On Sunday and Monday I took the Red Line downtown. It was a smoother ride than I had been used to as in the past there were slow zones and nothing but bumps and jerks throughout the ride. This time it ran much smoother and thus much faster than it used to. That's certainly a plus for this commute.
There are bound to be problems unfortunately. When I came back home Sunday night I got caught up in the incident where a truck crashed into the right-of-way and caused a significant enough of a delay that forced me to hop on a bus nearby to get home. And then it was reported the Sunday morning of it's re-opening that signal issues let to a significant delay. Also signal problems occurred on Tuesday as well, needless to say this is still a 24 hour operation and there are bound to be issues new or otherwise.
BTW, I also took the train downtown as well and nothing new to report there. It was smooth and rapid transit from 95th and back. Thankfully the incident that happened on Sunday night didn't affect my commute the next day although I'm sure CTA and other affected agencies did great work clearing the scene and bring service back to status quo.
Below are some videos and some links of the first weekday of service on the Dan Ryan after the reconstruction. Hopefully in some of the videos below you may have a positive view of the finished products of the recently concluded project.
Before the Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line was closed back in May the CTA produced a video ride through that showed the time it took to get from Roosevelt to 95th Street round trip. The video was sped-up and as we all probably know it took some time thanks to the condition of the tracks. According to the [VIDEO] below that run took at least 33 minues both ways. Some of the comments here called it out as BS because they believed in their experience the run took longer than that.
The next [VIDEO] below shows a new run through of the Dan Ryan branch after it was re-opened for service. It's again a round trip video from Roosevelt to 95th. The approximate time both ways was 21 mins! So basically a little over 10 minutes less both ways than it was before the project commenced!
Below are videos from the Tribune. The first [VIDEO] you see is an account from one satisfied customer on her way to church on Sunday morning.
And another Tribune [VIDEO] that depicts the first day of service after the Dan Ryan branch was re-opened. You will see the lady in the above video on her way to church at the start of this one again! Other than her however it seems others are glad the Red Line is back and the service is smoother and faster.
Finally ABC 7 has the story with [VIDEO] on the 1st weekday of service on the Dan Ryan branch. I'm sure this was a landmark event to see how it handles rush hour traffic. The video shows the mayor shaking hands with CTA riders as they catch a train. It's too bad that I can never be up early enough to run into these movers and shakers on the rare times that they find their way there especially if it's not election time!
No comments:
Post a Comment
PLEASE READ FIRST!!!! Comment Moderating and Anonymous Comment Policy
While anonymous comments are not prohibited we do encourage you to help readers identify you so that other commenters may respond to you. Either read the moderating policy for how or leave an identifier (which could be a nickname for example) at the end of the comment.
Also note that this blog is NOT associated with any public or political officials including Alderman Roderick T. Sawyer!