Tribune Editorial Hits Metra Performance

[Milwaukee_F40C]

I'm guessing the radio was one way in the 70s, but probably hit or miss. Wasn't everyone listening to Steve Dahl or something? The suits probably turned on 780.

[GWoodle]

I'm guessing the radio was one way in the 70s, but probably hit or miss. Wasn't everyone listening to Steve Dahl or something? The suits probably turned on 780.

Depending on the schedule, everybody else may have been listening to Wally or Bob on WGN/720 especially after Bear games. Don't remember many Metra traffic reports. CTA reports depended on how close you were to the Elevated. The old El seemed to run like clockwork, unless iced over. Bus system to-from the El just as slow as anyone else.

Hey, anyone remember the snow was so bad the city used idle cement trucks to plow the snow>

Anyone remember a fleet of wheel loaders & other construction equipment to clear the street & alley?

[Tadman]

I miss Steve Dahl - he was hilarious. I hope he gets hired by some station rather than doing that silly podcast he does now.

[CHTT1]

As a loyal listener to Steve's podcast, I can tell you that Steve will never return to over-the-air radio, given the horrible state of the medium ruled by the people-meter. Did you ever try to listen to the Roe and Roeper Show? Stopping any conversation for traffic-and-weather on the 5's and unending commercials have ruined any creativity in radio. Pony up your $10 a month, Tadman (hey, you're a lawyer you can afford it), you'll enjoy the Dahlcast and the other shows on the Dahl network.

[doepack]

Topic drift, I banish thee...

Metra's new CEO testified before the Illinois House Mass Transit Committee yesterday (Mon.), and among the items discussed was the idea of levying financial penalties on the contract carriers to ensure better service. For his part, Mr. Orseno dismissed it as problematic, but the thought intrigued me; I thought something like that was already in place? Don't Metra's current contracts with BNSF & UP have those provisions?

Full article here...

[lstone19]

The media has really whipped the public into a "feeding frenzy" and now the legislature is piling on. My reality as a daily Metra commuter just doesn't match what the media and legislature is telling me I'm experiencing. Have there been delays? Yes, but small. The only major delay was due to a pedestrian fatality (and that was only 40 minutes). Working for an airline in performance analysis, I can only wish our service this winter was as good as Metra's.
I think one big difference between a Metra commuter and a CTA commuter is as Metra commuters, we focus on the performance of "our" train. If it's 15 minutes late, we know it's 15 minutes late. But a CTA commuter usually has no idea what train or bus they normally take. If the trains are arriving at their boarding station 15 minutes late but operate every five minutes, they just get on the next train to arrive. They have no idea it's the train that should have been their 15 minutes earlier and they don't wait the 15 minutes for "their train". So long as journey time is as expected, they don't care that the whole system is running late as compared to the schedule only CTA employees really care about.
The reality is cold will cause problems and the cost of investing in infrastructure that can work more reliably in this kind of rare weather is hard to justify.
Communications has been a weak spot but that's also a matter of scale. A process for dealing with the more typical maximum of only one or two delayed trains at a time does not scale well to dozens of delayed trains. Do you employ a communications staff that 360 days a year does little so you have the staff to handle the load on the four or five days a year when things go really wrong?
But in the end, nothing yet has made me wish I was driving into the Loop rather than taking Metra.

[Pacific 2-3-1]

The new Metra Chairman is former Chicago Alderman Martin Oberman, the first non-suburban resident to be Chairman.

I wonder if the first order of business will be to change the name of Clybourn Junction to "Lincoln Park"?