red line skip-stop suggestion

In today's Trib, Jon Hilkevich writes about an idea to reinstate skip-stop service on the northern end of the red line. This is in response to passenger complaints of very slow service, sometimes taking an hour between Howard and the Loop. There's a blowup of an old CTA map showing former locations of "A" and "B" stations. I count 5 "A" stations and 4 "B" stations, meaning a "B" train would pass 4 stations without stopping and an "A" train 3 stations. That would save a maximum of 5 and 4 minutes, respectively. Does anyone thing this would really help? Might it be worthwhile to convert one or two stations between Howard and Addison to island platforms and have express trains stop there to relieve crowding on red line trains? Maybe every other Purple Line train can be run as an express to the Loop during normal hours (between rush periods)?

A lot of the problem is with the track itself. There are so many slow zones on the north side main that it really makes things crawl through some areas. I hope a rehab of that main (north of where the brown line splits off) is somewhere in the distant planning stages because the schedule could really benefit from it.

byte wrote:A lot of the problem is with the track itself. There are so many slow zones on the north side main that it really makes things crawl through some areas. I hope a rehab of that main (north of where the brown line splits off) is somewhere in the distant planning stages because the schedule could really benefit from it.

North Siders are already mad as all hell about being "inconvenienced for no reason" because of the Brown Line rehab. They would complain to no end if a Red Line rehab took place. Just out of spite, I would love to see the CTA completely shut down the north branch of the Red Line for a two-year rehab project just like the Green Line rehab.

orangeline wrote:Does anyone think this would really help?

As long as slow zones remain a fact of life on the Red line, reinstating A/B skip-stop service will have a minimal effect at best in terms of reducing delays. Even though a reversion to the old format is proposed, with many of the A/B stations above Wilson, skipping a few of them is of no use when you're still going to creep along at 15mph from Roscoe Jct southward into the subway, thus negating any time saved from the "express" service...

orangeline wrote:Maybe every other Purple Line train can be run as an express to the Loop during normal hours (between rush periods)?

Given CTA's current operating priorities, I'm sure they'll want to limit the express zone to Howard-Belmont only, making it all stops to the Loop from there, as is currently done. But putting additional Purple traffic in that area, along with Red and Brown, is going to slow things down even more as the additional trains vie for capacity.

A full, top-to-bottom rehab is the only real solution, but it's guaranteed to be expensive, and is certain to cause more years of slow-motion sickness for Red line riders. CTA started paying the price of deferred maintenance over a decade ago, as a century-old elevated structure literally began to crumble. Rebuilding the system started with the Green line closure, then the Douglas (now Pink) rehab. But as you can see, with the Brown and the Red projects now online, they're only half done...

What's particularly bad, and would probably not be that hard to fix, is the part of the north side main that run on that ballast fill. That should really only be a matter of renewing the roadbed and laying new track, which is cheaper than rehabbing an elevated segment of the line where the track has to be replaced, but then rather than dumping rocks, you need metalworkers out there as well (which means more $$$ spent).

From what I understand, the trains used to be able to really move over that segment but now it's much slower.

"Routine maintenance?" Sure, like it ONLY took 11 years to finally paint over all of the old skip-stop signs. Get real...


Fresh Paint Job Doesn't Bring 'L' Up To Speed
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By Jon Hilkevitch
Chicago Tribune Reporter

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2006
Chicago Transit Authority president, Frank Kruesi is at it again, telling his customers that trains that move slower than a funeral procession are the fault of the General Assembly for under-funding mass transit.

Kruesi has yet to bring back for the third straight year the "D" word--"Doomsday" service cuts or "Doomsday" fare increases--but he's just getting warmed up for the 2007 political season.

"I don't want to be pre-thundering," Kruesi said Wednesday after explaining to the CTA board that little can be done to speed up train service and reduce the number of rail slow zones more quickly, unless the state passes a large-scale tax-funded infrastructure spending bill.

"I'd like to have more crews," Kruesi mused about the slow zones, which have more than doubled since 2005 on the Red Line and on the "L" system in general.

Setting priorities in the face of limited resources is difficult, but that's why Kruesi is Mayor Richard Daley's transit czar. He's supposed to understand that you can't sit around doing nothing while waiting for funding, because that's like waiting for paint to dry.

So call it a huge coincidence, or call it what it is. Either way, Getting Around called on the CTA in last Monday's column to bring back skip-stop semi-express train runs to help restore some semblance of on-time service. All trains did not make stops at all stations under the skip-stop system that the CTA used successfully until it was phased out in 1995 on the Red Line, the Blue Line and the Brown Line.

CTA officials responded that such a low-cost quick-fix was not practical--not even temporarily--on any of the CTA's rail lines. The CTA eliminated skip stops, at zero cost, due to declining ridership. Today, ridership has rebounded while service has plummeted to record lows.

Although the popular skip-stop service has been gone for more than a decade, many of the old skip-stop signs, designating stations as stops for "A" trains, "B" trains or both, were left untouched.

Immediately after last Monday's column appeared, however, the signs got a touch-up. Actually, it was more like a whitewash.

