Gas prices are dropping. I'm guessing these ridership gains may not be sustained

Some will go back to their cars but I'd be surprised if not a majority of new riders stay on mass transit.

The trend definitely seems to be on the side of mass transit. For reasons ranging from environmental, road overloading to weening off our dependence on foreign oil. Price is a huge part of the whole equation but not the only one.

^ I think once people get past that barrier of unfamiliarity with mass transit they're more likely to continue to use it. I mean, it's not like gas still isn't expensive. Still, it'll take a drastic and sustained increase to really push ridership numbers (and, consequently, pressure on the pols) up to where we want them to be...

on Urb's point about gas prices I am also a bit concerned. It is such a catch 22. When the economy gets bad you are likely to have lower gas prices and when the world economy (and likely U.S. economy by extension) are good they prices will tend to be higher. Pick your poison I guess. I liked Thomas Friedmans idea about setting a price floor for gas though as a solution. Otherwise prices are just seem to volatile to set macro policies and initiative solutions around.

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/thomas-friedman
@ 15:00 min. in

^ The fine print about the new HOT lanes:

It's essentially raising tolls. (cheaper lanes get more congested b/c there are fewer of them, thus more and more people are tempted to use the HOT, thus paying higher tolls. The HOT lanes eventually get more congested but remain just a little bit LESS congested than the regular lanes, enough to continue to attract drivers who pay the higher prices.) And yes, I'm sure it will encourage at least a percentage of people to carpool.

I'm glad Chicagoland is finally doing this. It certainly has the congestion in place to justify it.

One other note:

High gas prices are also partly the reason why Metra couldn't afford to increase frequency of services, etc. Perhaps the lowering of gas prices will finally open a window to make that possible?

Of course not! :)

prices aren't set by the conditions of the economy. Instead, they are loosely set by OPEC by calculating a risk/reward scenerio by dictating amount of production. I'm sure the clout oil companies have on government in the U.S. is also a point of negotiating the final price.

So, at what point does the price of oil encourage a society to really challenge how we pursue future energy policies? Current trends have pushed to see where those boundaries lie.

I disagree with Thomas Friedman and especially with the idea that price floors are necessary since crude prices are too volatile to set macro policy. Friedman's approach deceptively makes sense, but in reality it is a highly oversimplistic view of the market. It also relies on the fact that 90%+ of the American public has never heard of futures and has no understanding of basic economics.

Most institutional users, including airlines and bus fleets, buy gas futures for the exact reason that they do not want to deal with the volatility of gas prices. Further, macro policy is long term and is therefore based on aggregate data. A renewable energy startup surely doesn't rely on day to day crude price changes in their financial models. In addition, the volatility Friedman is talking about is just as great, if not greater, with every other commodity, including gold, corn, and every other raw material in the world. Policy makers don't seem to have a problem setting macro policy with regard to every other issue in the world and startups don't seem to have any problems adjusting. So why with oil?

Friedman's issue is he sees energy startups spring up when prices are high (every summer) only to fold when they are lower (every winter). Of course in reality, the startups will have to be able to compete long term with oil without massive subsidies if they are to have a chance anyway. So Friedman is simply asking the public to subsidize the less efficient and less necessary startups with the most inefficient and regressive subsidy possible.

How is a price floor a subsidy? I suppose the reduced gas sales and increased supply will lead to a loss of tax revenue for the government, but it's not exactly like the government is spending money to support an unprofitable business.

^ It sets a minimum floor price at which gas producers have to sell their gas. So producers aren't forced to price compete and are able to take profits that resemble those of a monopolist rather than an actor in a competitive market. It also results in excess supply of gas, or surplus, that gets pumped and refined but not sold since too many producers are willing to produce at price levels higher than the equilibrium. So producers are taking higher profits, consumers are paying more, and we got a surplus of product.

I think a lot of people are trying out mass transit and realizing that Chicago will become colder than a witch's tit pretty soon here, and will go back to their cars rather than standing outside in arctic weather. I started taking transit again two weeks ago because it just made sense to me and I already have a bad cold unfortunately from standing outside in the cold mornings, which is not good when you are a doctor. This cold weather is only going to get worse. It would be different if the El system was all underground but it is well exposed to perhaps one of the coldest cities on earth.

On the subject of "price flooring" to help out gas price volatility, isn't that why companies buy futures in the first place?

Edit: Marcu already said it.

^ As far as the trains are concerned, most if not all outdoor stations have heat lamps.

Also, transit ridership is usually measured as year-over-year, since both routes and systems have their own cyclical variations. It gets cold every winter, so that alone probably wouldn't account for much of a year-over-year decline in ridership unless it's unseasonably cold/awful, which has little to do with oil prices or CTA service.

