On weekdays I've mostly seen them on the 156. On weekends, I've seen them on some of the north lakeshore routes (151, 147).

And less stinky for pedestrians, too.

Yeah the new Hybrids are all over the 147 route. I'd say about 50% of 147's are now Hybrids. If you are looking to ride one check there or try for a 151 at rush hour. I love these new buses! I actually look forward to riding the bus in the morning now!

Question about Chicago's BRT plan:

How is it that Cleveland's Euclid BRT corridor is costing $200 million to build while Chicago will manage to build BRT on 4 different routes with $150 million in Federal dollars?

Come on obvious...Cleveland is so much bigger...and Chicago is known so well for its thrifty spending unlike our spendthrift friends over on Erie

Chicago's plan is MUCH less ambitious than Cleveland's. The Health Line in Cleveland is a real BRT, with 100% dedicated lanes and stations, along with bike lanes and major streetscaping along the entire length of Euclid from Downtown to University Circle.

Chicago's plan, on the other hand, simply involves clearing the parallel parking lanes during rush hours. At off-peak times, these streets will function exactly as they do now. The plan, of course, will include a few shiny new shelters and maybe a new paint job on some of the new hybrid buses, but the actual construction for this project is minimal.

Most of that $150 million will go towards:
1) signal priority to allow buses to extend green lights
2) the shelters and new buses
3) signage to prohibit street parking during rush hours
4) police enforcement/towing of violating vehicles.

Is it impossible to make this pay for itself (via fines)? Or do such fines usually cover just towing/impounding/administration costs and no police?

The new buses currently being delivered aren't the BRT buses. The BRT buses, to be delivered on the same contract, will have 3 doors to facilitate pre-paid boarding at high-volume stops.

^^ But they will be hybrid and of a similar design, right?

Yes - same manufacturer and I believe delivered under the same contract. I was just pointing out that there will be a little extra brand differentiation for the "BRT" service - special buses, prepaid boarding, at least a few beefed up facilities, lane markings, etc. Not a full BRT like Cleveland, but definitely a step up from a regular limited stop "X" route.

I was looking at the slow zones map and it seems that the biggest bang for the buck now (as far as benefiting the most riders) is the Red Line, especially North Main. Purple Line needs a lot of work, but ridership relative to the Red Line means the Red LIne should happen first. Ideally, they should be looking at completely rebuilding the North Main, but I'm guessing that would take at least a billion dollars.

I kinda hope that, if the CTA gets nothing else from Obama's massive stimulus, it gets Federal dollars to eliminate slow zones across the entire system. It would be nice to also get Federal funds to accelerate planning and execution of the Ford City Orange Line, and the Red Line extensions, and also for the City to accelerate planning of the West Loop Transportation Center, but just getting money for slow zone elimination would be great. As someone else pointed out, "planning" doesn't sound as grand or stimulating as building does, but planning does create or at least maintain skilled jobs which are at least as important to the economy as construction jobs are. In fact, since China and other emerging economies are getting huge experience for skilled planning jobs with their infrastructure build-outs, keeping those skills fresh with U.S. workers is probably even more critical.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2...-railroad.html


Two more suburbs strike deals with CN railroad
December 16, 2008 at 1:04 PM
--Richard Wronski

...Hoffman Estates and Frankfort are the latest communities to negotiate separate deals with CN over noise, traffic and safety issues. The agreements were announced Monday night.

That brings to eight the number of communities that have negotiated their own deals with the railway. CN said it is continuing talks with several other suburbs.

^Excellent, at least there are now 8 municipalities who see this as a necessity that will be approved, and will work with the railroad and not against it. I hope Barrington and all other opposition communities drown in debt from needless legal fees.

^ Easy. I live in one of those opposition communities.

Let's hear it for the CTA in the snow, baby! Thank goodness I'm not driving to work.

More towns look to deal on EJE
 

The dominoes keep falling.....

Several towns stop fighting Canadian National Railway plan and cut deals
CN to spend millions on addressing problems with safety, noise and trafficBy Richard Wronski | Tribune reporter
December 17, 2008
Some communities that had opposed Canadian National Railway's plan to run more freight trains through their towns have decided to stop fighting and negotiate their own deals to ease noise, safety and traffic concerns.

As of Tuesday, eight communities—from Mundelein to Frankfort and Schererville, Ind.—have approved individual agreements with the railway that are worth millions of dollars.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,7925208.story

CTA sucked last night. Waited 45 minutes at Ravenswood Metra for the Lawrence West Bound. How do 5 west bound bus #81 get bunched up together? How after 1/2 hour when I got home to look at Bus Tracker could 5 bus #81's still be bunched together? If I can see that on Bus Tracker why couldn't CTA? Heard horror stories about 151 and the Irving Park bus.

Plowing...didn't see it until after 6:30 on major streets. That is 6 hours into the storm.

Bus Tracker was working. We paid managers both watching bus tracker and on the roads to keep things running smoothly. Cell phones were working.....and we live in a city that gets snow. Why does this city act like Hawaii everytime we get snow?

I wouldn't blame the CTA for this. I happened to drive to work yesterday (damn bad luck for an appointment in the suburbs!) and it took me an hour and 45 minutes to get to Lakeview from the loop.

It seems to me that traffic control just totally breaks down when snow starts falling. People get frustrated at the slow traffic and begin acting like idiots: making dangerous lunges into traffic, blocking intersections and stopping cross traffic, etc. Order breaks down incredibly fast in these circumstances. On busy arterial streets downtown, backups are severe and probably cause a lot of bunching for buses traveling through downtown.

On the plus side, the trains run fantastically in the snow. A co-worker's 30 minute commute took...30 minutes last night. Boy was I jealous!

Taft

Yeah, its hard to expect buses to run properly when there are massive traffic jams everywhere.

If you took the train yesterday you were in great shape, whizzed right by everything...

^^^Yeah Gotta love Metra