Category: Transit

Once in a decade opportunity: ride the ‘L’ in a private, chartered tour

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A photo from the Soul of Chicago Express tour in 2006. 

There are only a few spots left (just a bit more than 10) on the Central Electric Railfan’s Association “inspection tour” of the Chicago Transit Authority’s ‘L’ system on 2200-series and 5000-series cars on Sunday, November 18. From CERA’s website:

This event will involve a morning enjoying the CTA 2200-series cars on routes they initially served in 1969, and will finish with a tour via the 5000-series ‘L’ cars, now in service on CTA’s Pink and Green Lines.

We will visit parts of the Blue, Pink, Green, Orange, Red and Yellow Lines, visiting various stations for photo opportunities and affording a chance to enjoy a ride on both the system’s oldest and newest train cars for a compare-and-contrast event not been done in recent memory.

CTA has confirmed that the train will pick us up at Jefferson Park on the Blue Line, a break at about 2:30 PM where you’ll be able to go get a bite to eat downtown, and more fun on the train and visiting the CTA’s newest stations at Oakton and Morgan, wrapping up at about 5:30 PM at Morgan/Lake (with access to the ‘L’ system, of course, to return to Jefferson Park).

Tickets are $42 each. If you’re interested, please contact (email preferred) charter organizer Tony Coppoletta immediately to confirm availability: tony@coppoletta.net / 312-685-2446. You will be able to pay in person when you check in at Jefferson Park. Graham Garfield of Chicago-L.org is helping to host this charter, and I will be assisting. This will be my third chartered tour and they provide a unique opportunity to explore the trains and stations, chat with other train enthusiasts, and take tons of photos that at other times might seem weird to fellow passengers.

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If not for the Soul of Chicago Express chartered tour in 2006, I’d probably have never visited the 63rd/Ashland Green Line station in Englewood to see its unique design characteristics. 

Since this is a chartered tour, the route doesn’t have to follow what normal, revenue service trains take. This tour will use the no-longer-used incline between Racine and Illinois Medical District Blue Line stations.

Sunday, November 18, 2012
1030 to ~1730 hours
Time for a lunch break, in the Loop, will be made available.

Meeting location: Jefferson Park (CTA Blue Line station)
Check-in will begin at 0945 hours (receive tickets there, check-in closes after 1015, as the train departs at 1030)

Might as well Jump! The CTA debuts a stepping-stone to bus rapid transit

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I’d been looking forward to riding the new J14 Jeffery Jump bus service for a few weeks now. It was a chance to participate in a small but significant turning point in the history of the CTA. The Jump is a new express bus along Jeffery Boulevard (2000 East) on the South Side, incorporating several elements of bus rapid transit (BRT) and hopefully paving the way for full-blown BRT downtown, on Ashland Avenue and/or Western Avenue within a few years.

In a nutshell, BRT brings buses up to subway-like speed via special infrastructure on the existing roadway, at a fraction of the cost of creating new rail lines. Ideally, BRT includes dedicated bus lanes, center running buses, stations in the median where customers pre-pay before boarding, traffic signals that turn green when a bus approaches and other features.

The Jump, funded by an $11 million Federal Transportation Administration grant, is essentially BRT lite, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Dedicated bus lanes only exist on a portion of the sixteen-miles Jeffery route, a two-mile stretch from 67th to 83rd Streets, and only during rush hours. From 7 – 9 am weekdays, parking is banned on the east side of the street to accommodate inbound bus traffic, and vice versa for outbound buses during the evening commute from 4 – 6 pm.

Continue reading Might as well Jump! The CTA debuts a stepping-stone to bus rapid transit

Some of my favorite new sustainable transportation stuff of 2012

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Jana Kinsman of Bike-A-Bee.

Newcity magazine recently invited me to highlight some of my favorite aspects of the local sustainable transportation scene for their Best of Chicago issue. Here’s what I selected:

Best bike-centric Kickstarter campaign

Bike-a-Bee

Jana Kinsman’s pedal-powered apiculture service has generated quite a buzz. Last winter Kinsman, a graphic designer and illustrator with the all-female collective Quite Strong, used the “crowdfunding” website to raise $8,646 for beekeeping equipment and packages of bees, plus a bicycle trailer to transport the gear. She now maintains hives at community gardens and urban farms all over town, such as Eden Place, a nature education center at 43rd Place and Shield Avenue in the underserved Fuller Park community. The hives help pollinate nearby plants and serve as educational tools for neighborhood kids. It’s a honey of a project!

