Quote:
Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
The O'hare branch of the Blue line is in a sorry state. The 'official' stance was that the inspectors (and ergo their managers) weren't doing their job which led to the derailment, and the subsequent discovery that the track was in much worse shape than thought (several were fired over that debacle). This was why a few miles of slow zones were added in one huge swoop last summer/fall. That said, I keep hearing murmurs that there's a plan to replace all the ties in both subways and that this is starting any day now, but haven't actually seen movement on this (I think this was rolled into the contract for the trackwork for Block 37 which has already been awarded). As far as I'm concerned eliminating the slow zones in both Red and Blue subways is vital before starting the 3-tracking project on the north side. And just in general, the O'hare line needs to get fixed out west of Jeff Park....travel times of nearly 55+ minutes between O'hare and downtown are inexcusable and make the flight-status displays getting installed at Clark/Lake kind of pointless. For reference, the scheduled travel time from O'hare to Clark/Lake, with A/B skip-stop service (i.e. around 12-15 years ago) was something like 38 minutes, compared to about 43 minutes making all stops, and now over 51 with all stops + slow zones.
Incidentally, about a year ago the red line was awfully slow and unreliable while the blue was a real treat, and I feel like now the tables have turned, since I actually feel confident taking the red line anywhere at any time again. That suggests there aren't nearly enough track repair workers to keep the whole system continuously maintained.
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Nope, not enough track workers at all. The only stretch of slow zones being worked on the Blue Line is inside the subway tunnels. The CTA should have bugeted for another track crew when asking the state for another bailout, which they did not do. I expressed my displeasure with that decsion in person last year durring the budget hearings. Even if the money for fixing system was given out tommorow, we would all still be looking at at least 1-2 years of further disruptions to fix the system. My patience with the Blue Line is now razor thin, 4 times with the last two weeks my door to door commute has been 120 minutes or longer! Yesterday's equipment failure had me siting on a stationary train for 35 minutes, in addition to my normal commute.
Oh, and can we do away with the pointless security sweeps please. These only work to further delay a now chronically slow train.