I doubt the heat lamps are working yet. And the bus stops are of course the majority of public transit stops in Chicago.

This has nothing to do with year on year changes... it has to do with the new condition of higher gas prices, a one-time event, i.e., an unexpected new variable, leading people to try out rapid transport. Moreover, you use the year on year statistical perspective to obscure the fact that one reason for the low popularity of public transit in Chicago is the inconvenience or hardship of using it in the winter.

Your persistence in denying or explaining away any criticism of public transit is ultimately counterproductive. You do not engage the real-life, practical experience of transit users; your arguments seem to come out of a bureaucratic void. For transit to catch on, we have to do better than this. Instead of your PR-like, "Oh, there are heat lamps"--if whyhuhwhy is a doctor, one should give him credit for having tried out the heat lamps--the more productive answer would be, "Yes, the elevated el stations are exposed to wind because often they are open to the elements. The el platforms should be shielded from the outside, as they are on above-ground lines in Asia... this is unfeasible in Chicago because of X and Y, and this is what we should try to change."

Actually, they are working already, the ones on at red line for sure were on last night. Its unusually early for them to be on, but sure enough they were...

A retrofit program would be quite expensive, but building all new aboveground stations with a system of platform doors would eliminate this problem, and make platform heating possible. For example, I would like to see the new Morgan, 18th, and Cermak stations built with platform doors. These stations, because they are surrounded by mostly 1 and 2-story buildings, would receive quite a bit of wind. Also, the stations with roofs, like upper Clark/Lake or Merchandise Mart, would be relatively cheap to retrofit with platform doors.

Also, if the North Main Line ever gets rebuilt like the Brown Line was, it too should have these installed.

Or, what about much cheaper measures, like wind-breaks? A plexiglass wall on the outside edges of the platform would cut down quite a bit of wind.

That's exactly what I had in mind...

Are there any station platforms that don't already have clear acrylic windbreaks?

A price floor would decrease profits by decreasing the quantity demanded. They would still have to compete with each other; producers have to compete at any price unless they have more market power. A price floor would not necessarily increase any producer's market power and would not increase profits to producers.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I think my 1000+ rides annually on CTA (not to mention the many transit trips taken while traveling) give me plenty of perspective to critique CTA service. I just don't see how winter this year will impact ridership any more than winter does any other year.

I'll give your point a shot, though. One of the problems with the heat lamps at rail stations is that they're so high. On the coldest days (e.g. <20F) they are too high to adequately provide warmth for people standing on the platform below - at a few stations there's a bench nearby that people inevitably wind up standing upon to get closer to the heat. In Chicago, this is necessary because if the heat lamps are reachable by hand, the heating element and metal grating will be stolen instantly, just like anything else that isn't bolted/welded down (and bolting only works if you use an obscure drive type e.g. Torq/Torx and apply enough tightening force that machine power is necessary to unbolt it). Between the theft risk and the maintenance involved, this is also why heat lamps are unfeasible at bus shelters, though I could imagine it's the type of idiosyncracy Daley could latch onto and have installed at downtown shelters.

Getting back to this topic, Metra actually will be increasing service... by adding three roundtrips on Saturdays on the SWS line. Half funded by Metra, and half by additional discretionary funds from RTA.

..

I do have to say that the very short platform canopies definitely suck. Of all the things to cut costs on I think this was a really terrible choice.

Nobody who has to stand on windy platforms totally exposed to freezing rain or snow this fall/winter is going to be saying anything kind about the CTA.

I'd like to think the stations were designed so that the various features removed by value engineering could eventually be added: 4-car canopies, escalators, turnstiles, etc. But I'm not sure. One problem is that at some stations, the wind break shelters aren't located under the canopy, so it'll be pick-your-poison on the worst weather days. From what I remember of the original station designs, the cost reductions did have a pretty major impact on the project: each station used to have many more unique architectural features and had a more holistically-coherent design for it's specific site and location. A large chunk of the cost savings were obtained by strict standardization of many features and components, which sounds good on paper but...

...oh well; get what you pay for.

The canopy issue is kind of annoying. I complained on here last winter when I noticed that the Addison station was covered with snow, upwards of 18 hours after a snow storm had hit. No CTA worker had bothered to come out & shovel off the platform. I would think it would be a safety issue and have top priority to ensure the platforms are clear of snow & ice. Instead the only area to wait was under the small portion of the platform covered by the canopy. I've also seen the canopy situation being an issue at Montrose, where it's located at the end end of the platform from where people walk up the stairs. So plenty of riders just crowd the area at the top of the stairs which has a small covering. It makes me happy that my local L station is the Addision red line stop where the canopy covers the entire platform and escalators are in place. But at the same time, I don't want to complain too much about the brown line. For the most part I do like the new stations... and I particularly like some of the new station houses (Sedgwick is great and I suspect the newly refurbished Damen station house will be great as well).

