Anyone Want a 2200 Series L Car?
There's a CTA auction going on at Rick Levin's website. There's a few cool items that even a transit fan on a budget might be able to afford if a whole train car is too pricey:
http://ricklevin.com/Auctions/Online-Auctions.aspx |
I assume the 2200 will eventually go to Illinois Railway Museum or the Fox River Trolley Museum, if CTA hasn't already donated 2200s to these institutions. Really, the auction value just has to exceed the scrap value.
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Boiler Room, one of my favorite pizza bars in Logan Square, uses a CTA car for the bathroom.
http://www.boilerroomlogansquare.com/ |
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They need to figure out venta on the buses. I got on for free every single day this week because it wouldn't read the card, or twice when the woman just said it didn't work (she assumed because of the cold, they're having issues with that). I seriously wonder if bus ridership stats will take a huge dive.
It also takes an incredibly long amount of time to board buses now when the drivers do want you to try and use ventra. I timed it on Wednesday after realizing how delayed everything was getting and it took 48 seconds for four of us getting on the bus to tap our ventra. Every single person including myself took a long long time. The driver said to me "just keep trying, it'll work eventually". I snapped back at her "Well it hasn't worked since day one, why on earth would it work now?". |
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^ yeah, for all of the large amounts of griping about Ventra, it's worked flawlessly for me every time, both bus & el (knock on wood).
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I have also had nothing but good Ventra experiences, although I admittedly don't ride everyday. I'm guessing it has to do with certain routes/garages where the readers and software are not yet up to snuff.
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Even if people haven't had problems with swiping or overcharges (I've only had few issues with that) my biggest problem was well stated by a friend of mine.
With Ventra you have to do things There's more work involved with a new fare system that in theory should be invisible and 99.99% reliable. The plus card was almost there with the id in your wallet and the balance on the machine. I could walk without stopping at the turnstile. Now everyone has to pause to enter. Why? Shouldn't we all be able to breeze through? This is Chicago, we are busy people with places to be. Why does the reader say processing then go? It should never say neither, just my card balance and release the bar the moment I swipe. Maybe folks never experienced the plus card system but it was nice. 4 years and I never had to go online for anything like Ventra. Never had to walk up to vending machine either. It's weird using those again to check balances. Or how about Ventra being non-compatible with other services like unlocking carshare vehicles? Nope, had to order a new fob, meaning more stuff to carry. My philosophy is new technology should save time and be less invasive in our lives. I also believe technology should be tested and proven, redesigned, tested again, and proven by sample customers until it's ready for the masses. |
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Normally the company would have spread the process out over 6-12 months, testing the system under various conditions and solving bugs before the general public got access to the system. Instead CTA pretty much forced everyone to adopt the new card overnight, and Cubic was forced to play catch-up. |
I don't think blaming the other party is "admitting" anything.
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You won't find me praising Cubic - the debit card business is still very shady - but the successful rollout of similar Cubic technology in cities around the world suggests that Cubic can avoid such problems when it has the time to do so.
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Details for the Blue Line project were posted.
http://www.transitchicago.com/yournewblue/ Logan Square TOD estimated at 5 stories, fwiw |
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