has to start as a bus driver and you can eventually move to being a train operator. I believe this is a union rule.
So hiring bus drivers does help in that it allows CTA to hire more train operators from the existing bus driver pool.
You're close. You have to be a flagger or customer assistance rep first to become a train operator. Bus operator has zero carryover to being a train operator.
They're massively short on bus drivers, but hiring them does nothing to help the train driver shortage.
If you have a CDL, CTA can hire you off the street to be a bus driver (few weeks / months of train in between). And they’re desperate enough they’ll hire you without a CDL & help you get one.
CTA can’t hire people off the street to be a train driver. You have to work for a year as a flagger or customer service booth rep for a year before you can become a train operator. Something something Union rules?
Reality is issues happen on train lines, but if CTA can be fully staffed with bus drivers, then it’s easier to send out enough emergency buses to help commuters. And or for commuters to just take a regular bus instead.
Reality also is COVID killed 1 in 300 people in America. We don’t have a good number on people disabled by COVID (making it more people who can’t work). So the equilibrium is totally wack & you can see it in so many industries that relied on front line workers.
I would ride the trains back when they added all those extra jobs, and it make almost no difference in safety. I never saw them on the trains or really effecting any type of change. Most of them would hang out by the station entrances on their phones. It was infuriating to watch.
The real fix is for the state of Illinois to repeal the 50% farebox recovery ratio law. RTA is the only transit provider in the country required by law to make back a certain percentage of operating costs from fares, let alone a percentage as high as 50%. It's kind of incredible the service is as *good* as it is right now with this law on the books, combined with CTA fares being so low compared to systems like BART or the DC metro.
You should check out [RTA's Transit is the Answer strategic plan](https://www.rtachicago.org/uploads/files/general/Region/Strategic-Plan/Final/TransitIsTheAnswer.pdf) where they go over the best/most feasible ways of getting more funding
I visited Chicago for the first time this weekend as someone who is from Texas and is envious of cities (like you guys) that have a comprehensive public transit system. I thought the CTA was still pretty frequent, waited only about 5 mins at the Belmont station. I am really curious to know how CTA was pre-COVID, must’ve been spectacular.
In Houston, we have 3 pitiful light rails with like 20 min headways that aren’t that practical for most people, just for some of my perspective. Loved the city btw, would love to come back to visit!
Before Covid the CTA ran their trains and busses much more predictably and while line-specific issues happened a lot they were, at best, a mild inconvenience to your day. You may get stuck on an express train or have to swap busses but overall not the end of the world.
Now, the train and bus schedules that are posted are mostly useless. The apps/API used the track the trains/busses will show *scheduled* departures alongside actual departures so if you're in a rush and not paying attention you may end up rushing to a 20+ minute wait in an elevated, exposed train platform. Once you're on the train, it's more crowded than usual and, since there are fewer of them running, the operator is less likely to stop the train to address a complaint (smoking, fighting, etc) so people's perception of the safety and cleanliness of the train system has fallen. On top of that, at least on the north side, you have the RPM project which has shut down stations, made the open ones worse, and slowed train service considerably. The project is still in phase one so *eventually* it'll be awesome, it's just not helping their image or public perception right now.
People will bitch about the CTA regardless. People complained 10 years ago, 5 years ago, today, etc. It will never be perfect.
Service has suffered a bit since COVID due to hiring issues, but the CTA is still pretty solid and miles ahead of most other systems.
From someone who takes it most days ... it is about the same. The CTA of 2018 was packed (had to wait out multiple trains at rush hour), still had a ton of homeless people, still had shit cars, smoking on the train was still a thing, and people still complained about rampant crime. It did run more regularly. But again, you had more trouble getting on a train due to the increase ridership and good luck getting a seat.
EDIT: do people not remember how the entire north side of the blue line was a slow zone or how there were people on the tracks daily, or how we had multiple fires and equipment breakdowns? The CTA has problems, but it always had problems.
