The result of Mayor Daley’s last attempt to link fast trains to Chicago airports? One fewer Loop ‘L’ station.

Another year another dangerous Daley fast-airport-train plan? This week, the Chicago Tribune reported outgoing Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley thinks Chicago should build a high-speed magnetic levitation (maglev) train between the Loop and O’Hare Airport. Why? Because he rode Shanghai’s airport maglev train on a recent trip to China and liked it.

Whoosh!

While I’d certainly love to take a 268 mile-per-hour trip from Terminal One to State and Madison, I think it’s important for Windy Citizens to remember Daley’s mixed track record of coming home from the hinterland (read: the rest of the world) with one idea or another he’s just revving to unroll in Chicago. Our bus-stop shelters, bike lanes, and municipal green roofs were all inspired by the experience of other cities. All wonderful ideas, to be sure, but they haven’t been unmitigated successes. The bus-stop shelters don’t adequately protect from the elements. Many bike lanes have been tacked onto major thoroughfares where they just don’t fit (see especially: Milwaukee Avenue.) City Hall’s green roof isn’t publicly accessible.

Most importantly though…how about the spectacular and very recent failure of Daley’s last attempt to adopt a fast-train airport plan? Last year I summed up that debacle in a link-laden post here on Carless. The basics:

• In 2005 the mayor decreed an underground superstation for trains to O’Hare and Midway airports be built during the (re-)construction of the Loop’s Block 37, to run European-style fast-train service (see: #themayorwentonvacation);
• The project required the temporary closure of downtown’s busy Washington/State Red Line ‘L’ station and of the equally busy customer transfer tunnel between the Red and Blue line Washington stations;
• Unanticipated engineering difficulties and Block 37 construction delays ballooned the cost of the project to more than $300 million–including a $100 million overrun in June 2008, alone;
• The project was shelved, incomplete, when the city ran out of money due to the overruns–without a backup plan to restore Washington/State or the transfer tunnel;
• In winter 2009, the CTA quietly demapped Washington/State from the ‘L’ system;
• The Washington/State ‘L’ station and transfer tunnel remain closed–because the CTA cannot afford to recommission them thanks to the damage done to physical infrastructure by the failed superstation project.

So after spending $300 million, instead of getting fast-train service to O’Hare, Chicago actually ended up with less access to rail service than before the airport superstation project. And that was that. No mea culpa from the mayor’s office. No plan to return Washington/State to service by the CTA. Just a quiet cover-up of a massive mayoral blunder that cost Chicago much more than it should have.

These are the kind of clandestine, face-saving politics that will hopefully end with Daley’s successor. The idea that a mess like this doesn’t get discussed publicly because a city is afraid of angering its mayor is frightening to non-Illinois sensibilities (like mine), and damaging both to the public’s trust in government and its belief that government might actually work to protect the best interests of the public (as it is supposed to) instead of the best interests of politicians.

Given all of that, the idea that any newspaper in town–or any Chicagoan, for that matter–should take Daley seriously on another, grander, surely far more expensive airport fast-train plan is patently ludicrous. Yet, amazingly, the Trib’s recent maglev article doesn’t include a single word about the the failed Block 37 superstation project. (Follow the link at the top of this post and see for yourself.) Sidebars don’t count–they’re easily ignored. This should be a central part of the debate. Not addressing the Block 37 superstation in the main article is not an editorial decision I can fathom.

Chicagoans writing about this week’s airport-train debate shouldn’t be asking, “Gee, is this a good idea?” They should be asking, “Richie, where’s our last $300 million?”

Not to mention our ‘L’ station.

You try to tune it out, but even with headphones on 10 the repetitive announcement still manages to invade weary eardrums. The CTA began requiring ‘L’ operators to make the live announcement before closing train doors six months ago, in the wake of several high profile dragging incidents (including the infamous November 2009 Red Line stroller incident) that occurred because people or their possessions ended up jammed between quickly closing doors.

Trouble is, if you think the announcements are made for your protection, as the CTA claims–or that they’re necessary, or even the fault of riders in the first place–think again. If ‘L’ riders are in the habit of trying to beat closing train doors, couldn’t it be because misuse of the existing recorded warning by train operators has trained them into it?

