fare collection
 

metra conductors do not even verify half of passengers payment once close to destined arrival station. yesterday i witnessed at least 15 people board that he did not verify. i am not a regular metra rider so i pay with 10-ride or cash. i disclose that i rode free on a few occasions due to a lazy conductor that does not do his/her job. however i hope that conductors does their job and not to rely on honors system where none exist.

point is: they need to design a ticketing system using either proof-of-payment or turnstiles

Then free-loaders would find another way to get past those turnstiles or proof-of-payment systems. Ever pulled up to a toll gate on a turnpike with a free-loader waiting just in front waiting on you to pay and turn the light green and open the gate? If there's a will to cheat, cheaters will find a way to do it.

i wouldn't think that it is possible on highways with all the surveillance. and to emphasize, i do not free-load, i am fully prepared with fare but will not flag you down to get you to collect it.

as stated --metra needs modernization.

They often don't go after toll cheats unless you rack up 1000s or sometimes 10000s in back tolls.

i can only speak for illinois tollway where you would not get away with owing $1. . . .your plates are recorded throughout the system with automated all-electronic i-pass overhangs and devices.

i guess tollway auth. deserves credit in terms of modernization

If we're swapping anecdotes, then my experience is that my Metra ticket is punched 90% of the time. The conductors are really trying to catch downtown-bound passengers, though. Conductors take advantage of the long station gaps in the city to get tickets checked, but intra-suburban or non-downtown-oriented trips are often missed. For better or worse though, these passengers are a minority of Metra ridership.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#sectio.../p2p-79119167/

New Metra CEO named

$100million available in RTA Bonds
 

I dont know how much can be done with $100m especially spread across 7 counties and 3 agencies.

RTA Bonds

New CDOT Commissioner Scheinfeld is looking at alterations to the Ashland BRT plan.

“We’re specifically contemplating the possibility of adding more left-turns back into the concept design for the corridor,” Scheinfeld said.

Sun-Times story here.

*sigh*

The BRT plan wasn't fantastic to begin with and this will just reduce the effectiveness even further. When it fails to deliver based on the compromises made the NIMBYs will point to it and say "I told you so".

A point has to be reached where the mayor just says "screw it" and refocuses the CTA on rail only improvements/infill stations that people can't bitch endlessly about.

As I mentioned before, the island platforms for BRT exist only on one side of any given intersection. The other side, the center lane is occupied by a planted median that could easily be swapped for a turn lane. The only loss is a pedestrian refuge and a few bushes. At signalized intersections without stations, it's even easier. Exclusive lanes can still be maintained for buses with a crossover design (like bike lanes at right turn lanes).

Then the only concern is the extra time consumed by the protected left signal phase, and the effect it has on bus speeds.

People so in love with their left turns should spend some quality time in Michigan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left

Cars and trucks will undoubtedly block the crossovers stacking up to turn left. Plus the extra time lost in the cycle to left turns.

:deal:

He he he..... my master plan is slowly coming to fruition. http://www.librum.us/smileys/evil.gif God bless the bait and switch. Seems as if people in positions of power are truly reading this thread...

San Francisco's Van Ness BRT does it a different way, eliminating the right turn lane and shifting through-traffic into the right-most lane to allow for a left turn pocket without the crossover. This eliminates curbside parking within a block of the intersection, but preserves the planted medians and pedestrian refuges. (NOTE: Van Ness is wider than Ashland)

http://imageshack.com/a/img845/1957/j6bv.jpg

Eventually, the only people turning left will be tourists and suburbanites, as locals will learn not to drive on Ashland.

Side note: I am wholly in favor of a full left-turn ban for semi trucks. The city needs to spend a lot of time and effort re-thinking the system of truck routes, actually... We are starting to see serious conflicts pop up, on Ashland, on Elston, etc. I want to keep industrial businesses in the city but the truck problem needs to be addressed.

Just throwing this out there, but I've always believed that signaling can solve most traffic issues, particular streets of heavy mode share. So if you had a case with BRT or a streetcar line in the center and also wanted left turns, you could have both left turning vehicles and public transit vehicles sharing the same center lanes. After all, center turn lanes tend to be least used and most quickly vacated.

So if you had a bus or train approaching behind a bunch of stacked up cars, a green left arrow would be given to all vehicles ahead until the transit vehicle cleared the intersection. Plain and simple, it's giving lane priority.

Regardless, I do not object to any plan that calls for reducing passenger traffic lanes in attempt to reduce traffic speeds. I've crossed Ashland on foot many times. It's an indisputable fact that Ashland is a dangerous street to cross or turn a vehicle onto and something has to change.

'Transit deserts' in Chicago region's mass transit system: report
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,6565285.story

By Richard Wronski
Tribune reporter
7:05 p.m. CST, February 5, 2014

The Chicago area’s mass transit agencies are doing a poor job of serving the commuting needs of the region -- portions of which are “transit deserts” — while planning efforts are haphazard, a new report says.......

I've seen left turn lanes unable to be cleared because there simply wasn't anywhere for the cars to go in the cross street. In heavy gridlock, like rush hour where Ashland crosses major east-west streets, that would probably happen fairly often, greatly impacting the bus travel times.

Yeah, I was gonna say...

Sometimes the lanes get clogged just because some idiot apparently doesn't know that green arrows exist.

I can't find anything on CNT's website to explain the methodology for the maps that accompanied the Tribune story:

http://i.imgur.com/fvhWQxN.png

(The maps in today's print editions had all the dark gray mistakenly printed in red, making it look like most of the North Side was a transit desert.)