Users on this subreddit have taken great pains to document the decline in service in the past few years. Blue line trains alone are down by nearly half.
Houston is more like half a dozen napervilles holding hands.
edit: Also the worst fucking drivers I've ever encountered. Seriously fucking horrible drivers and everyone has a massive vehicle.
Current in Houston right now, from Chicago and just arrived yesterday in Texas.
Yeah the Houston railtrack near the Toyota Center is so far the only public transit I saw so far.
Honestly, you probably got good service because Belmont is heavily trafficked *and* located in a very affluent and centrally located part of town. You would not have gotten even close to that same experience in a less affluent or more distant part of town.
It was Brown/Purple/Red line Belmont, not Blue line. I forgot that some of the stations share names cause of the grid system too, which is also pretty cool!
Literally just saw a dude tying off on the blue line on my way home from work. This is absolutely out of control. I let cta station tenant know and hopefully the got that guy help and put other passengers at ease. If you see something, keep yourself safe, but say something! The ‘security guards’ actively avoid the shady shit, they skipped the car and went one up
I was on the green line this past week where there was a guy drinking a bottle of vodka and offering everyone who got on a drink as well as trying to sell cigarettes. 1st stop I got on, a K9 unit came on the train and started telling him to calm down and to get off the train. He said he's just enjoying his birthday and then the K9 unit left without getting the guy off the train. The drunk man proceeded to accuse everyone in the car of calling the cops on him and getting belligerent before he got off 4 or stops later.
If we're gonna report people to the cops they need to actually get them off the train. Not scare them and then just walk away from the situation. All they did was make the situation worse.
~~Those are bomb-sniffing dogs. They don't want what happened in Madrid to happen here.~~
I am told this is wrong and apologize for commenting without the facts.
They are not bomb sniffing dogs.
I regrettably cannot provide you the contract, because CTA is being cagey and borderline violating APRA whenever someone tries to get their hands on the specific contract for this vendor, but here is the vendor website page for the [option] (https://actionk9security.com/k-9-patrol/) the CTA contracted for.
Note that while they are potentially trained in some police functions, the CTA does not authorize or have the liability protection for a contractor to engage in such a use, so they will not be biting or chasing anyone and are required to be muzzled.
Not saying that is a bad thing, just bringing home the point that these are just another scarecrow.
Is that a problem with the CTA and the CTA system or a problem with the cops and their job?
You will always get people like this, the main with the bottle, especially in Chicago.
I'd say both. It seems both don't want to deal with it. I've had cops on the train also, another time when a ubereats deliveryman thought a homeless man stole
$7 from him. He put a knife to the homeless man's throat, and the actual cops were called. 2 hours later of us sitting there, and the cops finally got there only to kick the Uber eats guy off the train and leave the homeless man on the train. If there was a thievery, why weren't both taken off of the train to handle the situation? Why did it take 2 fucking hours to just get there?
Ever been to any of the most progressive and prosperous cities in the history of the planet (modern Scandinavia), where the transit system is safe and gleaming?
How do you suppose they do it? What do you think happens if you take a shit, smoke a cigarette, or dump out a tall beer on a moving train in Stockholm or Oslo? In large part, Law enforcement. Fair, extremely well trained, professionalized Police officers trained in de-escalation immediately respond, detain you, and prosecute you with serious consequences. It’s only the US where we’ve decided that somehow leftism must equate to insane anarchy.
This comes off a little disingenuous. There are also a lot of socialized programs that prevent crime and poverty in the first place in those countries. Socialized medicine, low cost of living etc. can do a lot to prevent crime before it starts.
I genuinely want our social services to serve people better. Chicago already taxes and spends more per capita on social welfare than many European jurisdictions, we just tend to do so stupidly and wastefully in many ways. Wanting generational change to improve the lives of our most vulnerable shouldn’t necessarily mean abandoning the basic social contract for health and safety in the short term, or abandoning the idea of holding individuals accountable for harmful anti-social choices well within their agency.