Can anyone tell me what the deal is with the Wellington stop on the brown line? Per the "Countdown to a new Brown" website, the Wellington stop is only supposed to stay closed for a year. Unless they buil that thing in record time though, it isn't going to happen. It is supposed to re-open in March.

I'm not even sure that it can happen, because the new platform (not built) on the Northbound side doesn't appear to be capable of handling 8 car trains due to width constraints.

^^I am betting it will be closed. That has been my gut feeling for a while now. With Belmont having the southern stairway at Fletcher it is only .18 miles to Wellington. Now I don't believe in getting rid of stations, but like you I cannot see where the station on the east side northbound will be going and unlike all the other stations they ripped this one almost completely out.

The problem would be the City allowed another Parking garage to be built and that took up the airspace.....to build the platform.

^^
I'm hoping it will be be closed. It makes zero sense to have a station so close to Belmont, and I'm not looking forward to my Brownline stops making the extra pause there every trip as well. I do know quite a few Illinois-Masonic employees that are hoping for the stop to re-open, but I'm not one of them. I think a fair comprimise would be to have an opening to the Belmont station from Fletcher.

Wellington will be rebuilt, but it might end up having been closed more than 12 months (I guess they borrowed some 'credits' from opening Diversey early, hehe). The station serves not only a major trip generator and work destination (the hospital) but also is very highly utilized by the surrounding residential neighborhood. The rail transit mode share of people who live near the Diversey, Wellington, and Belmont stops is the envy of any other transit agency in the country. If CTA were building a transit line from scratch it would make sense to bypass Wellington, but not when the existing neighborhood has largely developed around it.

^^Have you physically seen what they did to it? No other station was demolished like that one. Of course we are speculating here, because it could have been the one that was in the worse shape. But the budget crises just may be the excuse they need to not open it up in the next year or so. I think Masonic showed us how concerned they are about the neighborhood and mass transit by building that new garage right next to the el. Anyway...full of opinions...just my own.

Oct 11 - this is why they call it the green line.
http://lh4.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...090664_5_6.jpg

Oct 13 - working on Grand and State
http://lh6.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1090882.JPG

The friendly equipment
http://lh5.ggpht.com/harry.r.carmich...0/P1090905.JPG

I have been thinking about Wellington for weeks now!! I go by every day and EVERY aspect of that old station is entirely gone. Station house (even though it sucked), the overheads, platforms, and even all the old supports for the old station.

There's literally nothing there, and there hasn't been a worker on that site in many many months. Lately I've been completely convinced that they'll wait till people get use to going to Belmont and Diversey, then wait until all 4 tracks are restored in a few months and people are happy, and then sneak in around Christmas that Wellington is toast.

Absolutely no way it'll be open in March. It's been closed for 7 months and the last time anyone was working on that station was 6 months ago when they finished demolishing it all.

^I don't even see how they can build the east side of the platform, extending it to 8 cars in lengh, without ripping out down a building

The problem with the heat lamps I notice is that there are just not enough of them. I've stood on those platforms in the dead of winter and getting a spot underneath a heatlamp is like getting a spot behind home plate during the Cubs playoffs. Also from my experience it looks like there are more bus riders than there are train riders.

I hate to be a downer but this is a cold ass city, and it's very windy, it rains a lot, it's also beautiful a lot too. We all know that and it's cliche. But as far as transit we REALLY have to take this into account. We need to be realistic with our goals. The weather in Chicago is just not conducive to making transit as feasible as it is in Europe unless it is well planned and EXPENSIVE, since 90% of our transit system is above ground, exposed to what I can only describe as arctic conditions for months out of the year. It will be expensive to change that. The wind shields sound like a great start.

I used to live in London and would take transit every day, year round, and it was wonderful. The weather is much more mild and the stations are underground. In Chicago I am seriously taking my health into my own risk anywhere from November through March. It would be different if I had to take transit at high noon, but in the mornings it can get extremely cold. I can see a thousand sick people in a week as a doc and I won't get sick, but make me stand out in sub-zero degree weather for 30-45 minutes every day for a good week and I'll be done for, from my experience. Not good. So I drive instead, and stay warm.

which brings up an interesting thought...is the station being delayed to an eminent domain dispute? I have also been wondering about how/when they were going to do this station. It is "my" station, so to speak, so I'm waiting for it to re-open.

