The CTA:
The Everyday Source of Aggravation
Let me just start this entry with the following statement: if I were Mayor, my first order of business would be to publicly burn all CTA buses and make the citizens dance around the glorious flames as they destroy the city's greatest nuisance (the song that the citizens would have to dance to would be "Gloria" by Laura Branigan, but that's a different story...looks like I won't be elected anytime soon...). There are a few reasons why I absolutely despise these useless hunks of cheap metal, and I will tell you what they are:
1. In order to accommodate the absolute maximum amount of passengers, the evil engineers who designed the buses made them as wide as legally feasible. This means that even if you are on a road that has relatively roomy lanes, you must move as far over to the left as possible in order to avoid getting too close to the buses in the right lane. And everytime the buses re-enter the right lane after making a stop, the front left corner of the bus juts into the left lane of traffic at least three feet, causing all cars in that lane to slam on their brakes and wait for the bus to straighten out in the right lane. And don't even get me started on those damn accordian buses.
2. 9 times out of 10, CTA buses are the cause of major traffic jams on Lake Shore Drive during the morning rush hour. Granted, traffic is normally slow during rush hour, but when you drive in it daily, you can determine if it is regular back-up (basically caused by too many people in one place at one time- traffic slows, but still flows), or some sort of lane blockage (traffic comes to a halt early in your commute and inches along very slowly). Unlike rubbernecking (Chapter 1), lane blockage is solely the fault of whoever has caused the back-up. And on days when I hit this kind of traffic, I tell myself, "ten bucks says it's a bus", (don't ask me why I make bets with myself). Sure enough, after an hour of sitting in horrible traffic, I see a broken-down bus in the right lane with it's back panel open like a pair of trap-door pajamas, exposing the worthless engine within.
3. The drivers of buses are obviously ex-cabbies who handle the 30 foot by 10 foot buses like they're driving mini coopers. And like cabbies, they seem to think that they possess some kind of magical immunity from the universal rules of the road, such as checking your blind spot before changing lanes. Therefore, they do whatever they want without considering that a simple turn of their steering wheel could crush all the tiny vehicles in their path.
4. Damn that yellow cord! If buses must exist, may I at least suggest that they have fixed stops- say, one every four or five blocks? But no, they have been equipped with a little yellow cord that allows the passengers to determine where the bus stops. I understand that this invention was created with the good intentions of avoiding unnecessary stops, but the inventors obviously underestimated the laziness of the passengers. This results in the bus stopping at practically every corner, causing them to 're-enter' the right lane at every stop (see #1).
5. "Speed". If buses didn't exist, those characters would not have been in their unfortunate situation. Think about it...
Despite my numerous reasons, my feelings on CTA buses can be summed up as follows:
They annoy me daily and since I personally don't use them, they must all be destroyed.
-LD
Boop, Boop, Boop. "Your attention, please. We are being delayed due to signals ahead. We will be moving again shortly.
For CTA train riders, these are the most dreaded words that can be heard over the crackly speakers because, as most regular passengers know, "shortly" in CTA terms basically means "we will leave you standing there crammed in with the other commuters, allowing that smelly guy next to you to breathe his rank breath all over you for about fifteen minutes until we finally get moving again". Yes, delays somehow always occur at the worst moment- either you are running incredibly late for work as it is, or you are holding an extremely heavy bag of some sort, or the train was going through a curve when it stopped, leaving you standing at a 60 degree angle. In each case, you can bet that there is also an extemely smelly person standing next to you who bears an uncanny resemblance to the two headed troll-monster from "Willow" (for the two people who actually understood that obscure movie reference, I thank you- for the numerous others who didn't, click here).
The thing that I find most interesting, however, is that the message is automated. This means that the 'signal' delays happen often enough to necessitate outfitting all trains with an easily accessible button to dispense the message to the passengers. Here's an idea: save the money from paying Mr. Robot-man to do the voice-over, and actually fix the damn signals!
-LD
I will try not to let my inner Sox fan interfere too much with this argument, but I'm not making any promises. Okay, this is how it goes:
You're sitting comfortably on the Red Line train after a long day of work- you're exhausted and eager to get home. You even picked a seat right by the door so that you can exit the train quickly. While reading a magazine, you suddenly notice that the air of obnoxious-ness increased significantly after the stop at Fullerton. Looking up, you notice that the train has filled with people, who are all wearing blue hats and jacke---wait a minute. Dear God, no. Not a Cubs game! Now, if you are lucky, the train will move at its regular speed and the fans will exit at Addison in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, these are Cubs fans that we are talking about, which means that everytime the train stops, the fans enter, but pause in the doorway, asking if this is the train that goes to Wrigley (gee- the train is filled with other assholes dressed in random Cubs apparel- either this is the right train or there's a Cubs-fan convention at the Howard stop). Okay, I have to let my inner Sox fan have a say: it's interesting how both Cubs fans and Sox fans use the Red line to get to their respective baseball fields. However, there is never any confusion amongst the Sox fans as to where they should exit. Why, you ask? Because Sox fans are so dedicated that they are willing to brave the South Side of Chicago in order to see a game, and getting off at the wrong stop means certain death of a gun-shot wound. So until Wrigleyville becomes the ghetto, the rest of us are going to have to suffer the stupidity of Cubs fans.
-LD
The following is a quick list of reasons why the $1.75 it costs to ride the CTA is $1.75 too much.
1. Isn't it run by the city? Shouldn't our taxes cover it? Better yet, have those $50 parking tickets cover the cost!
2. On numerous occasions I have been riding the train with an empty 40-oz. repeatedly rolling against my leg for the duration of the trip.
3. The vast majority of train stops smell like urine.
4. Only about 10% of the stops are ADA compliant.
5. Sure the trains come every ten minutes...in an ideal world in which the conductors go through training.
-LD
Smelly, Sweaty Spandex and
other Joys of the Gym