Spend a little time at rush hour in the State and Lake `L’ station and you will see why the CTA’s fancy new fare-collection system isn’t exactly ready for prime time.
On a visit one evening last week, I watched as commuters streamed into the station and tried to make their way through the specially equipped turnstiles. Most were admitted without any problem, but when you’re talking about a high-volume station with hundreds of customers an hour, “most” doesn’t cut it.
Every so often, the turnstiles failed to accept a token on the first try, refusing to admit the person who dropped it in and hanging up everybody in line. After fishing the token from the coin return, some riders made it through on the second attempt. For others, it took three tries.
Some customers, theorizing they had a bum machine, got in line at another turnstile. Some just abandoned the new hardware altogether and did it the old-fashioned way: They went to the a booth and pushed their tokens through the little window to the ticket agent.
Nobody needs this confusion and consternation after a long day at the office, something that CTA officials recognize.
Software and other problems remain to be remedied and the new equipment, now activated at about 33 of the transit authority’s 150 stations, won’t be fully operational until sometime early next year at the earliest–months behind schedule.
But the system offers the hope of added convenience and efficiency. Riders eventually will be able to purchase “stored value” cards for various amounts–say $10 or $20–that station turnstiles and bus fare boxes will read, automatically deducting the proper fare. The equipment also will know when a customer is transferring, based on the time the initial ride was paid.
The machines are able to read the electronic transfer cards that are issued to riders who pay with tokens and coins. Testing a turnstile at the State and Lake station last week, I inserted a card at 9:58 a.m. that I knew was supposed to be good only until 9:07. A busy bus driver or ticket agent might not have caught it, but the turnstile did.
“Transfer expired,” it told me.
If the system eventually performs as advertised, such anti-cheating features, along with the elimination of cash handling by employees and the “shrinkage” that results, are expected to save the CTA money. And that should reduce pressure for fare increases.
But if the new system fails to live up to original billing–at a price that has ballooned to more than $75 million to boot–the transit authority stands to wear a fresh veneer of egg.
Warning: Low signage
Chalk up two more victims of the Lower Wacker Truck Cruncher, a poorly marked and dangerous spot on Lower Wacker Drive just west of Michigan Avenue, where the ceiling of the subterranean road drops by several inches.
Last Monday evening, just in time to throw a monkey wrench into rush-hour traffic, a semi wedged itself under the low spot. The trailer buckled and ripped open.
The very next morning–during rush hour, of course–the victim was another semi that suffered similar damage.
I chatted with the driver in the second incident. He was hauling a load for Inter Coastal X Press of Houston on his first visit to Lower Wacker, and said he was following signs to Interstate Highway 290.
He said he saw no warnings of low clearance, but given the miserable quality and visibility of the two signs posted at Lower Wacker and Lower Michigan, who could blame him for missing them?
So, if officials don’t want to install flashing lights or other warnings that truckers actually can see at this chronic trouble spot, maybe they could have some fun: erect a scoreboard and post the black outline of a truck each time the Cruncher claims another victim.
Warning: False signage
Thousands of motorists, including some returning to Chicago from weekend visits to Michigan, were most unhappy participants in a traffic snarl of epic proportions Aug. 4. It was on busy Interstate Highway 94 near Michigan City, Ind., where a crew was painting a bridge over the highway.
During part of the day, traffic was backed up for miles as cars, trucks and campers were forced to funnel down from three lanes into two and, then, into just one.
The motorists who hit the bottleneck toward evening inched along as they obeyed signs and flashing arrows that ordered them to merge–only to find that all three lanes were open when they finally made it to the bridge.
“It might be the most ridiculous traffic jam I’ve ever been in,” declared one exasperated driver tied up in the mess for an hour.
Yep, they do some things differently in Hoosierland, but this was a snafu that shouldn’t have happened, according to Indiana Department of Transportation officials who investigated the angry complaints that came in Monday.
Turns out the crew violated its contract with the state by shutting down two lanes instead of one. And when they finally reopened the lanes, they neglected to take down the merge signs first. Aargh!
