WBEZ | Chicago Transit Authority

South Red Line closures just around the corner

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:04:00 -0500

The South branch of the Red Line closes Sunday for five months while it undergoes renovation. Chicago Transit Authority officials say nine stops, also known as the Dan Ryan branch, are in desperate need of repair. The CTA will provide a few backup solutions for the more than 80,000 people who ride each weekday. Other groups like PACE, Metra - even the White Sox franchise - are also lending a hand.

Starting Sunday, service will be shut down between 95th/Dan Ryan and Cermak-Chinatown. According to CTA spokesman Brian Steele, construction crews will rip everything up -- like ties, rails and ballasts - and rebuild the tracks and all but one of the train stations. Steele says the 95th/Dan Ryan stop is scheduled to receive a separate facelift beginning in the first half of 2014.

“Remember that the Red Line South opened in September of 1969, just two months after Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon,” Steele said. “It’s seen, literally, millions of train trips in that time, and has really served the CTA well.

Steele says the Red Line has been patched and fixed over the years, but it’s to the point where the only way to ensure effective operation of the line is to completely rebuild it.

That’s going to take some time - five months, to be exact. Steele says they looked at other options, like closing down only on the weekends, for example, but he says the five-month plan was the most efficient and cost-effective way to complete the project. Steele says once completed, the trackwork will provide faster and more reliable service.

To ease riders’ headaches, the CTA will provide a number of backup options. The CTA website has been upgraded with a trip planner that calculates rerouted directions for commuters. CTA is also offering express buses from four of the closed Red Line stations (95th/Dan Ryan, 87th, 79th and 69th) that will go directly to the Green Line Garfield station. Steele said Green Line service and local bus routes will also provide additional service during peak times.

For riders who think Metra or Pace might be the best option, the three transit agencies are offering a joint fare pass. Riders can buy the cards at stores like CVS or Walgreens. They provide five days of unlimited rides on CTA/Pace and 10 rides on the Metra. The cost of the pass depends on which Metra zone the rider travels to and from.

According to Metra spokesman Michael Gillis, the agency isn’t expecting an influx of riders during the Red Line closures, but says there will certainly be a “settling-in period” as riders figure out which new route works best.

Even the White Sox are chipping in to help potentially disgruntled commuters, as the Sox/35th stop is one of the stops getting a makeover. The team is offering fans discounts on some tickets to the May 20th, 21st and 22nd games against the Boston Red Sox.

Lauren Chooljian is WBEZ’s Morning Producer/Reporter. Follow her @laurenchooljian

Bus rapid transit to ‘maximize potential’ of Ashland Avenue

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 08:14:00 -0500

The first phase of a closely watched Chicago bus project would “maximize street potential” along more than five miles of Ashland Avenue for about $50 million, city officials announced Friday.

The project would establish bus rapid transit (BRT) along that congested artery from 31st Place to Cortland Avenue. The city will study possible extensions stretching as far south as 95th Street and as far north as Irving Park Road, according to a statement from the Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Department of Transportation.

“Bus rapid transit is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to expand and modernize our city’s transit network for the 21st century,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in the statement. “We will work with our local communities to best determine how to maximize the positive impacts BRT would provide to riders, while boosting local economic development and improving quality of life for all city residents.”

WBEZ revealed the Ashland route and the project’s key design elements in January. The buses would have a lane to themselves on both sides of a landscaped median. Traffic signals at some intersections would favor the buses. Passengers would board from platforms a half-mile apart. Parking would remain on both sides.

The statement says the design would “allow the potential” for off-board fare collection, a feature that averts delays from collecting fares in bus doorways. A new CTA video (above) shows that payment taking place at kiosks on station platforms.

Cars and trucks would have just one lane in each direction — a plan that has sparked opposition from some business groups along the route. City officials have responded that the project would slow automobiles and trucks just slightly and speed up bus service more than 80 percent during peak hours.

Transit experts say banning turns across bus lanes is the key BRT intersection treatment. The video renderings of reconfigured Ashland intersections do not show any left-turn lanes.

CTA spokeswoman Lambrini Lukidis confirmed Friday that the Ashland project will eliminate left turns from the avenue at some intersections. She said her agency is embarking on a study to help determine which ones.

The elimination of turns is another step that worries the business groups.

