CHICAGO: Transit Developments

[Baronvonellis]

Why get ride of the roll signs for the train cars? How do you tell what train line it is if you don't happen to see the very front of the train if you are running to catch it?

[Taft]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Why get ride of the roll signs for the train cars? How do you tell what train line it is if you don't happen to see the very front of the train if you are running to catch it?

That was exactly my thought: how do you tell if you can't see the front? I'm guessing they must have some solution for this.

[Chicago Shawn]

^I'm sure the cars will have digital signs in place of the roller curtains. You can see one on the front of that 5000 series photo.

You can also familiarize yourself with the marker lights on a approaching train as I have. The top set of 8 lights on the front of each train has a distinct pair of illuminated lights to identify where the train will be terminating on each line. This has been done since the 1940's to let the tower operators know in advance which way to through the switches.

RED LINE
Double Yellow- Howard, Dan Ryan
Red, White- Roosevelt, Wilson

GREEN LINE
Double Yellow- Harlem/Lake, Ashland/63
Double Green- 63rd/Cottage Grove
Green, White- to Loop only

BROWN LINE
Green, Red- Kimball to Loop
Red, Yellow- Belmont

ORANGE LINE
Red, Yellow

PINK LINE
Red, White

YELLOW LINE
Double Red

PURPLE LINE
Double White- Linden to Loop
Yellow, Red- to Howard only

BLUE LINE
Double Yellow- O'Hare, Forest Park
Double White- Jefferson Park, Belmont/Kimball, UIC-Halsted
Double Green- Former runs to 54/Cermak

Run in Express Mode..
Flashing Double White

Extra readings
Double White for out of service and lay ups
Double Green for the CTA logos

For more info on marker lights check out http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...s/markers.html

[Taft]

Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn

...
You can also familiarize yourself with the marker lights on a approaching train as I have. The top set of 8 lights on the front of each train has a distinct pair of illuminated lights to identify where the train will be terminating on each line. This has been done since the 1940's to let the tower operators know in advance which way to through the switches.
...

Great info, Shawn! Thanks.

I'll have to squint a little less every time I look down the tracks and wonder, "is that a Brown Line train or a Purple Line train." They are nearly indistinguishable from a distance (to me, anyway).

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Taft

That was exactly my thought: how do you tell if you can't see the front? I'm guessing they must have some solution for this.

If you look closely in the photo, you can also see a large blue circle with "cta" written inside of it, on the side of the car. Currently, you can't really tell what kind of train is coming if you look down the tracks (a big deal at Loop stations) so this solves that problem without requiring riders to memorize the marker lights.

The cars have LED destination signs, but they do not have colors, just amber lights that spell out the terminal. It sort of defeats the whole purpose of colored lines, especially for people unfamiliar with the line terminals that try to board at a transfer station.

Colored LED signs are more expensive than one-color signs, but I don't know why they couldn't do what WMATA does and install a small colored LED on either side of the one-color sign that displays the line color. WMATA's LED signs also spell out the line color, i.e. they will display the word "YELLOW" or "RED", etc. Of course, they also have the next-train countdown signs in all stations that allow riders to know the destination, as well as audio announcements.

These are testing cars, so I'm hoping that CTA makes changes to the final order (colored LEDs) before Bombardier begins mass production.

[2PRUROCKS!]

When Titian put up the LCD monitors in some stations that display ads they were also supposed to give info on when the next train would arrive. I have not seen the time on the next trains arrival for awhile, anyone know what is going on with this? This is a very nice feature that I really liked at many of the train stations I used in Europe.

[Mr Downtown]

Traintracker is in beta, but there apparently are some stubborn problems with track blocks near terminals.

[VivaLFuego]

^ It's not just the signal system, which apparently is mostly reliable at this point with only a few exceptions - there were also some basic network technology issues that weren't adequately worked out before the LCD display project was rolled out in typical Huberman-esque fashion (i.e. rushed to get the newspaper headline with approximately zero thought put into the actual project execution from a technical or financial standpoint). Train location data has to be fed from CTA's control center to Titan's own servers that distribute the advertising content to the displays, and apparently somewhere in that data flow there was too much unreliability and delay.

Why it has taken months (and counting) to work these issues out is a very good question with no official answer.

[the urban politician]

According to Crain's, the CTA is re-applying for that $150 million BRT grant that they lost last year.

Sorry, too lazy to post the article...

[BrennanW]

God I hate BRT. Is there any plan to eventually convert it to LRT after its built? (If CTA does get the grant, that is)

[emathias]

Originally Posted by BrennanW

God I hate BRT. Is there any plan to eventually convert it to LRT after its built? (If CTA does get the grant, that is)

It would be street-running BRT, so I both think and hope they wouldn't convert it to LRT, as LRT running in traffic is slower than even local buses.

[pip]

All my bitching about the service cuts and I don't even notice a difference from before. I don't own a car so the CTA is my means of getting around except a cab here and there. I am on the CTA almost everyday and so far to me nothing has changed. Thus certainly were some targeted cuts.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by pip

All my bitching about the service cuts and I don't even notice a difference from before. I don't own a car so the CTA is my means of getting around except a cab here and there. I am on the CTA almost everyday and so far to me nothing has changed. Thus certainly were some targeted cuts.