The one thing I'll note is that they have Wellington routed around where the station was in a seemingly "permanent" fashion. There are long-term looking barriers directing traffic into two very narrow lanes near the north end of the street and have even painted a yellow line divider for the new route. Looks like they are prepared for the road to be narrowed for the long term.

Taft

Fun time on the blue line this evening. Someone jumped in front of a southbound train at Montrose, which shut the southbound line down from Rosemont to Addison. I had to be out in Schaumburg this evening and then rode a shuttle to Rosemont. I hopped on the train there, only to wait 10 minutes before someone with the CTA said they had some shuttles down stairs for those needing them. I'm thinking what the fuck??? They didn't give any reason or information that the southbound line had been shut down. So I, and about 75% of the riders, remained on the train until finally a CTA worker said that someone had jumped in front a train at one of the stations and that we all had to take the shuttles. The communication was rather poor. So I hopped on a shuttle that took forever to finally get to my stop at Addison where I then switched to the 152 to head home to Lakeview. When someone jumps in front of a train, it seems to absolutely cripple a line. I guess single tracking wasn't an option between Jefferson Park and Irving Park because they can't just shut off the electricity in that isolated section in & around Montrose?

So in only 10 minutes CTA had shuttles for you and announced they were available? And 75% of the riders didn't take the hint????? 10 minutes is very impressive to have not only an annoucement but actual buses there to continue the trip south. I would have been part of the 25% who got off....CTA fool me once shame on you fool me twice.

It's the lack of communication that was the problem. If I hadn't sat around waiting & wondering why we weren't moving, I wouldn't have complained on here. And others on the train had been waiting even longer without any information on why everything was stopped. Communication is key, and they failed at that. Think you can actually grasp the concept of good communication?

I had a really strange experience on the CTA today.

I got on at the Grand Red Line stop and was heading to my destination Belmont. The train flew the entire way. No slow downs, no stops, it even flew into the stations. Well if this is how things will be when the slow zones are finally fixed I'll die a happy person.

blue line re-reconstruction??
 

the blue line is 15mph between chicago and grand, inbound, and pretty slow for half the distance between grand and clark/lake as well. it wasn't like that 2 months ago (according to the slow zone map at transitchicago.com). anyone have a culprit to blame and whether a solution to that is in the works?

I noticed a sign tonight at Belmont and Fullerton that said the 2nd phase 3 tracking was running 6 months ahead of schedule and full rail service is expected to resume by the end of 2008. Could the CTA finally be getting its act together?

^^^ Those signs have been up for a couple months. But it is exciting to think about all four tracks being back up & running. It certainly looks to me like the Fullerton southbound outer tracks will be completed & opened first. So once that happens, my morning commute should be much more pleasant once we're past Belmont. As it is now, a purple or brown line train ahead of a red line train really slows things down because of the extra stop those two lines have to make at Diversey. But soon those delays should be a thing of the past! :banana:

CTA executed a contract change order for ~$2 million earlier this year to accelerate the structural and track portion of the work at Belmont/Fullerton by 6 months. It's ahead of original schedule because the schedule has changed :) The entire corridor should operate much more efficiently, quickly, and smoothly once trains aren't frequently criss-crossing between tracks. I have high hopes for reliving my childhood when the entire 4-track corridor was zippy...

They have been together as far as the 3 tracking went. Commutes became way smoother. Then they had it together by finally rushing to get the slow zones repaired......since Ron has been there things are getting together. Hope he continues with the changes.

Is there somewhere on the CTA's website where the say in advance whether the red line subway will be closed on a particular weekend? Or are they finally finished with closing it on weekends? I'm trying to figure out if it will be open the weekend of Nov. 7-9 when my parents are in town.

(I looked in the customer alerts section of the website, but it doesn't seem to give any information regarding red line weekend subway service until about a day or two before the service change goes into affect... they didn't close it this past weekend)

.can anyone tell me when the weekend track work on the O'Hare Blue is going to be complete ?

The customer alerts section on transitchicago.com is your best bet. I believe theyare done running the red line tracks on the elevated route. Now they are closing portions of the loop down on the weekends.

Weekend Red Line closures are finished. At this point, the only reroutes occur in one or both directions on Monday evenings. This should wrap up by the end of the year.

I think by Thanksgiving the weekend line cuts will be finished. Thanksgiving is also the target for completing the track replacement on the Lake and Wabash legs of the Loop. Wells and Van Buren track work will be done sometime in 2009.

....thanks a lot !!!

...why are they re-routing the Red on Monday nights ?

[QUOTE=VivaLFuego;3878648]Weekend Red Line closures are finished. At this point, the only reroutes occur in one or both directions on Monday evenings. This should wrap up by the end of the year./QUOTE]

Sweet. Thanks for the info! (and you too, ChicagoChicago)