“Getting trucks around, where they might turn left into a loading dock now, they’ll have to obviously make three [right turns] to be able to do that,” said Benjamin Spies, a spokesman for the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago, which represents 430 member businesses in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor. “They’re concerned about what this would do to freight traffic.”

The Emanuel administration was also considering Western Avenue for the BRT line but has put that possibility on the back burner.

The initial Ashland phase, creating a 5.3-mile leg of the BRT route, would link several CTA and Metra lines. It would also improve transit service to the University of Illinois at Chicago, Malcolm X College, the United Center and a cluster of hospitals within the Illinois Medical District.

“One of the things that all of the hospitals talk to us about is a lack of parking,” Warren Ribley, the district’s executive director, said at a downtown roundtable promoting the BRT project. “They all have parking decks that are full. If you drive along Harrison or Congress on any given day, you can’t find a parking spot.”

“Public transportation is critical to the growth of the medical district,” Ribley said. “There is going to be growth. That’s why this is such an important proposal for us.”

Neighborhoods along the planned initial route include Bucktown, Noble Square, East Village, West Town, University Village and Pilsen. The CTA’s No. 9 bus, which runs on Ashland, in 2012 had 10 million boardings, the most of any Chicago route that year, according to the city.

The city’s statement says CHA and CDOT will “begin working with local stakeholders on developing a plan” for Ashland.

The project has potential to outshine a bus line in Cleveland, Ohio, that transit experts consider the most advanced BRT system in the United States. The Cleveland line includes 4.3 miles of dedicated bus lanes but also some features that slow down the service. Those include tightly spaced stations — about four per mile — and turns across the busway.

Ashland would not stack up to BRT lines in several other countries. The world’s most advanced bus system is TransMilenio in Bogotá, Colombia. That Andean city segregates 65 miles of busways from traffic using physical barriers and grade separations.

Chicago has studied BRT options in the Ashland and Western corridor using a $1.6 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Emanuel administration estimates that the project would cost about $10 million per mile. Lukidis, the CTA spokeswoman, said the city would count on further FTA funding for some of the Ashland construction.

Chicago is planning another BRT project in a 1.1-mile downtown corridor between Union Station and Millennium Park. The project, managed by CDOT, will include a new bus terminal next to the train station. A CDOT spokesman says the city is aiming to finalize the route design this December and finish construction by November 2014. The project’s funding includes $24.7 million from the FTA and $7.3 million in Chicago tax increment financing.

As the city unveiled the Ashland design elements, Emanuel prepared to join former President Bill Clinton at a Friday meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. Emanuel’s office described the topic as “innovative and cost-effective ways for cities to invest in local projects.”

Chip Mitchell is WBEZ’s West Side bureau reporter. Follow him on Twitter @ChipMitchell1 and @WBEZoutloud, and connect with him through Facebook and LinkedIn.

When you could ride an ‘L’ train to your grave

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:14:00 -0600

What’s the history behind the “L” funeral train cars, and which cemeteries did they go to?

Stephen Libbin of Highland Park says he asked this question out of a basic love of trains and their history. He’s a lifelong railfan, and at age 70, he’s got a model train set in his basement. He recently read a book about the “L” that mentioned funeral cars, and he wanted to know more. So he called us.

Fair enough. But lots of other people were interested too. We put this up for a vote, against questions about training for Zamboni drivers and definitions for hipsters, and this — the most macabre choice — won by a landslide.

That’s probably because to most of us, the question itself presents kind of a mystery: The idea of riding the “L” to your funeral sounds surreal.

To get at that mystery, the biggest clue is this: We’re talking about a hundred-some years ago.

At that point, mass transit was a cool, ultra-modern luxury. Think: Your iPhone. It connects you to everything, allows you to be everywhere at once, if not instantly, pretty darned close. The technology’s basic function is connection, and in almost any situation, there’s an app for that.

Which pretty much describes trains — especially the “L” and streetcars — a hundred years ago. The roads sucked, and practically nobody used them. Owning a horse — never mind a car — was kind of like owning a jet.

The “L” — and streetcars, and other urban trains — made it possible to get from here to there without literally taking all day to do it.

And it was a huge business.

Which is the other thing about the train as iPhone: We think of mass transit as a public utility, run and supported by the government, but back then, trains of all kinds constituted a high-tech industry that made every other business work.

So the train operators were competitors looking to make a buck any way they could by offering something the other guy didn't.

