After Slow Start, Loop ‘L’ Project To Resume

May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune

By Jon Hilkevitch

The CTA Loop elevated track-replacement project will resume this weekend after a sluggish start last month that was followed immediately by an unanticipated two-weekend break to reassess the complicated repairs.

For riders, it means train service will be rerouted or shut down from about 9 p.m. Friday to 4 a.m. Monday. During the reroutes, trains will operate on one set of tracks. In addition, street closings will be in effect from Madison to Van Buren streets to make room for cranes hoisting materials up to the elevated structure, officials said.

The $39 million project, which is scheduled for completion over 16 weekends through November, will face another start and stop after the roughly 50 hours of work planned for this weekend on a section of “L” along Wells Street, the CTA said.

The track work will take another break May 18-20 to allow CTA trains to operate normally around the Loop during the NATO summit at McCormick Place. It’s one of eight extraordinarily busy weekends over which the CTA decided beforehand to suspend the project because music festivals and other events downtown. About 500 trains serve the Loop “L” on weekends.

The renewal work, affecting about 11,500 feet of track, includes the stretch along Wells and Van Buren streets; a small portion above Wabash Avenue; the Hubbard Curve, just north of the Merchandise Mart station; and the junctions at Lake Street and Wells and Wabash and Van Buren.

Rails, ties and track components, effectively everything above the steel supporting structure and below the station platforms, will be replaced.

The CTA’s general contractor on the state-funded project, Ragnar Benson Construction, replaced almost 300 feet of track during the first weekend of the project, which began April 20, according to the CTA. Ragnar and the CTA had expected the project would continue for the next three weekends, officials said.

In addition, transit officials had previously said the contractor expected to replace about 1,000 feet of track over the first weekend. Each weekend, the goal could vary depending on the complexity level of specific work, such as replacing straight sections of track or rebuilding track junctions and switching equipment.

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Chicago Transportation Officials Brace For NATO Summit

April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune

By Jon Hilkevitch

O’Hare International Airport stands ready to shut down a runway and use it as a VIP (“Very Important Planes”) parking lot.

The CTA started running tabletop planning exercises Friday to keep transit officials nimble regarding any last-minute adjustments to bus and train service, routes and schedules that could come up.

In Chicago and the suburbs, gates at highway entrance ramps are being checked to make sure they are in working order to close and reopen access to the roads — a procedure originally designed for use in an all-out emergency like a bioterrorism attack.

The carefully choreographed and controlled chaos in motion that unfurls each day on the highways, runways, railroads and arterial streets of the nation’s transportation hub will click up a notch when world leaders and demonstrators descend on Chicago for the NATO summit May 20-21. Protesters representing a wide spectrum of viewpoints will be traveling downtown on the CTA and Metra, bumping shoulders with regular commuters clutching backpacks and coffee cups on packed trains and buses.

“The city will be open for business during the NATO summit, and we want everyone to enjoy Chicago,” said Delores Robinson, spokeswoman for the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications. “There will be some restrictions and rolling street closures just to get (NATO participants) to and from where they need to go. But the city is wholly equipped to manage an event of this magnitude, and people who want to move around the city will still be able to do so.”

About 10,000 people, including about 2,000 journalists, are expected to come to Chicago for the summit, Robinson said. That estimate does not include anti-NATO protesters.

The flow of airline arrivals and departures at O’Hare will speed up and slow to a trickle like water from a faucet based on the comings and goings of about 50 heads of state and their entourages.

Some delegations may decide to avoid O’Hare and land instead at satellite airports in the suburbs, including Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling and Waukegan Regional Airport, said Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington.

“Sometimes, they don’t want to come into the major airport for security reasons,” Brown said.

An O’Hare official who attended a Secret Service briefing in February, the only one held so far regarding NATO-related operations at the airport, said the 10,000-foot runway 14 Left/ 32 Right will be used as a main parking area for the delegations’ aircraft. The official, who is not authorized to speak publicly, also said the city will provide “follow-me” escort vehicles to lead the visiting planes as they taxi around the airfield, as a safety measure to avoid wrong turns by foreign and military pilots who haven’t flown to O’Hare before.

