Judge orders Pine Grove-Addison Divvy Station to remain place for now
DNA info Link

For those of you who had't heard, a collection of loser NIMBYs in a Lakeview 3 flat have sued the city and Alderman Cappleman after a Divvy station was placed in the street near their building's door and are claiming that it will attract strangers at all hours, generate litter and is a threat to their children.

Sun-times article Here

I'm so ashamed of my neighbors sometimes. I live around the corner from here.

I have a CTA bus stop like 20 steps from my front door. It had never occurred to me that the bus stop was bad for me or my building.

And good christ, CTA riders are way more sketchy than blue bike riding, annual fee paying people.

^Please email Alderman Cappleman in support of the present station location. If these nitwits win, it can jeopardize the bike share program by complicating the locations of all bike stations, present and future as long as there are enough whiners. Citibikes in NYC has become a big lightning rod issue for some for the same reason, location of the docks. The street is public doman for ALL modes of transportation and if Chicago really aims to be more multi-modal a line must be drawn in the sand on this.

The guy in lakeview filed the lawsuit the day after the station was installed. Perhaps a bit too much time on their hands...

Here is the original Sun-Times Article

Some of the comments really roast the filers of the lawsuit

On the flip side, many people further north in uptown really want more docks and the 47th ward is spending discretionary menu money to bring more bikes in.

My landlord wanted a divvy bike share in front of our building so they could call it an added amenity, lol. So even if it affects land values maybe it raises rents? As for condo owners, that space is a public easement. The city can do whatever.

Awesome suggestion. I just sent him a message in support.

Public Forums for Draft Title VI Policies
 

http://metrarail.com/metra/en/home/u..._policies.html


CHICAGO (August 15, 2013) – Metra is inviting public review and comment on its proposed Title VI Major Service Change and Fare/Service Equity policies. The intent of the proposed policies are to provide assurance that any changes in transit service and fares are made in compliance with Title VI, which was enacted as part of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

In August 2012, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) released updated guidance on compliance with Title VI for transit providers that receive federal grants. The updated Title VI Circular includes new requirements to establish major service change, disparate impact, and disproportionate burden policies.

Transit providers must engage the public in development of these policies and must seek Board approval of these policies. Metra is holding a series of public meetings across its six-county service region to ensure that its customers and stakeholders are aware of the changes and have the opportunity to provide comment.

Metra seeks public comment on the following draft Title VI policies:

The Major Service Change policy: establishes Metra’s definition of “major service change”;

The Disparate Impact policy: sets a threshold to measure whether or not a proposed fare or major service change creates a discriminatory effect on riders based on race, color or national origin; and

The Disproportionate Burden policy: sets a threshold to measure whether or not a proposed fare or major service change creates a discriminatory effect on riders based on poverty status.
Public Meetings in the six-county Metra service region are scheduled as follows:

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Waukegan City Hall, 100 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., Waukegan, IL 60085; and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Woodstock City Hall, 121 W. Calhoun St., Woodstock, IL 60098.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Metra Headquarters, 547 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60661; from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at The Centre of Elgin, West Conference Room, 100 Symphony Way, Elgin, IL., 60120; from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Cicero Town Hall, Room 107, 4949 W. Cermak Rd., Cicero, IL., 60804; and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at West Chicago City Hall, City Council Chambers, 475 Main St., West Chicago, IL. 60185.

Thursday, August 29, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the Aurora Transportation Center, 233 N. Broadway, Aurora, IL. 60507.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Homewood Village Hall, Council Chambers, 2020 Chestnut Rd., Homewood, IL., 60430 and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Joliet City Hall, 150 W. Jefferson St., Room #2, Joliet, IL., 60432 .

Thursday, September 5, 2013 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the City of Evanston Civic Center, Room 2404, 2100 Ridge Rd., Evanston, IL, 60201.

Comments may be made in person at the public meetings, or via email at titleVIfeedback@metrarail.com. Comments must be received later than September 5.