So, funerals? Yeah, there's an app for that. Or, there was.

When mourners and the deceased rode together ... in style

Before I deliver the nitty-gritty about the funeral cars themselves, though, you should know about the role trains played in the development of the city’s neighborhoods and suburbs. According to historian Ann Durkin Keating, the best way to describe that role would be: Central. Huge.

As the co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Chicago, Durkin edited close to 300 entries on Chicago neighborhoods and surrounding suburbs, and she noticed a pattern in how these places got developed: Trains. (That observation became the topic of her next book, Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in the Railroad Age.) “Most of our neighborhoods and suburbs really go back to a rail stop,” she says.

And so did a lot of cemeteries. As the city got bigger, and land in the neighborhoods where a lot of people lived got harder to come by, cemeteries got pushed farther out. And that meant you needed a train to get to them.

“The cemeteries that are going to emerge in the late 19th- or early 20th century are going to be on the outskirts of the city,” Keating says, “and they’re going to wind up along rail lines or rapid-transit lines because that’s how people are going to get to them.”

And not just for funerals. Back in the day, going to visit the graves of your loved ones who had passed was a regular thing, especially on holidays like Decoration Day (now called Memorial Day).

And so, cemeteries had their own railway stations. Which is kind of cool. And they had amenities.

The railroad stop at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in the western suburbs, for example, actually had a restaurant built in.

At Calvary Cemetery, which sits along the lakefront just north of Howard Street between Chicago and Evanston, the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad built a special elevator to lower caskets down from the platform. Railfans also showed us diagrams from when the company added flush toilets to that station, around the turn of the 20th century.

So, the novelty about funeral cars wasn’t riding a train to the funeral. That’s just how people — living and dead — got to the cemetery; mourners rode in coaches, while the corpse hitched a ride in a baggage car.

The big innovation, and what relates directly to our question, was the design of special cars that had room for both mourners and the deceased to ride in style.

The innovator here was the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway, which survives today as the Blue Line. In 1905 the company put out a brochure offering this new service to Concordia and Waldheim cemeteries in the western suburbs.

Here’s a quote: “We believe that this saving in time and the comfort and elegance offered by the rapid, smooth running of a high-class electric car ... will appeal to those now accustomed to the tedious and uncomfortable method of reaching these cemeteries by carriage.”

As the language here suggests, this kind of elegance didn’t come cheap. It cost 30 bucks, which translates to almost $700 in today’s dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

From the outside the car itself looked a lot like a regular train car, with wood paneling painted brown. But it had a special door to slide the casket in, stained glass windows, and, on the inside, dark green carpet on the floor, with seats for 34 mourners. (Another 11 could strap-hang, or you could hire a second coach for another ten bucks.)

The next year, a neighboring competitor — the Aurora Chicago and Elgin Railway — created a copycat service to nearby Mt. Carmel Cemetery.

And then the two companies actually teamed up, sharing cars and equipment. Eventually, they had four or more cars running.

I mean, this was a hit. Local railroad historian Bruce Moffat says that by 1907 the two companies were serving an average of 22 funerals a week. That’s just over 1,200 funerals a year.

By the 1930s, things had changed. Henry Ford’s Model T made cars more affordable, roads got better, and even if the mourners were going to ride a train to the cemetery, they could put the body in a hearse. Funeral cars had just 28 gigs in 1932, and just 11 the following year. The last funeral car ran in 1934.

Railroad history, preserved: Lovingly — but not quite perfectly.

Now, there’s a question of how we can possibly know all this, and it’s thanks to Bruce Moffat and his brethren, the railfans. They keep these unbelievably detailed and loving archives of how the railroads used to be, including all kinds of original artifacts and records from the files of the railway companies themselves.

It’s like: Imagine if in a hundred years, we’re all communicating by telepathy, but a few people like remembering how people lived back in the early 21st century, when we carried these iPhone things in our pockets — and there’s this band of people keeping meticulous files, with copies of the users guide from the first iPhone, and photographs from the opening day of the store at North and Clybourn in Chicago, and archived blog posts showing how the very first version of Angry Birds might have differed from what came later.

And that describes railfans who keep these wonderfully obsessive records of everything they can find about the history of railroads. It reminds me a little of medieval monks who preserved the remnants of Western Civilization, copying out scripture and Aristotle and whatever fell to them to preserve, for a thousand years.