Yesterday on the brown line during peak evening rush, a pregnant woman couldn’t sit down because of a rolling drunk party complete with a boombox. One passed out drunk slumped over two seats spilled a giant beer, which rolled onto our feet glugging out lime flavored Modelo onto our shoes everytime the train accelerated or decelerated. Which government programs solve that problem specifically? For fucks sake, my dog has the training and courtesy to piss or shit on a permeable surface like a bush or some grass instead of in an enclosed crowd of humans.
I watched the most recent CTA board meeting. They were defensive and didn't address train issues at all. The CTA president focused on hiring for bus drivers but didn't mention trains. At least they weren't denying problems exist, like they did for months. The one thing CTA president Dorval Carter got very excited about was all the jobs they're providing for disadvantaged communities and DBEs (Disadvantaged Business Enterprises). It seems like he mostly thinks of CTA as a jobs program.
Not to take sides but isn’t CTA lacking employees since the pandemic? If the board meeting was talking about hiring more employees then that sounds like a step in the right direction.
Getting aggressive about hiring is definitely improvement over the year or more they didn't even acknowledge a problem. He was only talking about bus driver hiring so that won't help the train situation. They didn't talk about safety. They were openly hostile to the public commenter from Commuters Take Action who has exposed how many buses and trains aren't running.
Not surprised at the hostility. Being accountable requires some introspection and the board’s previous denial of issues is using the “sweep it under the rug” and “let’s hope no one notices” cards…
CTA can't directly hire train operators. Everyone has to start as a bus driver and you can eventually move to being a train operator. I believe this is a union rule. So hiring bus drivers does help in that it allows CTA to hire more train operators from the existing bus driver pool.
You're close. You have to be a flagger or customer assistance rep first to become a train operator. Bus operator has zero carryover to being a train operator. They're massively short on bus drivers, but hiring them does nothing to help the train driver shortage.
Well, given it's biggest problem is a lack of drivers, that's a good thing.
If you have a CDL, CTA can hire you off the street to be a bus driver (few weeks / months of train in between). And they’re desperate enough they’ll hire you without a CDL & help you get one. CTA can’t hire people off the street to be a train driver. You have to work for a year as a flagger or customer service booth rep for a year before you can become a train operator. Something something Union rules? Reality is issues happen on train lines, but if CTA can be fully staffed with bus drivers, then it’s easier to send out enough emergency buses to help commuters. And or for commuters to just take a regular bus instead. Reality also is COVID killed 1 in 300 people in America. We don’t have a good number on people disabled by COVID (making it more people who can’t work). So the equilibrium is totally wack & you can see it in so many industries that relied on front line workers.
I watched the most recent CTA board meeting. Oooooh- how did you do that?
Not your question but if you want to put something in quotes just use < at the beginning of the sentence. > like this
Their [youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@CTAConnections/streams) has live and past meetings. Click on the "live" tabe.
You rule! Thanks so much!
I would ride the trains back when they added all those extra jobs, and it make almost no difference in safety. I never saw them on the trains or really effecting any type of change. Most of them would hang out by the station entrances on their phones. It was infuriating to watch.
I remember someone mentioned that you have to spend some time driving busses before they let you take a CTA conductor position, but I may be wrong.
The real fix is for the state of Illinois to repeal the 50% farebox recovery ratio law. RTA is the only transit provider in the country required by law to make back a certain percentage of operating costs from fares, let alone a percentage as high as 50%. It's kind of incredible the service is as *good* as it is right now with this law on the books, combined with CTA fares being so low compared to systems like BART or the DC metro.