I've noticed less frequent buses in the morning and evenings. Enough that I've taken a few more taxis, but not enough for me to stop taking buses at all.

[a chicago bearcat]

Originally Posted by BrennanW

I saw it at O'hare over spring break. All I have to say is "Helvetica strikes again!"

Helvetica bashing? you must be a graphic designer

[Nowhereman1280]

My favorite bus, the 147, has had some nasty shortening of its schedule. It only runs til like 930 on weekdays now. Also its only until 11 or so on weekends. Thats a real shame seeing as how its probably the most useful bus in the entire city when it comes to the number of miles you travel in one trip and the time it takes. I would argue that the 147 is the most bang for your buck out of all means of public transportation. I mean RP and Edgewater are like 30-45 min from downtown by train. The 147 is like 10 min to downtown from my apt (6 miles!) during off peak hours.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Traintracker is in beta, but there apparently are some stubborn problems with track blocks near terminals.

Couldn't they provide a fairly accurate system based on the same GPS system that the buses use? If it is problematic to get information from the signal system, then just ignore the signal system and install relatively inexpensive GPS devices in each linked-pair of railcars.

[Mr Downtown]

^How would you get GPS signal in the subways? Or on the Loop, between tall buildings?

[the urban politician]

We all talk a lot about TOD here, but there is one repeat offender that rarely gets mentioned:

That little Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts combo thingy.

Yeah 5 story condo/apt buildings next to train stops is ideal, but it's kind of hard to achieve that in this market, and it sets a shitty precedent that near a handful of north side L stops you'll see one of those BR/DD strip mall combos, newly built, in place. If the city has worked with grocers and Walgreens/CVS to improve their design, why don't they go after these little guys as well? They're all over the city with their little suburban stores and accompanying drive thru. And right next to L stops, to boot.

It's not the biggest thing in the world for the city to tackle, but I"m kind of wondering if there is anyone in the Planning/Zoning Dept that has tried to get BR/DD to at least make their design more pedestrian-oriented, especially adjacent to a transit stop? Because from the way I'm looking at it, they are so far NOT getting the message.

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

^How would you get GPS signal in the subways? Or on the Loop, between tall buildings?

Well when it gets to parts of the system that don't have GPS available it should be even easier. For example they could even use the cellphone receivers installed in the subway to tell exactly where the car is. The receivers are installed at equal increments so they could just install essentially a cell phone onto each car that would tell which antenna its closest too and then just send the location of that antenna to the traintracker system. When above ground they could just have the traintracker system triangulate the location of the car, or not even since the train travels along a fixed route, you have no need for triangulation since you can only be moving in one possible direction so the subway technique would work well here too.

Also, I don't see how this is that challenging. I mean I've looked into the booth at Howard that shows all the switches and train locations. Their signaling technology clearly knows where every train is, how does TrainTracker not know it? If they had to they could just hook whatever that computer I see is up to the TrainTracker.

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280

My favorite bus, the 147, has had some nasty shortening of its schedule. It only runs til like 930 on weekdays now. Also its only until 11 or so on weekends. Thats a real shame seeing as how its probably the most useful bus in the entire city when it comes to the number of miles you travel in one trip and the time it takes. I would argue that the 147 is the most bang for your buck out of all means of public transportation. I mean RP and Edgewater are like 30-45 min from downtown by train. The 147 is like 10 min to downtown from my apt (6 miles!) during off peak hours.

Yes, the reductions in service span were generally the most impactful. Service frequency can trigger demand elasticity but only beyond a certain point - otherwise the frequency is just serving to meet demand according to a certain target vehicle load. To wit: rail ridership is still increasing on a year-over-year basis despite having had significant reductions in off-peak service.

Couldn't they provide a fairly accurate system based on the same GPS system that the buses use? If it is problematic to get information from the signal system, then just ignore the signal system and install relatively inexpensive GPS devices in each linked-pair of railcars.

GPS issues are part of it, though in theory not insurmountable (the bus system uses a combination of GPS, gyroscope, and odometer readings to determine the location in places where the GPS signal is poor or unreliable). I think there's also just a practical consideration of continually patching on new systems. The bus system is fully integrated: a driver sits down, punches in his ID and his run number, and the system automatically pulls up the correct route and schedule to tell him when to depart the terminal, calls out stops, tells him if he's early or late at time points, all while logging a full stream of vehicle location and passenger boarding data. In an ideal world railcars could have something similar, but ...

As with so many things, there are a number of ways to do it, and sometimes someone just needs to take complete ownership of the decision and dive in, for better or worse. Ron Huberman did that often at CTA in his short tenure, with mixed results - the rail arrival predictions is one example where his gusto hasn't worked out so well. On the flipside, the current architecture for Bus Tracker (tying into the aforementioned fully integrated bus data system) was basically Frank Kruesi's self-initiated baby, and the product has turned out well by most measures, so I consider the comparison an instructive lesson comparing the outcomes of taking the time to do it right versus rushing an implementation.