And each order had its own very specific archive that it maintained. And some things did get lost.

So, for instance, when I took this assignment, I got interested in what looks like it used to be a rail stop at Graceland Cemetery, along the “L.” Just north of Montrose, you can see some tracks that look like they used to go there, and they just end.

I showed it to my son — he’s four, he loves trains — and told him I was going to find out what happened to the tracks. He loved the idea.

But I never did find out.

Bruce Moffat spent and hour with me and showed me all these incredible pictures, and the facsimile of the original brochure for funeral-car service. And at the end of the hour, I asked, “Well, hey, what about those tracks on the North Side?”

And he said he really didn’t know. Not his area. Literally.

“There’s a Chicago and North Western Historical Society,” he said. “You could ask them.”

And I did. Curious City’s Logan Jaffe and I went out to visit their headquarters in Berwyn, which is this incredible warren of activity. And stuff. There are thousands upon thousands of maps, and file cards, and records of all kinds. People write to them all the time with questions like, “My grandpa worked on the railroad. Can you tell me about what he did?”

And they can. And they do.

You have to look at Logan’s video here, to appreciate what goes on.

They showed us all these artifacts of the rail stops at Calvary Cemetery and Rose Hill Cemetery — including maps that no one had touched for a hundred years — and they made us the gift of a timetable from the 1950s, showing that even as late as the 1950s, the train was still stopping at Rose Hill Cemetery, and Calvary Cemetery, and Culyer Cemetery. They didn’t stop until 1959.

And I said, “Great, thank you so much. And what about Graceland Cemetery?”

And they said they really didn’t know. Just not their area. Literally.

Turns out, what’s now the Red Line was a different railroad. There is a separate society that tracks the line it was on, but nobody there seems to have taken this question up.

So, Stephen Libbin, I hope we’ve answered your question about the funeral cars on the “L” trains.

But, to my four year-old: I’m sorry, son. I came up empty.

Correction: This story originally misstated how much a funeral car would cost in today's (2013) dollars. The correct figure amounts to nearly $700.

How we reported this story: Dan Weissmann's notebook

Chicago planners push boldest bus-rapid-transit option

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:52:00 -0600

To create a state-of-the-art bus line, Chicago transit leaders and urban planners have coalesced behind a design that would limit left turns and remove a traffic lane on each side of Ashland Avenue, a busy thoroughfare that connects both upscale and low-income neighborhoods to a cluster of hospitals at the city’s center.

Now the bus-rapid-transit plan must survive political vetting by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office. Emanuel, a professed BRT supporter, could face a storm of criticism from business owners and motorists who want no part in one of the country’s most ambitious bus projects. The mayor’s office could order the preservation of all existing Ashland traffic lanes and kill plans to run the buses in lanes along the avenue’s center — a feature vital for trimming travel times.

Officials say the design backed by the city’s planners would transform at least 4.5 miles of Ashland, stretching from the “Ashland” station of the Chicago Transit Authority’s Orange Line to the “Division” station of the CTA’s Blue Line. That route would extend further north and south when, if ever, the city secured funding. A proposal for BRT along nearby Western Avenue would go on the back burner.

The Ashland plan has the backing of planning and policy directors in the CTA, the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Chicago Department of Housing and Economic Development, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Some Chicago business owners along the route are already voicing worries about BRT, particularly about eliminating non-bus lanes. “The idea of cutting the traffic capacity in half has caused a lot of questions for businesses and property owners,” said Roger Romanelli, executive director of the Randolph/Fulton Market Association.

City officials respond that their BRT plan would slow automobiles just slightly and speed up buses dramatically. The city says the new bus service would be up to 80 percent faster than today’s service.

Other questions concern the left turns. Romanelli said business owners are wondering how limiting them “would economically impact businesses, truck deliveries, residents moving east-west, coming from shopping.”

City officials say they must remove some left turns to keep the buses moving fast and protect pedestrians.

Asked whether Emanuel was behind the plan and whether he would stick behind it if business owners revolted, his office had little to say. “All of this is still under review,” Tom Alexander, a mayoral spokesman, wrote in an email message to WBEZ.

In November, Romanelli’s group helped form the Ashland Avenue-Western Avenue Coalition to give some area businesses a greater voice in the BRT planning. The coalition’s other members include the Near West Side Community Development Corporation, the Near West Side Chamber of Commerce, the West Town Chamber of Commerce, and a business group called the West Central Association.

