Why I have a blog

People often ask me why I have a blog. Why would I want to have my name and picture out there for people to take pot shots at? Am I crazy?

Well no, I’m not crazy (at least I don’t think I am -- except for maybe agreeing to take this position), and personal pot shots bother me just like they bother anybody.

I have a blog because I want to hear directly from CTA customers. I want to know how we’re doing, how we’re screwing up, what we do well, and how we can improve service. And here’s an example of how a blog helps me do that.

On Tuesday morning, July 19, customer Tim Noworyta clicked on the “Ask Carole” button on my blog and emailed me a serious concern: dangerous overcrowding conditions at the Grand Avenue station on the Red line, especially on Cubs game days and other peak travel times. I looked into the ridership, and Tim's right -- ridership at that station has almost doubled in the last ten years. Increased ridership is a great thing, but overcrowding is not. Tim suggested three things to improve the situation: add turnstiles, add another ticket machine, move a trash can.

I read the email immediately and staff responded that day to Tim, thanking him for his suggestions and organizing an internal meeting to address the problem. Every other CTA board member received a copy of Tim’s concerns.

Staff got right on it. Their goal was to get it done in time for the crowds at the Air and Water Show last weekend. And they did it. By Friday, August 19, three new turnstiles were added, another ticket machine was installed, and the trash can was moved a bit outside of the traffic flow. The Grand Avenue station is now more equipped to handle those peak times.

So I want to thank Tim for alerting me to the problem, and I want to thank CTA Technology Vice-President John Flynn, Revenue Equipment General Manager Luis Cantu, and Facilities Vice President Mark Maloney for expediting the station installations. Good job by all!

Oh, and by the way, on July 19, Tim had cc’d his letter to the Chicago Sun Times. The Sun Times got around to printing his letter on August 23, after all of the work at the station had been completed. Maybe I’ll just let that one go by without further comment.

Slow zones

Several folks have asked about "slow zones" on our rail system -- what, why, and where.

WHAT: Slow zones are any section of track where the maximum allowable train speed has been reduced to 15, 25, 35 mph from a higher speed.

WHY: The top three factors that lead to slow zones on the CTA rail system include:

• Defective Track (i.e. bad rail ties, worn track, uneven ballast etc.)
• Structural Problems (i.e. Purple bridges/viaducts; span replacements, deteriorated foundations)
• Construction (Red, Brown rehabs). With workers on the tracks, trains reduce speed for safety.
  

WHERE: This map (PDF) shows non-construction slow zones throughout the system as of late July. Construction slow zones, especially now on the Red and Brown lines, vary by day. To answer a specific question posed here earlier, there is 18,710 feet of slow zone track between Thorndale and Lake Street southbound on the Red Line -- 4210 feet at 15mph, 7600 feet at 25mph and 6900 feet at 35mph.

Obviously slow zones increase travel time for our customers and increase CTA's operating costs. As you can see from the map, however, there is a direct correlation between the capital improvement initiatives CTA has undertaken to bring its system a state of good repair and the decrease in slow zones on its rail system. The older the infrastructure, the more slow zones we have. For example,

• The Cermak/Douglas Blue Line used to be more than 40% slow zones, with the completion of the nearly half-billion dollar reconstruction project that number is now ZERO, and travel times have been slashed by 15 minutes or more.
• The Green Line reconstruction eliminated slow zones on the Lake Street branch.
• The Yellow Line 3rd rail conversion project eliminated slow zones.
• CTA's newest line, the Orange Line, has no slow zones.
• The Dan Ryan Red Line and Brown Line projects also will eliminate those slow zones.
  

Overall, we have identified funding to eliminate about 90% of CTA's slow zones (including all Red Line slow zones) and we're moving forward with repairs. The new federal transportation law signed by President Bush this week includes a significant increase in federal capital formula funding that we hope will accelerate these types of improvements. As I have noted previously, the next step is to secure non-federal matching funds to ensure that Metra, Pace, and CTA can qualify for these much-needed federal dollars.