Ever since automated announcements appeared on the ‘L’ in the early 2000s, the CTA has required operators to play a familiar, very clear recorded message before leaving the station: two loud warning chimes, followed by the now-famous voice of “CTA Guy” saying, “Doors closing.”

There’s nothing hard-to-understand about that existing recorded door-closing message. But for the seven-and-a-half years I’ve lived in Chicago, I’ve almost never heard it used correctly. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard ‘L’ train operators give riders an adequate amount of time to get on and off the train before playing it.

Usually, however–and I’m sure every ‘L’-riding Chicagoan reading this will bear me out–train operators play the recorded “Doors closing” announcement within a second or two of the doors opening in the first place. During rush and midday hours, operators often play the announcement long before riders have managed to get off the train, much less get on.

What’s the result of that? It’s brutally obvious–riders scurry onto the train to avoid remaining left on the platform. And because the announcement has been made early, those riders still boarding or waiting to board have no further official warning about when the the doors are really going to close, unless the operator deigns to play it again.

So riders take their chances, and some of them get dragged. All because for several years ‘L’ train operators have been too lazy to bother to play the recorded “Doors closing” announcement when the doors are actually closing. And for those same several years, the CTA’s never done anything about it.

Well, until as I assume CTA lawyers became afraid that at some point someone–or some baby in a stroller–would be dragged to their death. So now we have live announcements, hurray! Which, of course, means the CTA has some defense in case the family of someone killed in a CTA dragging incident tries to sue the CTA for negligence.

Why do I think this is the real reason for the new, annoying announcements? Because the recorded announcements are still being made early, at the wrong time. As if no one at the CTA has even noticed there’s a problem. Which, when you think about it, is the same reason the live announcements are useless. After all, what reason has the CTA given for riders to believe the live announcement means what it says any more than the recorded one does?

This is not rocket science, or even public transit science. It’s just common sense. CTA riders ignore door-closing announcements because even in the wake of November 2009, they’re still being made wrong. SO, earth to CTA:

Why?

(Image: Could this scene from the infamous 1977 Loop ‘L’ crash happen on the Orange Line? According to a recent CTA press release, you betcha’.)

Last Tuesday (April 20th), the CTA announced it was putting the entire Orange Line from Roosevelt to Midway stations under a 35-mph slow zone. Why? A newly found fault in the signaling system has the potential to allow trains to crash into each other if left unfixed.

In its release, CTA noted that the fault could stop train operators from receiving notification via an onboard warning system that another train was ahead. However, CTA didn’t specify whether the fault was with signal equipment along the right-of-way or with on-board systems. According to the release, transit-agency engineers are working on a fix for the unspecified problem, and until it’s in place, trains are operating at reduced speeds.

To its credit, the CTA Tattler blog wrote about the problem the next day (as did Chicagoist.) The Tattler quoted CTA president Richard Rodriguez saying:

“Since the conditions needed for the failure have not been in place, there has been no danger to customers.”

Fair enough. Of course, that statement also means that before the CTA discovered the problem–which presumably has lain dormant since the Orange Line’s 1993 inauguration–CTA customers were at risk when riding the Orange Line, perhaps for the past 17 years.

That may not be the case, but without the CTA specifying the exact nature of the problem, the length it has existed, and the detailed steps those CTA engineers are taking to ameliorate it, pardon me if I detect a healthy dose of ”Oh crap! What do we do now?” agency spin here.

That’s my read on the curiously cheery press release about a potentially deadly signal issue. I’d love to link to coverage of the same issue  from the Chicago Tribune or the Chicago Sun-Times. However…there isn’t any. That could be because the CTA and Rodriguez did a great job of framing the story as a non-starter. Or perhaps it’s because, given their still-shrinking staffs, the Windy City’s two major dailies are choosing to report only transit news that the CTA, itself, deems newsworthy. (Hopefully not–there’s a line between journalism and serving as a spokesperson, and that would sure cross it.)

I’m certain the CTA would like you to believe this story is not newsworthy. But I really don’t know how our major dailies are coming to that conclusion. Perhaps they simply missed the story. I found it by perusing the CTA’s press release site for items of interest. I would hope Tribune and Sun-Times reporters regularly do the same.