Last week coalition members met with city officials and area aldermen about the project. The officials said the city had made no final decision on the design.

The design favored by the Chicago planners resembles the boldest of four BRT alternatives the city presented last fall for the corridor. Each direction of Ashland would have one regular traffic lane and, near the middle of the avenue, a bus-only lane.

In each direction, the design leaves a parking lane next to the sidewalk, city officials say. There would be no bike lanes.

Several features would distinguish the project from a new express line along the South Side’s Jeffery Boulevard that began in November. Ashland’s inside lanes would be dedicated to the buses around-the-clock, not just during rush hours. For quick boarding, the route would include station platforms and extra-wide bus doors. Those doors would be on the left side of the buses. Passengers would pay before boarding or the city would find fare-card readers that would be almost as quick.

Like the Jeffery line, the Ashland route would include traffic lights rigged to favor the buses and station enhancements such as bike racks and electronic bus-tracking signs. Like the Jeffery bus stops, the Ashland stations would be limited to roughly every half mile.

The Ashland route would include a landscaped median, according to a city staffer familiar with the plan. The CTA said last fall it had decided against narrowing the avenue’s sidewalks.

The CTA’s No. 9 bus, which runs on Ashland Avenue, in 2011 had 10 million boardings, the second most of any Chicago route that year, according to a city web page.

An advantage of building BRT on Ashland instead of Western, city officials say, is closer proximity to the Illinois Medical District, which includes Rush University Medical Center, the University of Illinois Medical Center, the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and Cook County’s John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital.

The city has studied the Ashland and Western options using a $1.6 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. The city has not arranged construction funding.

A much shorter BRT line is scheduled for construction next year. That route will cross Chicago’s Loop and include a new bus terminal at Union Station, a train depot. The project’s funding includes $24.6 million from the FTA and $7.3 million in city tax increment financing.

CTA awards contract for Red Line South reconstruction

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:46:00 -0600

Updated Nov. 15, 9:40 a.m.

The Chicago Transit Board awarded the contract for its biggest reconstruction project on Wednesday.

F. H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen and Associates, LLC will rebuild the Red Line South from Cermak-Chinatown to 95th Street. With an estimated budget of $425 million, plans include improving stations, tracks and ties, drainage systems and more.

“We are looking forward to providing our south Red Line customers with improved stations that are cleaner, brighter and better than they have been in years,” Chicago Transit Authority President Forrest Claypool said in a press release. “From cosmetic improvements and repairs to more substantial upgrades, like three new elevators at the Garfield, 63rd and 87th street stations, we are committed to giving our customers a new south Red Line experience.”

More than $1 billion in federal, state and local funds are being invested in these improvements, according to the CTA.

Paschen—the general contracting firm awarded the CTA contract—not only put in the lowest bid, it participates in the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program. Forty percent of its subcontractors qualify as a disadvantaged business, a goal CTA wanted to meet.

A little more than $17.5 million—or about 40 percent—of the total contract goes to the subcontractors for their work, according to the CTA’s press release. Furthermore, of that 40 percent, 92.2 percent of the money will go to African-American firms, 7.8 percent to Hispanic firms and 6 percent to women-owned firms.

The CTA also announced its streamlined system for bus parts and plan to rehab 60 percent of its bus fleet.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the percentage of the CTA contract that goes to the subcontractors.

BRT designs for Western, Ashland avenues start to take shape

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 01:28:00 -0500

Chicago officials say they have decided to leave at least one parking lane on both possible routes of the city’s most ambitious bus project. The officials say they have also ruled out narrowing sidewalks along those routes.

The details emerged Tuesday night at the first of three public meetings the Chicago Transit Authority is holding this week to unveil design alternatives for “bus rapid transit” along 21 miles of both Ashland and Western avenues.

All designs the city says it’s considering for the corridor include around-the-clock dedicated lanes for the buses and pre-boarding fare collection. Those features would distinguish the project from an express line the city started building along the South Side’s Jeffery Boulevard in August. That service, called “The Jeffrey Jump,” is set to start early next month.

The Ashland and Western routes would also include traffic lights rigged to favor the buses and station enhancements such as bike racks and electronic bus-tracking signs.

