Critics say CTA favors profits over poor with new system (Trib Article)

The CTA was accused of putting the profits of its corporate partners ahead of the needs of poor people during a hearing Monday night on a new fare-payment system set to debut this summer. Jon Hilkevitch reports about it here.

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Permalink Reply by william on March 13, 2013 at 10:28am

I also like the plain vanilla Chicago Card (not the auto-reloading Plus card). I bought mine at a Currency Exchange for five bucks and reload periodically it with cash at El stops. You can choose to register your card in case it gets lost (so the balance would carry over to the new card), but I never bothered so it's effectively anonymous for whatever that's worth. Works great, much better than the mag stripe disposable cards. I dont have to take it out of my wallet, either. I've never checked the balance or anything online -- just check it with the El stop machines. 

Too bad it will be obsolete next year. 

Maybe I'm missing something, but why would the Ventra system hurt poor people? 

Permalink Reply by william on March 13, 2013 at 1:57pm
thanks.
yeah, that is no good.
Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on March 14, 2013 at 2:04am

I have no problems with my CTA Plus card.  Mine just expired, I called, they sent me a new one with the $7 balance I had on the old card in about 3 days.  

CTA board approves the new fare payment program (today's Trib artic...

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 14, 2013 at 2:40am

"In addition, Ventra card owners who do not use the card for 18 months will have $5 deducted from their accounts each month until all the money is depleted or they use the card at least once to restart the 18-month clock."

WTF?

Do these idiots sit around the table brainstorming about ideas to screw people and make their service worse?

This punitive BS is pretty much how eveything in this city works.   Chicago, the unfriendly/ugly city...

Any bigtime real estate operator will be able to look into the face of the Picasso and see the spirit that makes the city's rebuilding possible and profitable.

     

It has the look of the big corporate executive who comes face to face with the reality of how much water pollution his company is responsible for and then thinks of the profit and loss and of his salary.It is all there in that Picasso thing the I Will spirit. The I will get you before you will get me spirit.
     

Picasso has never been here, they say. You'd think he's been riding the L all his life.

Permalink Reply by Tricolor on March 14, 2013 at 3:05am

Other than the seating arrangement the new cars (minus the third party-sourced defective bolsters) are where the CTA should have been 20 years ago.  It's insane to be using DC traction in this day and age.

Mike Zumwalt said:

When they order defective "new" red line cars. When they use un-wolmanized wood for the platforms, when they put gigantic flat screen tv's showing the time and looping advertisements.

Juan Primo said:

When has the CTA ever made a profit?

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 14, 2013 at 3:44am

The cars should have been designed with more room for bikes -or they should have at least one car in each train that has a bunch of room and bike-hangers and very few seats.

I'd call that a "defective" design.

But the new cars are OH SO SMOOTH and QUIET!

I mostly ride the Blue Line rattle-traps that sound like the wheel trucks are going to fall apart/off and derail at any moment.  KLUNK-KLUNK-KLUNK-KLUNK!    

And they are all lurchy-brakey every 2-3 seconds.  I'm not sure if all the Blue-line conductors are angry sociopaths who are slamming on the accelerator full to the floor one second and the brakes the next just to make the ride uncomfortable as possible or if the cars are such junk that they can not be possibly driven smoothly.  It's probably a combination of the two. 

I can't wait for new cars for the Blue Line.   I don't care where the seats are or what direction they are facing.  I'm just sick of riding inside a pinball machine. 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 14, 2013 at 5:19am

I practice brutal honesty.   I don't give a squat if you consider it to be bitching.

Ask me what else I think...

Michael B said:

I ride the blue line & find it rather nice most days. With transit tracker app it's a breeze. Bitch, bitch & more bitching.

 


Permalink Reply by Lanterne Rouge on March 14, 2013 at 6:40am

I certainly do think the older cars are not as smooth as the new ones. I would say it's akin to those crappy old Metra cars on the south shore line versus the new ones we see on most lines now. 

Michael B said:

I ride the blue line & find it rather nice most days. With transit tracker app it's a breeze. Bitch, bitch & more bitching.

 

James BlackHeron said:

The cars should have been designed with more room for bikes -or they should have at least one car in each train that has a bunch of room and bike-hangers and very few seats.

I'd call that a "defective" design.

But the new cars are OH SO SMOOTH and QUIET!

I mostly ride the Blue Line rattle-traps that sound like the wheel trucks are going to fall apart/off and derail at any moment.  KLUNK-KLUNK-KLUNK-KLUNK!    

And they are all lurchy-brakey every 2-3 seconds.  I'm not sure if all the Blue-line conductors are angry sociopaths who are slamming on the accelerator full to the floor one second and the brakes the next just to make the ride uncomfortable as possible or if the cars are such junk that they can not be possibly driven smoothly.  It's probably a combination of the two. 

I can't wait for new cars for the Blue Line.   I don't care where the seats are or what direction they are facing.  I'm just sick of riding inside a pinball machine. 

Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on March 14, 2013 at 8:23am

I would much rather take the soft rocking of the new Red Line cars over the herky-jerky sudden acceleration & slamming on the brakes wiplash roughness that is the Blue Line.    The new Red Line cars do gently sway like a boat so if one isn't used to riding in a boat I can see how it might be a little different and off-putting.   But it is so smooth and quiet inside.  For me it's an improvement by a couple orders of magnitude.   I suppose everyone has a different perception of this though.

h' 1.0 said:

I was in one of the bad cars on the Blue line last night.

Re: the new cars-- they are much harder to place a bike in so it's not blocking seats or otherwise in the way, and while they may be smooth, the weird suspension makes for kind of a perilous ride; my feeling is that anyone with the slightest difficulty with balance or walking would be extremely likely to fall on the new cars just from the back and forth sway.


Permalink Reply by Tricolor on March 14, 2013 at 9:46am

It's the traction motors.  Everything since electrification at the turn of the century ran on preset DC loads that could only be controlled by switching between power levels, resulting the notchy acceleration and braking the motors can put out.  It's very damaging to tracks, jarring to riders, and braking generates a ton of waste heat.  The AC motors on the new cars can apply power without having to be staged and can recover energy when braking.

The new seating is mainly with an eye to crush loads at rush hour.  Bikes have never been a consideration on the train, and at busy times when I have a flat and need to ride there's no good place to stand.  But the bench layout is what other big US cities do - particularly New York - so I think the CTA is just trying to copy that.

Permalink Reply by Crazy David 84 Furlongs on March 14, 2013 at 12:11pm

The Chicago card works currently on Pace.    The problem is that it is badly made and I must "break" one or two a year.  (Usually when the warm card is placed near the cold "touch pad" causing it to fracture.    As one poster noted, the primary problem for public transit has always been the high cost of the fare collection system.   Frankly, its a good reason for free public transit.   The actual operating cost of the system would be far less.  That being said, I really do not like the idea of "open" payment systems.  It means that if someone steals my wallet, they can even use my credit card to escape.  And in the longer term, in the hands of a "private" bank, we will see fees added.

That's why using a bicycle is a good thing..

Permalink Reply by Jeremy Mendelson on March 14, 2013 at 2:34pm

They call it "open" payment but really it's just controlled by the same big banks we all know and love.  Just watch in a few years Visa & Mastercard hike the merchant fees to 20% because CTA is stuck with them.

I'm really glad to hear the Chicago Card works on Pace. Then there's really no reason for the Ventra card (not that they couldn't have just made the Chicago Card work on Pace if it didn't already).

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