Then I thought about the potential import of what I read. Again, I’d hope our city’s major dailies would do likewise. Here’s how that information-parsing went for me:

1. Rapid transit signal systems keep trains from crashing.
2. The Orange Line’s signal system doesn’t work as intended, meaning Orange Line trains can unexpectedly crash.
3. The Orange Line’s signal system and railcars have been in place since 1993, so have riders have been in danger that long?
4. The CTA has a long history of derailments and other incidents due to faulty equipment and human error anyway (for example, on the Blue Line in 2006 and 2009, and the Green Line in 2008 and 2009.) So this sounds like a ticking time bomb.
5. Hey, waiter! Story!

Added to all of that, upon reading the release I also thought about the numerous major, sometimes deadly rail-transit incidents that have occurred across the country in the past couple of years due to signal problems and operator error, including these in Boston,San Francisco, and Washington DC. And, of course, I thought about the infamous 1977 ‘L’ wreck that occurred at the Wabash and Lake corner of the CTA Loop. The accident, which killed 11 riders and injured 180, was caused when one train–you guessed it–rear-ended another and went hurtling to the street below.

Again, oh overlords of Chicago media: story! Story! I’ve even thought up some questions you could ask CTA Pres. Rodriguez to get the ball rolling (you too, CTA Tattler):

• Have CTA Orange Line riders really been at risk of dying in a fatal collision since the first weeks of the Clinton administration?
• How did another long-term CTA equipment defect go undiscovered when sweeping reforms were put in place to detect just such defects after the 2006 Clark/Lake Blue Line derailment?
• How long has the CTA known about the issue?
• And what, exactly and in detail, is the problem? And the fix for it?

Trust me, readers will love this stuff. Actual investigative content about an issue that affects thousands of rank-and-file Chicagoans. Why, I might even buy a printed paper, myself, just to read it. But in this town, I don’t count my transit reporting before it’s hacked hatched, either.

They must have been very surprised at what happened next. Which was…nothing. Well, not much anyway. Sure, buses became more crowded, and some major thoroughfares lost critical early morning and late-evening hours of service. But that sought-after groundswell of public anger never materialized.

There’s a good reason why. In 2010, thanks to CTA Bus Tracker and the widespread use of smart phones, anyone with a home or mobile Internet connection now has the easy ability to find out when the next bus is getting to the nearest stop. Or, really, to find out when any bus on any route is getting to any stop in Chicago–not to mention where on its route any bus is right now. Cue communal sigh of relief. And exit one of the most important public points of pressure labor unions have been able to count on up to now to force concessions from transit agencies.

Short of bus drivers going out on strike (which would be illegal and, judging by the experience of New York City’s striking transit workers in 2007, would likely break the union financially), short-term service disruptions no longer have the power to take riders by surprise, confuse their journeys, or force them to fear finding alternate routes. Instead, a few seconds of surfing on the CTA website, or clicking on popular transit tracker apps like iPhone’s (phenomenal) Buster or Android’s TreKing, is all it takes for riders to plan their bus trips in real time.

Meaning not only did the CTA’s bus union sorely misjudge the agency’s ability to afford to continue to pay 1,100 now laid-off workers without a giveback from labor, but the labor leaders who led those rank-and-file CTA workers over the bluff and into employment oblivion also weren’t paying attention to the widespread adoption of technology that would make it nearly impossible for the union to use public pressure to get the 1,100 jobs back.

The CTA is currently testing a similar real-time ‘L’ tracking system on the Brown Line. If I were a rapid-transit labor leader, I’d think about that the next time contract season rolls around. After all, transit workers deserve jobs just like anyone else. But they don’t deserve short-sighted labor leaders so out-of-touch with political and technological realities that they can’t tell the light at the end of the tunnel is nothing but an oncoming train. Hopefully, CTA labor leaders are paying attention now.

As a regular CTA rider, I’m annoyed at extra crowding on the 22 bus, and a lack of late-evening options on Division Street. But my outcry–more of a plea, really–is for Electropuf to port Buster to Android, not for the CTA to hire back the bus drivers. Thanks to bus tracker and unfortunately for the union, I just haven’t got time for the pain.