Reasonable auxiliary aids or services necessary to afford an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to participate will be provided. Metra meetings are conducted in accessible locations and materials can be provided in accessible formats and in languages other than English.

Persons requiring assistance or language accommodation are requested to notify Metra of their needs well in advance to provide sufficient time to make these accommodations. Requests should be made to Shanta Williams at (312) 322-6323.


You better believe I'll be there, who knows where this may lead....

Mike Payne

Wow, hard to believe. Only a few years ago I was marveling at the next-train system on the DC Metro and cynically assuming we'd never get something like that here. This is truly a great achievement that improves user experience on the rail system, kudos to the CTA.

I'm especially glad they ditched that contract with Titan and switched to a special elongated LCD screen that doesn't show any of those damn ads. Seems like they worked out the overheating problem and other issues as well.

Great news! I really like the new screens.

Will they be retiring the vintage screens I see at Fullerton and Belmont that show times? They aren't very useful and just say "Thank you for riding the CTA" I don't want a thank you, I want times. I was trying to determine whether to board the brown line or red line but couldn't because the older style electronic signs wouldn't say.

Not sure. Maybe Viva could chime in.

I do like the colored LED signs; I assume they are cheaper and have a longer life than the LCD screens, but I could be totally wrong. The LCDs really seem 21st-century, though - definitely several generations ahead of the LED-based systems in DC, Paris, or Barcelona.

I wouldn't mind the LED boards if they operated correctly. But they display "Thank you for riding the CTA" way too long. I'm not sure why it displays this message instead of transit times 100% of the time unless it's a malfunction. I really don't think a sterile thank you is important. In fact it shows poor customer service for failing to deliver necessary information. While I have my phone to check I don't like taking it out at the stations.

AMEN, AMEN!! I've been saying this over and over. The stupid message is distracting and diminishes the effectiveness of the rider receiving the data. Why can't the idiots understand this??

The signs here say Good Service or the date , they don't say when the next train is coming. There useless signs , they don't even make announcements unless the trains are late by 5 mins.

speaking of notifications, does anyone know what the deal is with the audio arrival announcements at some stations? like western brown line has this...but the vast majority do not. is this just a weird legacy thing that hasnt been phased out? i actually think its pretty useful but i dont get the impression its being expanded.

Regarding the previous comments regarding that somehow LED is obsolete compared to LCD when it comes to these arrival boards... There is no better example of a arrival board anywhere on the planet than Paris and it happens to use LED, and it does it in a clean, minimalist way, showing nothing unnecessary and telling only the needed information. No thank you for riding nonsense, no oops your train is late - that's what the next train time is for, no reminding you what day it is, nothing except what is needed.

Paris. How do you improve on this?

http://www.bloggingwithjosephking.co...2/DSC00643.jpg
x

Jeez, image size!

I'd argue that the flexibility of CTA's signs (LED/LCD both) is a huge advantage. Yes, it can be abused for advertisements or meaningless pleasantries, but it can also provide real-time information on disruptions and service-pattern changes. Information on the weather is useful at underground stations. I appreciate the clock function, too (but I've always thought public clocks were an essential part of urbanity)

Democrat defends targeted Metra Board members, predicts ouster move will fail
 

http://www.suntimes.com/22216172-761...will-fail.html

By ROSALIND ROSSI Transportation Reporter August 28, 2013 7:11PM

Updated: August 28, 2013 8:23PM

A Democratic Cook County commissioner Wednesday predicted a proposed resolution asking half the Metra board to resign would fail and said the idea was “terrible public policy” because the “bad apples” on the Metra Board have already bailed out.

Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin defended three Metra Board members targeted for ouster just as state Rep. Jack Franks (D-Marengo) said the refusal of at least two of the trio to resign made them the “poster children for why we need change.”