But CTA and Chicago Department of Transportation officials say they have yet to decide on a range of features that would shave travel times for riders. Those include station platforms and buses equipped with extra-wide doors for quick boarding.

Other big questions concern whether to put the bus lanes down the middle of the avenues or along the sides, whether each side would have one non-bus travel lane or two, whether to keep parking on both sides, whether to reserve space for a landscaped median, and whether to limit left turns.

About three-dozen Chicago residents attended Tuesday’s session, held in a Humboldt Park church. The meeting included a brief slide show by Scott Kubly, a top CDOT official. “We’re looking at what happens if we remove a travel lane and we want to hear back from you all [about] how you perceive those impacts,” Kubly told them.

Fernando Benavides, a resident of the nearby Belmont Cragin neighborhood, said the plan to preserve at least one parking lane on each avenue was not enough. “Elimination of lanes for cars and parking, my God, that’s just going to create a lot of traffic,” he said.

Other residents voiced support for any steps to speed up transit service. New city estimates show the Ashland and Western buses averaging as fast as 16-18 miles per hour, almost rivaling CTA Red Line trains, which would average 21 miles per hour if slow zones were repaired. The BRT lines would run between Howard Street on the north and 95th Street on the south.

The other two meetings are set for Wednesday at Lindblom Math and Science Academy, 6130 S. Wolcott Ave., and Thursday at Lane Tech College Prep High School, 2501 W. Addison St. Both will take place at 5:30 p.m.

Officials say they will present final decisions on the design alternatives this winter. The city is studying the alternatives using a $1.6 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Construction would depend on further federal funding.

Rahm and the CTA haunted by selective memories

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Lead story: Tuesday night was the big first night at the Democratic National Convention with first lady Michelle Obama, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro getting the headlines for their impassioned (and in Patrick’s case, fiery) speeches. But a trio of Illinois leaders took to the stage as well, and all three made an impression — though not quite what we could have expected. The usually milquetoast Gov. Pat Quinn must have drawn the short straw in the “who is the attack dog” lottery because he came out firing at the Romney campaign with a show of spirit Illinois residents have seen, well, never. That Tammy Duckworth was well-received wasn’t a surprise but just how well-received was; the Iraq War vet garnered national attention for her excellent speech. (And let’s be honest, crazy uncle Rep. Joe Walsh: If anyone deserves to use his or her military service in campaigning, it’s Duckworth.)

Of course, all eyes in Chicago were on Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who took to the stage to assail the Romney campaign and herald a second term for Barack Obama while side-stepping inconvenient issues – like the spiraling violence and impending teachers strike – that await him at home. Tuesday I mentioned the hypocrisy between Rahm’s place in the party and his anti-union stance. That hypocrisy was underlined in Rahm’s speech, with repeated references to Obama’s support of the auto and steel industries, two very union-heavy industries, something that doesn’t jive at all with his anti-union stance with teachers. (This may help explain why Rahm is so popular with conservatives.) Between the anti-union stance, the tight ties to Washington and his disregard for doing things any way but his way, the current mayor is beginning to sound a whole hell of a lot like the old one.

Also: Remember when I pointed out that the CTA was trying to spray Febreze on its stink-pile of a “de-crowding plan”? Lots of people agreed and they made themselves heard at a public hearing Tuesday night. The hearing — the only one the CTA is holding on the matter, apparently in hopes no one will notice — was full of riders from around the city blasting the plan and the research the agency used to rationalize the cuts. Fewer riders defended the move to “de-crowd” rail and bus lines. But as I pointed out before, these “improvements” don’t even get services back to the level of pre-2010 cuts; instead, they actually take away routes. The CTA can bedazzle the plan all it wants, but underneath the spin, the plan is still just a crap sandwich being fed to commuters.

And then: The announcement that Steve Edwards is leaving WBEZ in two weeks is newsworthy, not only given where he's going (to join David Axelrod’s new Institute of Policy at the University of Chicago), but because of the radio void he’ll leave. (And, yes, I am completely biased, having made a few quick appearances on his current show, The Afternoon Shift.) He’ll certainly be missed on the radio but it’s hard not to feel good for him regarding his new position — it's well-deserved.

RIP: Former North Carolina congressman Charlie Rose, a Democrat and great defender of tobacco farmers, at the age of 73, from complications due to Parkinson’s disease. While Rose was far more liberal than some of his fellow party members from the South, he did break with the party over a proposed hike in the tobacco tax that would have funded the Clinton administration’s health care plan. He retired in 1996.