In Chicago, it’s always a shock when the clout runs out.

If you thought Chicago’s rogue bus union was an isolated incident of transit workers taking a very ill-considered stand against an entire populace of angry riders, you were wrong. The same sorry story is happening right now in San Francisco, where Municipal Railway (Muni) bus and light-rail operators are causing service cutbacks by refusing to give up a yearly wage increase written (incredibly) into the city charter.

By way of background, as every Chicagoan undoubtedly knows, on February 7th, the CTA was forced to lay off 1,000 union workers and cut 10% of ‘L’ service and 20% of bus service. That mini transit-doomsday happened because the CTA’s unions refused to agree to wage, health insurance, and pension concessions that were triggered by staggering shortfalls in operating revenue thanks to the moribund economy.

Instead of blaming state lawmakers in Springfield for Chicago transit woes, this time Chicagoans blamed the union workers, themselves, for having the audacity to demand wage increases at a time when many riders can’t even find jobs. Making matters even uglier, now Jesse Jackson is leading a charge with bus union president Darrell Jefferson to essentially extort the CTA to rehire the laid off workers by threatening work slowdowns and a potential (and illegal) strike if the agency doesn’t restore the lost union jobs.

Obviously bus union workers are getting some really bad advice here. Laying on an outdated diatribe claiming the CTA needed to fire a few expensive management “fatcats” before laying off workers, Jefferson originally told his union that the CTA would blink before pulling the trigger on CTA doomsday. Finance likely isn’t his strong point. The CTA is already pared down to the bone and the sales taxes that largely fund the agency are demonstrably not there anymore. Angering the riding public even further will just stiffen what is already very strong civic resolve to let the bus union in no uncertain terms drop dead. Which it probably would from state fines if the union voted to carry out an illegal strike (as was the financial fate of New York’s transit union following its own illegal strike in 2005.)

As described by San Francisco Chronicle columnist C. W. Nevius, San Francisco transit workers have an amazing deal: an annual eight-percent pay raise that’s written right into the San Francisco city charter. Just like the CTA, Muni has a reputation for unreliability and sub-standard service. As will sound familiar to Chicagoans, thanks to the ongoing recession, the City by the Bay no longer has sufficient revenues coming in to afford to pay out that guaranteed annual raise while still maintaining transit service. And there, too, union leaders are claiming that mythical management bloat needs to be culled at the transit agency before cutbacks or layoffs happen.

Such rhetoric didn’t stop Muni’s board from voting to lay off 230 union workers, cut 10% of service, and raise fares beginning May 1st. Muni riders have been here before. In 2009, they suffered through an initial round of service cuts and fare increases, and as local media report, they’re still livid about it. Knowing that the latest cutbacks are being caused by transit workers refusing to give up guaranteed raises at a time when many Muni riders can’t find work (echo? echo?) has San Francisco’s ridership nearing open rebellion.

Riding the wave of anti-union sentiment, one San Francisco supervisor is launching a campaign to amend the city charter to force Muni workers into collective bargaining. It’s a change that’s likely to happen, and it’s a virtual certainty that when it does, Muni workers won’t end up with a contract as sweet as their current wage deal. The Chronicle’s Nevius says Muni union head Irwim Lum thinks the union “had no choice” but to refuse to negotiate on any sort of wage giveback.

The frank response from Nevius could have been uttered as equally in Chicago as in San Francisco:

“Actually, you did. You voted it down. This would be a good time to see if you can get that deal again.”

Especially if you’re a Chicago bus driver who thinks striking or slowing down CTA service will win any sympathy from your fellow Chicagoans. You may know us as the people who pay your salary.

For now.

Today, at long last, comes the day Chicagoans have dreaded in one guise or another since the bad old era of the Blagojevich regime: CTA “Doomsday”. You might be surprised to learn I welcome it with open arms.

At the stroke of midnight, approximately 20% of Chicago transit bus service and 9% of ‘L’ rail service was eliminated, including all arterial express bus routes, and 1,100 union workers lost their jobs. It happened because the CTA’s unions refused to offer pay and pension concessions at a time when sales tax revenues to help fund the system are at perilously low levels.

