Entries associated with the tag "147 Outer Drive Express":

I used to stick with the train for my commute to and from downtown, but I’ve given up because construction makes it so erratic—sometimes my trip takes less than 30 minutes, other times twice as long, and after a certain point in the evening I can’t even catch the Red Line north from the stop nearest the office. Instead, I’ve started taking the 147 Outer Drive Express bus. While it often gets crowded with people who've apparently reached similar conclusions [go about a minute in], I’ve come to enjoy the ride home along the lakefront.

So after working dangerously close to the start of last evening’s NBA Finals game, I hurried to the bus stop and immediately concluded I was lucky. The 147 rolled right up—no wait for a change.

My luck continued as we cruised up Michigan Avenue far more quickly than usual. Suddenly we were through the light at Oak Street and dipping into the tunnel that leads to Lake Shore Drive.

We were already going about 50 miles an hour.

I don’t know if the driver thought he too might have a chance to see the Celtics practice shooting threes over a team once known as the Lakers, but he was gunning it. We shot onto Lake Shore Drive and veered into the next lane. We whizzed past cars, steered suddenly back into the right lane, then back over again. People around me cast each other looks combining thrill and terror. Air whistled through gaps where the windows were open slightly. We were still accelerating. We hit one of the many potholes on the drive, seemed to go airborne, and slammed down again with a crash that left some wondering if the bus might possibly break in two. Then we did it again. Since the driver managed not to crash, it was a blast.

The bus coasted off the drive at Foster, turned onto Sheridan, made a stop next to the Dominick’s, and suddenlyputtered to a complete stop. The lights and vents went off and an alarm began to beep. The driver stood up calmly and opened the front door as the couple next to me began to talk in low, concerned tones: What’s going on? Is something wrong? Is he just getting off the bus? Maybe we should get out of here. Somebody find out what's going on . . .

The driver moved casually toward the back of the bus. “I guess it overheated,” he said over his shoulder to someone sitting up front. “You guys can get the next one.”

Nice of him to wish us well, but there wasn’t a next one—at least not for quite a while. Fortunately for my sake, I didn't wait around for it. I joined the caravan of people hoofing it up Sheridan Road, and by the time I’d covered the last mile there still hadn’t been another bus.

When Mayor Daley says, "Ours is a 1920s system. It's costly and inefficient," you'd be excused for thinking he's talking about local government.

Instead, it's the CTA, which the mayor has suddenly realized is a mess.

This afternoon he announced that the agency will borrow and bond its way to improving service. This will be welcome news to riders who have watched the transit system deteriorate dramatically over the two decades Daley has been in office, and perplexing news to everyone wondering why Daley has been unable to find a management team interested in doing this before now.

For all practical purposes, Daley has had control of the CTA since he was elected mayor in 1989, since he picks its executive and the majority of its board members, including the chairman. He's probably right in saying, as he has repeatedly, that the federal and state governments haven't kicked in enough--but it's also true that management is a huge reason why this operation is in rotten shape.

What do I mean? I was recently headed north on the 147, an express bus that makes no stops from the end of the Mag Mile until getting off Lake Shore Drive at Foster. As usual, the bus was packed with far-north-siders eager to get home from work. But after we pulled up next to the Dominick's at Foster and Sheridan, about halfway to the end of the route at the Howard Red Line station, the bus sat for a minute. And then another, and then another. The driver unfastened his seat belt, stood up, and stepped off.

No one knew what was going on; the people unlucky enough to have to stand were particularly displeased.

After about tenminutes, the driver appeared again. "There's another bus coming, and you may want to get on it, 'cuz I don't know when this one's moving again," he said.

The other, equally packed bus stopped beside ours, and people poured into it, some professing their disgust, others their disbelief. A few heaped curses upon the driver and his progeny.

It wasn't his fault, though.

Turns out his shift had ended--right there, in the middle of the route. And his replacement was apparently late for work.

"I'm trying to go home, just like you guys," he said.

First he had to catch a west-bound bus to his home base, a CTA garage on Kedzie. And since he couldn't leave the bus he'd been driving, he'd just missed the one he needed to get there.

Why would his shift end before his route did? "I have no idea," he said with a shrug. "You'd have to ask the people downtown."

The second 147 bus drove off, so full it looked like it would sink to the ground before getting another block. About five minutes later our replacement driver hopped off an eastbound bus and hurried over to ours, and not long after that the four of us still left on it continued our ride homeward.