Elsewhere

Parti Quebecois, the separatist opposition party in the Canadian province, won enough seats last night to take control as a minority government. A victory speech, though, was marred by a shooting that left one dead.
The Pentagon is alleging that the book by ex-Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden contains classified information.
Ahead of his appearance tonight at the DNC, the New Yorker takes a look at how Bill Clinton’s relationship with President Obama has evolved.
McDonald’s is opening vegetarian locations in India, proving that it’s possible to make even vegetarian food grossly unhealthy.
Here’s a good example of how these public marriage proposals have gotten out of hand.

Looking ahead

Deliberations start today for the jurors in the Drew Peterson case, meaning we’re one step closer to this case dragging on for years to come.
A federal jury ruled in favor of former Cook County sheriffs who alleged they were fired by Tom Dart as retaliation for supporting Dart’s opponent in the 2006 election. “What about us?” wondered the ghosts of thousands of Machine opponents from the last 100 years.
To the surprise of no one, Mike Madigan is now pondering waiting until January 1 to shove through his pension reform plan without a single GOP vote because he’ll need fewer votes to do so then.
A new project likely means the end of two Rush Street bars, Jilly’s and The Back Room.
Some bummer news if you enjoy apple picking.

Sports

Notre Dame radio announcer Allen Pinkett has had his foot-in-mouth-induced suspension extended by two games.
Rejoice! Ozzie Guillen is back on Twitter.
Sox Watch: The Pale Hose caught a break last night, as a Detroit loss meant they wouldn’t give up any ground after being blasted 18-9 by the Twins.
The notion of Kevin Love on the Bulls is so delicious it makes me hate myself for entertaining the notion because it will only break my heart when it doesn’t happen.
U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Davis Love III (or as I call him, DL3), picked the final four players for the U.S. squad. The tourney happens the last weekend of September at Medinah Country Club in Medinah, Ill. (Yes, Tiger will be there.)

Finally

Proof that those carnival games aren’t rigged. You’re just really, really bad at them. [via The Daily What]

Some Chicago Public Schools students get financial help getting to school

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 13:16:00 -0500

For years many Chicago Public School students have had to deal with long and expensive daily commutes to school.

But a new pilot program announced Monday looks to give a few of them relief this year.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the program this morning alongside members of the Mikva Challenge Mayoral Youth Commission, a student group that works with the Mayor to suggest new ideas for the city. Emanuel said that 500 students spread equally among five high schools would be provided with free bus and train rides to school for the first half of the year. It’s part of a program to see if attendance rates are affected by the cost of transit.

The participating schools are Roberto Clemente Community Academy in West Town, Richards Career Academy in New City, Sullivan High School in Rogers Park, TEAM Englewood Community Academy High School in Englewood and Wells Community Academy High School in West Town.

In total, there are over 100,000 high school students enrolled in the CPS system, many of whom are enrolled in the student reduced fare card program.

As reported by WBEZ last December, for the past several years Wells had implemented their own program to combat increasing attendance programs, which they called the Transportation Incentive Program. 60 kids were given free fare cards for the 2011-12 school year, paid for out of the school’s discretionary funds; Wells reported that for that year, daily attendance for TIP program participants was 85 percent, three percent higher than the school average. The school also saw a 31 percent increase in attendance for those particular students.

“When I was campaigning I’d be out at the El stops and there’s not a time that I hadn’t been at an "L" stop where I have not had kids come to me and say, ‘Can you give me 50 cents, can you give me a dollar so I can get to school?’” Emanuel said. “And so as soon as [Mikva presented the idea of a free fare card], it touched a chord with me, a responsive chord, that our kids at many times face the difficulty of getting to school.”

Emanuel said he particularly liked the idea that students would be contractually obligated to keep up their attendance rates by enrolling in the progam.

The program is being bankrolled by Chicago philanthropist Wendy Abrams, who has given $50,000 to be divided evenly among the schools. When asked how the program could be funded if it was expanded further, Emanuel pointed to the possibility of additional public-private partnerships.

In August of 2011, Mikva released a student-led report entitled Youth Voice: Ushering in a New
Era for Chicago, where they recommended the Chicago Transit Authority create a card called the “Chi-card” that would function as a universal card for all students, combining their library cards, school IDs and CTA transit cards. In their vision, the rides on that card would be unlimited and free.