BikeABee.com

Continue reading Some of my favorite new sustainable transportation stuff of 2012

Tracking transit: Three apps for Android reviewed

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Even though the train platform heaters have started working (since November 1) the cold might still prevent you from wanting to wait there for any longer than you need to. These transit apps for Android can help you bide your time. Photo by Chicago Transit Authority.

Ed. note – This guest post was contributed by Nick Puczkowskyj, one of the producers of this year’s Cycle Messenger World Championship, and a daily Chicago Transit Authority rider. Nick offered to test transit apps for Android after seeing our review of iOS transit apps proceeding the iOS 6-Apple Maps debacle. 

For the commuter who needs to be in the know at all times, there are several apps available for Android phones. I went about testing three popular Chicago transit apps on my Samsung Galaxy S II. The apps were put through all of the same hurdles for my commute, which involves both bus and rail. Each app was used entirely for one day and then all three were used at once for one day. Every app was able to assist me with every part of my commute. However, some had stronger attributes than others.

Continue reading Tracking transit: Three apps for Android reviewed

Ad Men on the ‘L’ train: Aubin and Sorrels Win the CTA Racing Crown

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Moment of triumph: Garrett Sorrels and Chris Aubin (holding smart phone.) All photos taken on CTA property courtesy of Chris.

For those of you who haven’t been following Chicago’s ‘L’ racing saga, here’s a quick summary of all the competitors we’re aware of who have held the record for visiting every CTA station in one day, solely by transit and shoe leather:

– March 2011: UK native Adham Fisher visits all 143 stations in 9:36:33.
– February 2012: Danny Resner and John Greenfield complete the course in 9:30:59.
– Early April 2012: Scott Presslak and Kevin Olsta set a new record, 9:24:05.
– Mid-April 2012: Rob Bielaski and Ben Downey clock a time of 9:08:56.
– Late April 2012: Adham returns to town and goes head-to-head against Danny and John. Our time is 9:08:03; The Englishman wins the race and sets a new record with a time of 8:56:33.
– Summer 2012: CTA opens two new stations: Yellow Oakton and Green Morgan. Since the new station count is 145, Adham’s record for 143 stops is frozen.
– August 2012: RedEye CTA reporter Tracy Swartz visits all 145 stations in 9:17:00, becoming the new overall champ and smashing the ‘L’ racing gender barrier.
– October 19, 2012: Chris Aubin and Garrett Sorrels, co-workers at the ad firm Starcom Worldwide, set the new overall record at 9:12:39.

Chris and Garrett recently met up with Scott, Kevin, Danny and John for the third-ever CTA racer summit at the Skyride Tap, a dive bar below the Loop elevated tracks at 105 West Van Buren. After toasting the new winners’ triumph, we discussed the fact that there are only a few months left to break their record before the south Red Line closes for repairs this spring, putting ‘L’ racing on hold for five months. Here’s Chris’ account of his historic ride.

Continue reading Ad Men on the ‘L’ train: Aubin and Sorrels Win the CTA Racing Crown

Life in the bus lane: can Chicagoans be convinced to make a switch?

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Center running BRT with travel lane removals. Image courtesy of CTA.

[This piece also appeared in Checkerboard City, John’s weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Thursdays.]

“It comes down to: how do Chicagoans want their streets?” said Chris Ziemann, the city’s bus-rapid-transit project manager, as we drank coffee downstairs from the Chicago Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) downtown headquarters last week. “Do they want them to be congested every day at rush hour with gridlocked vehicles? Or do they want fast, reliable bus service and nice, comfortable conditions for walking?”

As car-dominated transportation systems become increasingly dysfunctional, more U.S. cities are looking to bus rapid transit (BRT) as a solution. BRT delivers subway-like speed and efficiency at relatively low costs through upgrades to existing streets rather than new rail lines. These improvements can include dedicated bus lanes, pre-paid boarding at stations in the road median, bus-priority stoplights and more. BRT is already common in Latin America, Europe and Asia, and it’s currently being piloted in dozens of American cities.

CDOT and the Chicago Transit Authority are partnering on several BRT projects in various states of completion. A proposal to build corridors along Western and/or Ashland avenues may include removing two of the four travel lanes on each street and replacing them with bus lanes, a scheme that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. “This is politically the best opportunity for bus rapid transit that Chicago’s ever had or might ever have in the future,” Ziemann says. “Mayor Emanuel and [CDOT Commissioner] Gabe Klein really get BRT, and they want it to happen as part of their sustainable transportation policies.”

For an in-depth look at the features, pros, and cons for each of the four scenarios, visit our new Western & Ashland BRT Pros and Cons website.

Continue reading Life in the bus lane: can Chicagoans be convinced to make a switch?