“We don’t want any runway incursions” involving planes on a potential collision course, the official said. “It’s going to be complicated enough having fuel trucks driving out onto taxiways and runways to fuel planes parked all over the airfield.”

Under commercial airline operations, fueling is done at the ramp outside the terminal gate.

The FAA and the Chicago Department of Aviation are not expecting the NATO summit to affect travel on the airlines serving O’Hare. But that could change.

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Man Electrocuted At Evanston CTA Station

April 23, 2012 By Leave a Comment

WGN

A man fell and died at a CTA platform in Evanston.

It happened on the Purple Line, at the South Boulevard station; three people were standing on the platform late Sunday night when 27-year-old Zachary McKee of Ossian, Indiana stepped off the platform to urinate.

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Some Aldermen Raising Concerns As Hearing Set On Mayor’s Trust Plan

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune

By Hal Dardick and Kristen Mack

The proposed expansion of public-private partnerships to rebuild Chicago would give a board dominated by corporate financiers handpicked by Mayor Rahm Emanuel the power to hammer out multimillion-dollar deals without many of the checks and balances meant to keep City Hall in line.

Even after the mayor revised his plan to try to win over aldermen ahead of a key City Council hearing Monday, the ordinance still does not provide for oversight by the inspector general, guarantee compliance with state transparency laws or prevent board members from leaving and immediately joining companies they just helped win lucrative contracts.

Emanuel is now offering to explicitly give aldermen the power to vote on projects financed by the Chicago Infrastructure Trust that involve city money, assets or land. But the measure does not extend that authority to the CTA, Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Park District. Even if those sister agencies are allowed to weigh in, their boards are all appointed by the mayor.

“The whole ordinance reeks of ‘trust us, trust me — I’ll do the right thing,’” said Julie Roin, a University of Chicago Law School professor with expertise in local government. “But there aren’t any controls. Maybe he is to be trusted and the people he appoints are to be trusted, but how do we know?”

Barely a month after he unveiled it, Emanuel is pressing aldermen to approve a major piece of legislation that could have profound impact on city finances for decades to come. At the full City Council meeting Wednesday, the mayor also is asking aldermen to pass a controversial speed-camera ticketing ordinance that could spur lengthy debate.

The timing of the vote is key because the ordinance is the City Council’s one shot at setting the rules by which the trust operates. Once the trust is set up, it becomes much more difficult for aldermen to put more checks and balances in place.

Last week, 10 aldermen asked Emanuel to delay seeking a vote on his infrastructure plan until at least next month, saying there are too many unanswered questions. On Friday afternoon, the administration released a revised version of the measure. That won over the leader of the group, Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd, who days earlier sent out a 32-question memo demanding clarity.

Other aldermen have yet to be convinced.

“We appreciate that the mayor has addressed concerns of the aldermen, but the fundamental shortcoming still exists even in the revised ordinance because it marginalizes the City Council’s essential role in safeguarding the short- and long-term financial interests of the city’s taxpayers,” said Ald. John Arena, 45th.

The mayor’s staff has insisted all along that the ordinance is in no way intended to usurp council authority. Rather, they say, it’s a way to pay for major public works projects aimed at creating a better future for the city — in cooperation with the council and city agencies.

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Mayor, CTA Privately Talked About $300 Million No-Bid Deal

April 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune

By Jon Hilkevitch and David Kidwell

The Emanuel administration and the CTA engaged in private discussions on a $300 million no-bid contract with the maker of the transit agency’s new rail cars, but the talks collapsed amid disclosures about the poor quality of the company’s work, the Tribune has learned.

Bombardier Transportation’s pitch to build and operate a South Side rail car overhaul facility on vacant city and CTA land in a CTA rail yard took off in May 2011 after Mayor Rahm Emanuel was elected, CTA officials told the newspaper.

The talks over the public-private partnership continued for 10 months, “in keeping with the mayor’s priority of creating jobs and generating economic development,” CTA spokeswoman Molly Sullivan said.