You can’t say we–and the union–weren’t warned. For a year, the CTA has advised anyone who would listen that the punishing cost of the existing union contracts simply could not be borne by current revenues, and that something would have to give. Either the union, or transit service, itself.

Unfortunately, after all the aborted cries of CTA “Doomsday” heard over the past few years, this time no one really felt like listening anymore. The state always seemed to ride in like a fiscal Lone Ranger and cover any budget deficit just enough to stave off service cuts. Even I thought that would happen this time around.

Last November when Illinois Governor Pat Quinn offered monetary aid to the CTA only on the conditions that fares not increase and threatened service cuts go forward, I thought he was pandering to longtime community activists who constantly rail against fare increases. (As if costs don’t naturally rise over time, for transit service or anything else.)

Now I see the wisdom in Quinn’s move. We’ve argued in this state about the cost of Chicago transit in good times and bad. Even before CTA “Doomsday” was so clearly on the table, the fixed and seemingly unquestionable cost of transit union wages, health care, and pensions was impossible to justify.

The reason is clear. The CTA exists to do one thing: that is, move three million Chicagoans around this massive city. That is its  only reason for being. Not to provide guaranteed, lifelong jobs for union workers. And certainly not to protect work rules and compensation regarding those jobs to the point where moving those three million Chicagoans around becomes impaired.

Unfortunately, impairment of service has finally come to pass, and we three million Chicagoans have the unions’ stubborness to blame for it. The unions refused to give, so transit service gave out instead. If Gov. Quinn had allowed the CTA to raise fares or had provided enough state money to stave off fare increases, we’d just be in this position once again next year as the transit unions dug in their heels and thumbed their collective nose at the potential for service cuts.

I’d much prefer my tax monies be spent on providing the transit service so needed in a city as congested as Chicago, rather than being used to ensure a false sense of entitlement among union workers who, unlike many thousands of Chicagoans, are lucky enough to at least have jobs. Of course, now 1,100 of them don’t have jobs anymore, and I’m sure few Chicago transit riders who will face longer waits and more crowded commutes this week feel any sympathy for them.

But today’s cuts are the only way forward. Unless Chicago transit service is to be permanently reduced or priced outrageously high (remember the Sunday-only service levels and $5 rides proposed during the Blagojevich administration?), then it’s the unions who must give back. That’s the gist of Quinn’s strategy: once and for all show the transit unions you mean business by finally allowing “Doomsday” to happen.

Today no one wins. But if the 11th hour intervention by Mayor Daley is any indication, the negotiations are far from over. While the mayor could have intervened a little sooner, it’s a help that he did. As the weekend began, the CTA’s unions were offering $90 million in givebacks to get today’s layoffs and service cuts reversed. If they manage to reach an agreement with the CTA, within a couple of weeks, bus and ‘L’ service levels could be back to normal.

That would be good news. Not just because Chicago would have its transit service back, but also because precedent would now be set to revise transit union work rules and compensation agreements to ensure that in the future, Windy City transit service is never again held hostage by a group of self-interested workers refusing to share the pain of a bad economy with their fellow Chicagoans.

I hope such an agreement happens. The only chance of it happening, though, is for us transit riders to bear the hopefully temporary pain of today’s service cuts. So welcome, CTA “Doomsday”.

I guess we had you coming.

UPDATE (1/21/10): A CTA union board member complained today in my comment thread that past union-member pay raises have been put instead towards health insurance and pensions–so they deserve raises now. I’m sure many underemployed or unemployed Chicagoans would love to have health insurance or a 401K plan. It’s as if the CTA union has been living in a different economy than the rest of us for the past 18 months. The comment needs to be read to be believed…
___

Today in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) transit union complained that 1,000 union workers will lose their jobs on February 7th. The rest of us 1.5 million CTA ‘L’ and bus riders know that as the day almost 20% of Chicago transit service will be eliminated–because the transit union refused to share the pain of a bad economy with the rest of us. In this video, I explain why CTA riders owe no sympathy to the soon-to-be-sacked union workers who needlessly caused commutes to get a lot worse for an entire city of transit riders.

(Click the HQ button for a higher-quality video. RSS subscribers, click here to view the video on CHICAGO CARLESS.)