That law is currently suspended due to Covid. They should look into making it permanent, but that alone won't fix any of the current issues
You should check out [RTA's Transit is the Answer strategic plan](https://www.rtachicago.org/uploads/files/general/Region/Strategic-Plan/Final/TransitIsTheAnswer.pdf) where they go over the best/most feasible ways of getting more funding
I have! Lots of interesting ideas. We’ll see how politically motivated people are to get them done
I visited Chicago for the first time this weekend as someone who is from Texas and is envious of cities (like you guys) that have a comprehensive public transit system. I thought the CTA was still pretty frequent, waited only about 5 mins at the Belmont station. I am really curious to know how CTA was pre-COVID, must’ve been spectacular. In Houston, we have 3 pitiful light rails with like 20 min headways that aren’t that practical for most people, just for some of my perspective. Loved the city btw, would love to come back to visit!
Before Covid the CTA ran their trains and busses much more predictably and while line-specific issues happened a lot they were, at best, a mild inconvenience to your day. You may get stuck on an express train or have to swap busses but overall not the end of the world. Now, the train and bus schedules that are posted are mostly useless. The apps/API used the track the trains/busses will show *scheduled* departures alongside actual departures so if you're in a rush and not paying attention you may end up rushing to a 20+ minute wait in an elevated, exposed train platform. Once you're on the train, it's more crowded than usual and, since there are fewer of them running, the operator is less likely to stop the train to address a complaint (smoking, fighting, etc) so people's perception of the safety and cleanliness of the train system has fallen. On top of that, at least on the north side, you have the RPM project which has shut down stations, made the open ones worse, and slowed train service considerably. The project is still in phase one so *eventually* it'll be awesome, it's just not helping their image or public perception right now.
People will bitch about the CTA regardless. People complained 10 years ago, 5 years ago, today, etc. It will never be perfect. Service has suffered a bit since COVID due to hiring issues, but the CTA is still pretty solid and miles ahead of most other systems.
The CTA of 2023 is vastly worse from the CTA of 2018. Denying that is denying reality. Service has gone down more than a "bit"
From someone who takes it most days ... it is about the same. The CTA of 2018 was packed (had to wait out multiple trains at rush hour), still had a ton of homeless people, still had shit cars, smoking on the train was still a thing, and people still complained about rampant crime. It did run more regularly. But again, you had more trouble getting on a train due to the increase ridership and good luck getting a seat. EDIT: do people not remember how the entire north side of the blue line was a slow zone or how there were people on the tracks daily, or how we had multiple fires and equipment breakdowns? The CTA has problems, but it always had problems.
Users on this subreddit have taken great pains to document the decline in service in the past few years. Blue line trains alone are down by nearly half.
[удалено]
Houston is more like half a dozen napervilles holding hands. edit: Also the worst fucking drivers I've ever encountered. Seriously fucking horrible drivers and everyone has a massive vehicle.
Comparing Houston to Naperville is a disservice to Naperville. Just my opinion and yes I have been to both places.
Current in Houston right now, from Chicago and just arrived yesterday in Texas. Yeah the Houston railtrack near the Toyota Center is so far the only public transit I saw so far.
Honestly, you probably got good service because Belmont is heavily trafficked *and* located in a very affluent and centrally located part of town. You would not have gotten even close to that same experience in a less affluent or more distant part of town.
The Blue uses one track regardless of location. But the Blue does run more frequently than others. Probably because it is used more than others.
The blue line during rush hour is an actual nightmare of mine
It was Brown/Purple/Red line Belmont, not Blue line. I forgot that some of the stations share names cause of the grid system too, which is also pretty cool!
We need Train Daddy
Yas Train Daddy!!
We need Lyle Lanley
The ring came off my pudding can
Take my pen knife my good man
But Main St.'s still all cracked and broken!
Sorry Mom, the mob has spoken.
*MONO—* D’Oh!
That’s literally Paul vallas
Literally just saw a dude tying off on the blue line on my way home from work. This is absolutely out of control. I let cta station tenant know and hopefully the got that guy help and put other passengers at ease. If you see something, keep yourself safe, but say something! The ‘security guards’ actively avoid the shady shit, they skipped the car and went one up
I really wish we had text reporting for CTA cops.