CTA lawyers had been working to justify the unusual practice of awarding such a large contract without competitive bids, the transit agency said.

But the city and CTA backed away from the talks in recent weeks amid Tribune reports that disclosed defective-parts problems with Bombardier’s ongoing production of 706 new rail cars under a contract that totals $1.14 billion.

First word of the previously undisclosed discussions with Bombardier comes as Emanuel is asking the City Council to give him broad authority to partner with the private sector to build everything from schools and sewers to ports and railways. The details uncovered by the newspaper highlight both the potential benefits and pitfalls of such public-private partnerships.

A vote on the mayor’s proposal to create an “infrastructure trust” could come as soon as next week. Emanuel’s plan calls for a panel of business experts appointed by him who would identify infrastructure projects that would be built for the city and find ways to fund them other than the traditional practice of government borrowing money and paying off the debt with taxes. The panel’s meetings and deliberations would not be subject to open meetings or public records laws.

Emanuel’s press office repeatedly refused to answer questions about what involvement the mayor had in the Bombardier discussions. On Tuesday his top spokeswoman would only acknowledge the mayor was initially attracted to the Bombardier plan because of potential jobs. She said the mayor soured on the idea because of the no-bid aspect, without saying when that happened.

“The mayor doesn’t do sole-source deals,” said Emanuel communications director Sarah Hamilton. “It was a nonstarter. It was never going to happen.”

CTA officials said the no-bid component had nothing to do with scuttling the deal and that Emanuel had encouraged it all along.

“Very early, even before he took office, he asked me how we might turn this billion-dollar expenditure into an opportunity for jobs,” said CTA President Forrest Claypool, who was appointed to the post shortly after Emanuel’s inauguration. “So when I took office we took that mandate and ran with it.”

Claypool described the Bombardier proposal as a “very, very rare potential for a win-win. The goal was a noble one. ”

As recently as November, a top Bombardier executive who was in Chicago for what was billed as the official rollout of the rail cars discussed with an enthusiastic Emanuel the company’s plans to build the repair facility, according to a CTA source.

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CTA Plans 7-Month Rehab Of Loop Elevated Track

April 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune

By Jon Hilkevitch

Two CTA track inspectors wearing orange vests and hard hats walked along the Loop elevated structure looking for signs of trouble as they dodged passing trains.

The inspectors didn’t have far to go as they approached the Quincy station one day last week. It was one “L” of a mess.

There, just below platform level on the 115-year-old structure, sunbeams reached the street through splinters of badly decayed timbers and wooden ties that support and secure the steel railroad tracks.

The track’s two inner rails, which would come in contact with train wheels and stabilize the rail car only in the event of a derailment, were badly chipped and rusted, clearly in no condition to serve, as they once did, as the primary running rails.

To help keep the iconic Loop track going for possibly another 100 years, a $39 million track-replacement project is scheduled to start April 20 and continue primarily on 16 selected weekends through November, CTA officials said.

The renewal work, affecting about 11,500 feet of track, includes the stretch along Wells and Van Buren streets; a small portion above Wabash Avenue; the Hubbard Curve, just north of the Merchandise Mart station; and the junctions at Lake Street and Wells and Wabash and Van Buren, CTA officials said.

Lake and Wells is the site of Tower 18, one of the busiest rail junctions in the U.S., according to the CTA. On weekdays, an average of almost 700 CTA trains passes through the junction, where trains are directed either clockwise or counterclockwise around the Loop. About 500 trains serve the Loop on weekends, officials said.

About half of the total track on the Loop elevated is being replaced. The rectangle-shaped “L” is two miles around, double-tracked, resulting in four miles of track.

Standing on the platform of the Quincy station as the inspectors surveyed the tracks, Barney Gray, CTA general manager of construction, pointed to spots where the ties and supporting pieces weren’t as badly degraded as the worst of the timbers — not yet anyway.

If they all were that bad, the Loop “L” would be shut down, he said.

