The Crumbling L System

[Drover]

How? Misallocation of resources, that's how. This has taken primarily two forms: a) spending money to expand capacity rather than repair existing capacity first (see: spending $700,000,000 to expand Brown Line capacity from 6 to 8 cars, and adding an entirely new line in the 1990s) and preserving redundant, underutilized service for political reasons (see: spending hundreds of millions rebuilding the practically unused Green Line, much of which redundantly serves neighborhoods already well-served by the Red Line to the North and the Blue Line to the West).

I believe creating the Orange Line was a good long-term investment, especially in light of the increased air traffic coming in and out of Midway. But while they were building it, deferred maintenance had the rest of the system either in shambles (as in the South Side, which has since been more or less rebuilt from the ground up) or rapidly approaching a state of shambles (as in the North Side, which has now ripened into a full-blown crisis).

Heat the tar, gather the feathers, and get the rail ready...

[Southside Shrek]

Maybe the City of Chicago should also try selling the 'L' and having it privatized.

[Drover]

Might as well. At this point I'm ready to consider anything, and I don't see how a private company could do any worse than the CTA has.

[Southside Shrek]

Maybe a Japanese-German consortium will buy it and upgrade the old CTA into a modern high speed system.

[domergurl]

Originally Posted by Southside Shrek

Maybe a Japanese-German consortium will buy it and upgrade the old CTA into a modern high speed system.

Maybe the Australian/Spanish consortium can get involved!

[Southside Shrek]

if the Chinese can build an expensive and modern Maglev train in Shanghai, then Chicagoans can certainly afford to have Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) trains zipping them around all over the city. No conventional steel tracks are required for a Maglev mass transit system!

a Maglev train can reach speeds up to 267 mph!!!

With a Maglev train, Chicago would have something really sensational to boast about in addition to the Bears.

[j33]

I am happy to report that Frank Kruesi stepped down! Don't let the door hit you on the butt bud.

[Drover]

Dammit... and he didn't even give us a chance to warm up the tar.

On another note, I witnessed the strangest thing today. Of all the trains I saw today, EVERY SINGLE ONE except one had at least one incorrect destination sign. Many of them had several incorrect destination signs, including conflicting incorrect destination signs, none of which had anything to do with the actual destination of the train. I especially liked the train today on the Blue Line that said on some cars it was going to Lake and Harlem and on others to the Ford City Mall. Ford City flippin' Mall? No train line even goes there!!

[Attrill]

I'm glad to see Kruesi go, but it doesn't fix the root problem - the RTA funding formula that covers operational and standard maintenance costs.

The current Brown line work, rebuilding the Green line, the Orange line, etc. are all capital projects that are paid for by lump grants (primarily Federal). If those projects had not been done the money would have gone to other cities for other projects, not one cent from those projects could have been used for routine maintenance or operations (i.e. the current problems with ties on the Blue line). Some of the projects aren't even the CTA's idea - one of the main reasons the Brown line stations are being rebuilt is to make them handicapped accessible before the CTA has to start paying millions in fines for being in violation of the ADA. The Green and Pink lines were forced on the CTA by political interests.

The CTA is the most underfunded system in the country for maintenance, the CTA spends about 80% of what NY does per mile of track and 60% of what Boston does. Until that is fixed the CTA will continue to have major problems.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Attrill

I'm glad to see Kruesi go, but it doesn't fix the root problem - the RTA funding formula that covers operational and standard maintenance costs.

The current Brown line work, rebuilding the Green line, the Orange line, etc. are all capital projects that are paid for by lump grants (primarily Federal). If those projects had not been done the money would have gone to other cities for other projects, not one cent from those projects could have been used for routine maintenance or operations (i.e. the current problems with ties on the Blue line). Some of the projects aren't even the CTA's idea - one of the main reasons the Brown line stations are being rebuilt is to make them handicapped accessible before the CTA has to start paying millions in fines for being in violation of the ADA. The Green and Pink lines were forced on the CTA by political interests.

The CTA is the most underfunded system in the country for maintenance, the CTA spends about 80% of what NY does per mile of track and 60% of what Boston does. Until that is fixed the CTA will continue to have major problems.

Some of this is just bullsh*t. Most of our transit system has already been made ADA compliant by virtue of retrofitting (or flat-out replacing) most buses to accommodate wheelchair access. In fact, I can't remember the last time I rode a bus that was not so equipped. As such, there is virtually no corner of this city that cannot be reached by the wheelchair-bound via public transportation. Granted, this alone may not be enough to meet ADA compliance; nonetheless, the ADA only requires places of public accommodation make reasonable accomodations for those with disabilities. "Reasonable" by definition does not require unlimited expenditure of resources, and it doesn't require that EVERY stop along the Brown line must be made ADA-compliant at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, much less expanded to 8 cars, unless you can point me to some federal court ruling or consent decree that says otherwise.

Furthermore, the federal grant money was specifically sought out for the projects. The federal government does not just approach local agencies with money. It didn't walk up to the CTA and say, "hi guys, here's a check to expand the Brown Line capacity, have a nice day." Perhaps the CTA would have been better off seeking a grant on the premise of, "hey, our system is crumbling, viaducts are rotting, our 50-year-old vacuum-operated switching system is inefficient, we need money to revitalize it." I admit I'm not up on the machinations behind the scenes, and maybe the CTA did approach the feds to that end and were told to knob off. But federal funds are only responsible for so much of the Brown Line expansion's funding. We're footing the bill for the rest. And our portion might have been better spent on basic upkeep instead of expansion.

I agree that there were rotten political decisions made with regard to the Green Line that the CTA had very little control over. But it's still infuriating that politics trumped sound fiscal discipline on such an enormously expensive project. This wasn't just some street-resurfacing project in some favored alderman's district. This was HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. That was an expensive capitulation; makes me wonder what degree of wasteful expenditure, if any, our local politicians actually will stand up against.