The CTA sent crews to rail platforms across the city to paint over the skip-stop designations, first with a white primer, then with bright red paint.

Embarrassment eradicated, right? Maybe, except for the lethargic train service still encountered by 500,000 CTA train riders each day.

What was it that Kruesi said? Oh, yes: "I'd like to have more crews."

Stations along the O'Hare and Forest Park branches of the Blue Line, the Loop elevated system and the Red and Blue Line subways had their outdated skip-stop signs "retouched" last week, CTA spokeswoman Sheila Gregory said Friday.

Gregory insisted it was part of routine maintenance, coming 11 years after the end of skip-stop service.

"While crews were out on the system cleaning graffiti earlier this week, they touched up the paint on all of the signs in need, including the A/B signs," Gregory said, adding that the cost of the paint job is "difficult to quantify."

CTA officials apparently see no rush to go after the low-hanging fruit--such as introducing economical operational solutions--while modernization of the system creeps ahead for many years.

To the chagrin of anybody who will be commuting on the CTA today, next week or several years from now, Gregory said: "There is no quick fix to increased travel times. ... Even as the existing slow zones are addressed, new ones will continue to appear."



Contact Jon of Getting Around at jhilkevitch@... or c/o the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. Read recent columns at http://www.chicagotribune.com/gettingaround


Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

Dorian: Interesting article about the A/B service. The North-South Red Line more than any other line needs the return of the A/B service to speed things up now that ridership is up-the cheapest alternative. Just uncover those signs and promote it correctly! Does the Evanston Express service (many of you know my feelings about the colors) still make limited stops such as Morse and Loyola S of Howard? Can the Ravenswood line take up any of the slack S of Fullerton and Belmont? Does any other line other than the O'Hare-Congress-Douglas Blue lines warrant A/B service returning? This would be an improvement benefitting all CTA riders at minimal cost-so why not? Just my two cents here-MACTRAXX

MACTRAXX wrote: The North-South Red Line more than any other line needs the return of the A/B service to speed things up now that ridership is up-the cheapest alternative. Just uncover those signs and promote it correctly! here-

Just to let you know as of last monday when I rode up there, the CTA had painted over those A/B stop sings, if not took them out and replaced them with the current sings when I seen the crew replacing the station sings.

Weren't most of those signs painted over upon the removal of skip-stop service in the early 90s? While the timing of this recent re-painting is obviously to say "hey, this ISN'T coming back, go away," for most of those signs I'm pretty sure this is the second coat of paint. It's just that all the years of Chicago weather and curiosity seekers scratching the old paint off necessitated a repaint.

byte wrote:Weren't most of those signs painted over upon the removal of skip-stop service in the early 90s?

A decade ago, I lived in Rogers Park, on Chicago's far north side, about 3 blocks from the Howard 'L' station. I left the area in 1998, yet the Red line stations at Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn, Thorndale, and Jarvis still retained their old /A\ or |B| designations uncovered and totally intact, despite the fact that skip-stop service was scrapped for good three years earlier. Green was reopened in 1996 with brand new signage, that offered no hints of its skip-stop past, so no need to "cover up" the signs on that route. I don't know if the Blue or Brown line signs were painted over immediately after the skip-stop abolishment, but it wouldn't suprise me if they weren't...

As is typical with most upper management when they make a change that backfires; cover-up and divert attention.

A/B skip stop service was and always will be, in my opionion, the only way to move people as quickly as possible on the L.

doepack wrote:
A decade ago, I lived in Rogers Park, on Chicago's far north side, about 3 blocks from the Howard 'L' station. I left the area in 1998, yet the Red line stations at Lawrence, Argyle, Berwyn, Thorndale, and Jarvis still retained their old /A\ or |B| designations uncovered and totally intact, despite the fact that skip-stop service was scrapped for good three years earlier. Green was reopened in 1996 with brand new signage, that offered no hints of its skip-stop past, so no need to "cover up" the signs on that route. I don't know if the Blue or Brown line signs were painted over immediately after the skip-stop abolishment, but it wouldn't suprise me if they weren't...

Hmm, my mistake, I must be thinking of the blue line. I know I saw many station signs there that had been painted over and were in various stages of nature or the ridership population taking the paint off. They probably made sure to do those ASAP when A/B service was discontinued so as not to confuse new riders, who might think that A trains go to Forest Park and B trains go down the Branch (or something like that).

The A/B signs were painted over for the first time only a few years ago! I think it was around 2001-2002. Many of the signs were scratched clean within weeks of being painted. So you are correct, this recent cover-up is the second painting, but the first one did not occur immediately after discontinuation of skip-stop service.

MACTRAXX wrote:The North-South Red Line more than any other line needs the return of the A/B service to speed things up now that ridership is up-the cheapest alternative.

The sheer number of stations doesn't help speed up trips either. Blue Line runs are long, but the stations seemed to be spaced about in a sensible fashion. What are the numbers here, something like 20 stations north of the loop compared to 11 south of the Loop? In my opinion, the number of stops north of Wilson just adds to the brutality of the average trip. I mean, the Wilson and Lawrence platforms are so close together that they may as well just fuse the two together! What kind of ridership levels exist at some of these stations?