“Those rotting ties pose no immediate threat to the system. But what it tells us is that the other ties are not far behind in terms of deterioration,” Gray said.

The rehab work will be surgically performed in 50-hour bursts, beginning with rerouting of trains at 9 p.m. Fridays and ending before the morning rushes Mondays, officials said. It’ll be a tight schedule, with no margin for error because the tracks must be reopened by 4 a.m. each Monday, officials said. Five of the eight CTA rail lines travel on the Loop elevated.

As such, the project is being highly choreographed, almost down to the minute, to maximize productivity. About 350 workers will demolish and rebuild about 1,000 feet each weekend. Everything above the steel supporting structure and below the station platforms — rail, ties and track components — will be replaced.

Click here for the full report from the Chicago Tribune.

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After Faulty Parts Found, Builder Of New Rail Car Tried To Cut A Deal With CTA, U.S. Says

March 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Chicago Tribune

Caught by CTA inspectors with installing defective steel parts made by a Chinese supplier on new rail cars, officials at Bombardier Transportation tried to cut a deal with the transit agency to replace only the worst parts initially, according to an oversight report by the federal government.

CTA officials said Thursday that they flatly rejected Bombardier’s argument that the partial change-out of steel castings was acceptable in cases where the internal flaws on the weight-bearing castings did not appear to occur at key stress points.

Bombardier’s idea was to replace the other defective parts later, during routine maintenance, once the trains began passenger service in Chicago, CTA officials said.

Instead, all-new parts, manufactured by two new suppliers and tested vigorously to verify their structural integrity, will be installed on the 706 rail cars the CTA ordered from Bombardier in a $1.14 billion deal, CTA officials said.

“We insisted on full replacement of all defective parts,” CTA President Forrest Claypool told the Tribune. “We were disappointed that we found defective parts and the supplier in question was providing an inferior product. Bombardier has fired that supplier, and we have taken steps to improve the quality assurance in the supply chain process.”

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Man Tracks Stolen Phone, Helps Nab Suspect

November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

WGNTV.com

By: Rosemary Sobol

A man attacked by men who stole his cellphone on a Red Line train in Lakeview was able to track one of the suspects down by using the phone’s global positioning software and alerting police who apprehended him hours later on a moving CTA bus on the South Side.

Maurice Sutton, 19, was booked into Cook County Jail Wednesday after a judge ordered him held on $90,000 bond, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s office. Sutton, of the 7900 block of South Crandon Avenue, was charged Tuesday with robbery.

Aaron Cagle, 23, said he was headed for work at Argo Tea where he is a shift supervisor at O’Hare International Airport when three men confronted him on a southbound “L” between the Addison and Belmont stations at 3:20 a.m. Tuesday.

He said his neck was twisted by one of the assailants and he was pinned to the floor while the other one went through his pockets. The third suspect stood guard at the door.

“I was put in a headlock, and he pushed my head to the floor of the train,’’ Cagle said.

Cagle said there were at least two other people on the train at the time. One man exited the train when he saw what was happening and a woman who appeared homeless did not seem to know what was going on.

“It all happened so fast that it was just a blur,’’ Cagle said.

Click here for the ful report from WGNTV.com

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CTA Cleanup Coming To Oak Park?

September 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

OakPark-RiverForestPatch

By: Casey Cora

Chicago Transit Authority rail stations across the Chicago area are getting a facelift. Will the effort include Oak Park?

“We don’t have a complete list ready right now but it’s not limited to Chicago proper,” a CTA spokeswoman told Patch.

At a news conference Tuesday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CTA President Forrest Claypool announced the debut of a public-private partnership that will result in makeovers for more than 100 rail stations.

The effort will utilize a mix of city employees and private contractors — dubbed the “Renew Crew” — to perform the work over the course of a year, moving from one station to the next painting walls and ceilings, repairing masonry and busted concrete, planting trees, washing tunnel walls and replacing signage. Other work will take place behind-the-scenes. (See the CTA’s Flickr page for examples at a few rail stations across the city.)

Click here for the full report from the OakPark-RiverForestPatch

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