The CTA could go a long way toward addressing public unhappiness over the "New York-style'' seating on Chicago's new rail cars if only CTA officials would consider doing what New York transit officials did many years ago.
The CTA could go a long way toward addressing public unhappiness over the "New York-style'' seating on Chicago's new rail cars if only CTA officials would consider doing what New York transit officials did many years ago.
More than 100 CTA riders attended a public hearing Tuesday on a proposal billed as enhancing bus and train service. But most people who testified denounced the crowding-reduction strategy as a trick by transit officials to slash much-needed bus routes.
Taking a tougher stance on chronic labor problems, the CTA has fired 63 bus and rail workers this year through Aug. 20 for repeatedly showing up late to work, compared with only nine terminations for the same violation in all of 2011, according to records obtained by the Tribune.
CTA officials responded decisively Monday to commuters who intensely dislike the center-facing seating on the transit agency's $1.14 billion rail cars and want it changed.
Pointing to recent instances of buses falling off broken hoists and antiquated maintenance equipment that is unsafe, inefficient and expensive to operate, CTA President Forrest Claypool announced a $205 million spending plan to address those issues.