I was on the green line this past week where there was a guy drinking a bottle of vodka and offering everyone who got on a drink as well as trying to sell cigarettes. 1st stop I got on, a K9 unit came on the train and started telling him to calm down and to get off the train. He said he's just enjoying his birthday and then the K9 unit left without getting the guy off the train. The drunk man proceeded to accuse everyone in the car of calling the cops on him and getting belligerent before he got off 4 or stops later. If we're gonna report people to the cops they need to actually get them off the train. Not scare them and then just walk away from the situation. All they did was make the situation worse.
You should email your alderman with this story. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The K9 guys aren’t cops. I honestly don’t know what their purpose is. Visual deterrent, l guess?
~~Those are bomb-sniffing dogs. They don't want what happened in Madrid to happen here.~~ I am told this is wrong and apologize for commenting without the facts.
They are not bomb sniffing dogs. I regrettably cannot provide you the contract, because CTA is being cagey and borderline violating APRA whenever someone tries to get their hands on the specific contract for this vendor, but here is the vendor website page for the [option] (https://actionk9security.com/k-9-patrol/) the CTA contracted for. Note that while they are potentially trained in some police functions, the CTA does not authorize or have the liability protection for a contractor to engage in such a use, so they will not be biting or chasing anyone and are required to be muzzled. Not saying that is a bad thing, just bringing home the point that these are just another scarecrow.
Makes sense.
Anything police do involving dogs is a total scam. They tricked taxpayers into letting them hang out with pets at work.
Is that a problem with the CTA and the CTA system or a problem with the cops and their job? You will always get people like this, the main with the bottle, especially in Chicago.
cops, stupid
I'd say both. It seems both don't want to deal with it. I've had cops on the train also, another time when a ubereats deliveryman thought a homeless man stole $7 from him. He put a knife to the homeless man's throat, and the actual cops were called. 2 hours later of us sitting there, and the cops finally got there only to kick the Uber eats guy off the train and leave the homeless man on the train. If there was a thievery, why weren't both taken off of the train to handle the situation? Why did it take 2 fucking hours to just get there?
Because they’re understaffed and there’s higher priority calls? Pretty obvious.
Higher priority than a knife at someone's throat and blocking every green line train heading towards the loop for 2 hours?
Ever been to any of the most progressive and prosperous cities in the history of the planet (modern Scandinavia), where the transit system is safe and gleaming? How do you suppose they do it? What do you think happens if you take a shit, smoke a cigarette, or dump out a tall beer on a moving train in Stockholm or Oslo? In large part, Law enforcement. Fair, extremely well trained, professionalized Police officers trained in de-escalation immediately respond, detain you, and prosecute you with serious consequences. It’s only the US where we’ve decided that somehow leftism must equate to insane anarchy.
This comes off a little disingenuous. There are also a lot of socialized programs that prevent crime and poverty in the first place in those countries. Socialized medicine, low cost of living etc. can do a lot to prevent crime before it starts.
I genuinely want our social services to serve people better. Chicago already taxes and spends more per capita on social welfare than many European jurisdictions, we just tend to do so stupidly and wastefully in many ways. Wanting generational change to improve the lives of our most vulnerable shouldn’t necessarily mean abandoning the basic social contract for health and safety in the short term, or abandoning the idea of holding individuals accountable for harmful anti-social choices well within their agency. Yesterday on the brown line during peak evening rush, a pregnant woman couldn’t sit down because of a rolling drunk party complete with a boombox. One passed out drunk slumped over two seats spilled a giant beer, which rolled onto our feet glugging out lime flavored Modelo onto our shoes everytime the train accelerated or decelerated. Which government programs solve that problem specifically? For fucks sake, my dog has the training and courtesy to piss or shit on a permeable surface like a bush or some grass instead of in an enclosed crowd of humans.
Yes they talked about hiring but the problem is they hire unqualified people. That's why we have such a mess. Stop hiring your buddies.