Citing similar programs in Washington D.C. and San Francisco, the report stated that:

“In order to use the reduced fare card on trains, you must show your student permit, then the CTA worker will then let you through. Most of the time, the CTA workers are not present in the area at the time, so youth have problems using them which makes them late to their destination. This card would eliminate the problem of students being late and waiting on a CTA worker to let them through, even when they do have their permit present. It also would save students the trouble of carrying different cards they use every day, all day.
Another problem is that many students cannot afford to get to school. Because of this, their attendance rates drop. It is not that they don’t want to go, but that they cannot afford to get there.”

The University of Chicago’s Network for College Success will be tracking attendance data during the pilot program to see if the program works. The University also helped picked the schools that would be participating in the program, each of which will be tailored to the needs of specific schools.

“We think that this is important because we really do live in a world-class city and education is a right for all youth,” said Augustine Flores, a member of the Mikva Challenge group.

For now, Emanuel seemed confident that attendance and the cost of transit are connected.

“I do want to also say the data coming out of Wells, not just on attendance, but also on the disciplinary issues and also on the graduation are all indications that transportation was actually a barrier,” said Emanuel. “It was a barrier that was also in sync with what I was seeing at each of the CTA stations throughout the city.”

The CTA also announced this morning that they will be continue to provide free rides to all Chicago Public Schools students on Tuesday, September 4, the first day of a school, through a partnership with Sun-Times Media, who will contribute $150,000 to the program.

Last week, the hours for student reduced fare card use were expanded to match the longer school day.

Chicago dips a toe into ‘bus rapid transit’

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:13:00 -0500

Construction crews have begun work on what Chicago is billing as its first “bus rapid transit” route.

The Chicago Transit Authority project, funded almost entirely by an $11 million federal grant, will speed up buses along the South Side’s Jeffery Boulevard.

The CTA says buses there will get through stop lights more quickly and have their own lanes during rush hours. The buses will also have fancy stations spaced a half-mile apart with no stops between.

Joe Iacobucci, the CTA’s strategic-planning manager, said the crews began Monday. “They’re preparing those stations for new bus pads — they’re about a 60-foot length of concrete — and preparing the landscape for customer signage and bus shelters,” he said.

The CTA expects the upgrades to shave travel times. In northbound morning peak hours, for example, Iacobucci said the project will cut 7 minutes, enabling buses to complete the 16-mile route in 65 minutes.

BRT delivers many benefits of rail at a fraction of the cost. The most advanced systems are running in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, and Guangzhou, the Chinese city formerly known as Canton. More modest lines are up in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Eugene, Oregon.

Experts compare BRT systems using various criteria. The New York City-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, for example, grades systems using 30 factors.

The four factors the institute deems most important are all missing from the Jeffery Boulevard project. Those include barriers between bus and car lanes, use of the road’s central verge for the bus lanes, off-bus fare collection and platform-level boarding.

A BRT route downtown, planned for 2014 construction, will be more robust but extend just a mile, running from Union Station to North Michigan Avenue. That project, which includes a redesign of the station, has $24.6 million in federal funding and $7.3 million in local tax-increment financing.

A third BRT route would span a 21-mile stretch of Western or Ashland avenues. The city is studying alternatives for that project using a $1.6 million federal grant.

In 2008, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration announced that Chicago was diving into BRT with a $153 million federal grant, but the city missed a crucial application deadline and forfeited the money.

Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral transition plan last year promised a “full bus rapid transit pilot” within three years.

Train derails in Chicago, no serious injuries

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:32:00 -0500

Authorities say a special Chicago Transit Authority train that had been chartered by railroad enthusiasts as a fundraiser derailed on the elevated tracks Sunday.

The train was chartered by the Illinois Railway Museum to raise funds for the museum. Those aboard paid $100 to ride the train from the 1960s and 1970s.

Officials say one car derailed around 11:30 a.m. Sunday on the elevated tracks in Chicago's South Loop neighborhood. There were dozens of people aboard.

Chicago Fire Department officials say there were no reports of serious injuries.

CTA spokesman Steve Mayberry says passengers were walked from the train along the elevated tracks.

Daniel Boylan was aboard. The 46-year-old tells the Chicago Tribune that it's a different experience than they expected, but now they have a story to tell.