Service disruptions

I’ve heard from a lot of customers who are pretty annoyed with how CTA communicates with customers when service is disrupted. With heightened security awareness, as well as a recent spike in other external disruptions to service, this has become a bigger issue.

One of the most important things we can do is to provide customers with timely, accurate information about their service. That’s true all of the time, but especially when the normal routine is disrupted.

During service disruptions in recent weeks, many customers have said that announcements were not made at your station, or that they were inaudible. Others have expressed chagrin that CTA personnel you passed did not inform you of a service disruption before you entered a station.

We also get many compliments for employees who handle these incidents well, especially the ones who have calmly and professionally led the evacuation of a train or a station. (Thanks to those of you who provided specifics for both good and bad incidents – I try to make sure we take appropriate action in each case).

Right now, I’m looking into the quality of our sound-system; training and procedures for our operators, customer assistants, and control center staff; and better and more frequent pre-recorded service disruption announcements.
We are in the process of upgrading our communications infrastructure throughout the rail system, which will certainly help. At the last CTA board meeting we approved a $31 million contract to expand our fiber optic network. This is a costly and time consuming process, but we are moving as fast as we can with the resources available to us. I have also asked CTA to explore creative ways to disseminate information about service directly to customers via email or phone in the same way airlines do.

One final point: we can and will increase the frequency and clarity of customer communication, but there will continue to be times when we simply don’t know how long a disruption will last or can’t say what the cause is. See my earlier post and comments with more details on this challenge.Please keep me updated on how we’re doing. We’ve asked you to talk to us about suspicious activity, and we owe it to you to do a better job of communicating how we’re responding to such threats and other service disruptions.

Capital $$: One down, one to go

A big thank you to our Congressional delegation, including Speaker Hastert and Senators Obama and Durbin, for their help in the recent passage of the federal transportation bill. When signed by the President, this legislation will provide Illinois with a 33 percent increase in capital funds as compared to the last federal transportation bill ($927 million vs. $1.236 billion).

Capital funds for construction, maintenance, and vehicles should be distinguished from operating funds, which pay for day-to-day service costs such as fuel and bus and rail operators. Since the federal government no longer provides operating funds, CTA operations are funded solely through regional sales taxes and fares. Most of the last year's public discussion transit funding has focused on operating funds, but capital funds are equally important.

We at CTA are extremely grateful for our Congressional delegation’s hard work (this bill took almost three years to pass!) in prioritizing major mass transit projects, including expansion of CTA service to include the Circle Line, an extension of the Red Line south to 130th Street, an extension of the Yellow Line northwest to Old Orchard Mall, and the Orange Line to Ford City Mall. There are also dollars programmed for maintenance of existing CTA capital assets, and the purchase of new rail cars and buses.

The federal bill authorizes these projects to receive funding, but to actually get an appropriation (i.e., cash) the Federal Transit Administration requires both a competitive grant application and a local “match”. When the last federal bill passed the Illinois General Assembly and the Governor came to the table with their own state capital funding program, Illinois FIRST, to match the federal dollars. The strong state funding helped make our projects competitive. To date, there is no equivalent program to ensure that we can qualify for these federal funds. Nonetheless, I’m hopeful that our state elected officials will create a matching capital program so CTA, Metra and Pace can build these projects. As Jim LaBelle of Chicago Metropolis 2020 said, “the federal funding tosses down the gauntlet for the state and the region to create a solid funding formula as early as the fall legislative session.”

Metra, Pace and CTA will use these critical federal funds to keep their systems running and deliver the expanded and improved infrastructure developments that passengers need. The opportunity to get a matching state capital plan will be there: the federal funds are scheduled to begin flowing on October 1, 2005, just before the General Assembly returns to Springfield for the fall veto session on October 25.

For capital projects, it's one down, and one to go...