Meanwhile, the co-chair of Gov. Patrick Quinn’s new transit task force said Wednesday “that’s a real problem” if Metra board members are refusing calls from their political sponsors to step down.

“That’s obviously one of the things we’ll be looking at if it doesn’t get resolved very quickly,’’ task force co-chair George Ranney told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The Northeastern Illinois Public Transit Task Force will convene for the first time at 1 p.m. next Tuesday in Room N502 of the Bilandic Building, 160 N. LaSalle Street. Public comment is welcome.

Quinn appointed the task force’s 15 members in the wake of a scandal that has gripped Metra ever since board members agreed to pay ex-CEO Alex Clifford $871,000 to exit his contract eight months early and keep mum about the deal — unless questioned by authorities. Since then, public hearings have revealed that at the time, Clifford had threatened a whistleblower lawsuit, based on his charges that two board members wanted to dump him for refusing to “play ball’’ on patronage and contracts.

Ranney said he expects the task force to look at how the region’s transit operations stack up against others across the nation, and how the best-performing systems are governed.

“Something needs to be done to restore Metra’s credibility. That’s part of our assignment,’’ said Ranney, CEO of Metropolis Strategies and former chair of another task force that helped create the RTA.

Five of 11 Metra Board members have resigned since the Clifford mess went public, including former chair Brad O’Halloran and colleague Larry Huggins. Both were mentioned prominently in an April 3 memo in which Clifford outlined patronage and contract-related requests by the two men and accused them of trying to orchestrate his ouster.

Suffredin noted that the April 3 memo never mentioned the three suburban Cook County Metra Board members — Don De Graff, Arlene Mulder and William Widmer III — whom opposing Republicans on the County Board now want to dump. The four Republicans have sponsored a resolution — only advisory and yet to be approved — that asks all three Metra Board members to resign pending the selection of replacements by Cook County commissioners. De Graff and Mulder say they have no plans to leave. Widmer has not responded to requests for comment.

“I think it is terrible public policy to appoint quality people to these boards and then try to pull the rug out from them, especially when the bad apples appear to be O’Halloran and Huggins, and they are gone,’’ Suffredin said.

“There’s no indication anywhere that any of these three [De Graff, Mulder and Widmer] have done anything wrong.’’

However, Franks accused the trio and the rest of the board of failing to ask tough questions as the tangle of Clifford accusations unraveled before their eyes. Franks said he would have “probed more” about an insurance policy that board members say was barely mentioned and then shrugged off, but RTA auditors say would have provided $10 million in liability coverage if Clifford had sued Metra.

“To continue to say they were kept in the dark means they weren’t tenacious enough, they weren’t doing their job,” Franks said.

“They are cooking their own goose. They are proving why there needs to be fundamental change.’’

Also Wednesday, Democratic Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski asked anyone interested in filling O’Halloran’s southwest and west suburban Metra seat to send him a resume and cover letter. In a news release, Tobolski said he wanted to make the nomination process “as transparent and open as possible.’’

Wrote Tobolski: “This is a great opportunity to serve your community and be a leader.’’

The Northeastern Illinois Public Transit Task Force will convene for the first time at 1 p.m. next Tuesday in Room N502 of the Bilandic Building, 160 N. LaSalle Street.

PUBLIC COMMENT IS WELCOME.

Time to say what you have to say where it MIGHT actually count -- or keep your opinions to yourself......

Email the CTA and (politely) ask them to stop doing it. It may not immediately spur them to action, but the absolutely do track customer feedback and it will influence their decisions on what to work on over the long run. If they get enough complaints, they will act more quickly.

Hmm, maybe this is the problem with most US operations. There comparing themselves to other woefully inadequate domestic commuter systems instead of higher quality examples abroad. No wonder they seem clueless.

Of course. That being said, there are things to learn. I think Caltrain provides a much higher-quality and frequent service than Metra, for example.

On the other hand, I don't know of any domestic agencies where commuter rail and local transit have free transfers or cross-ticketing.