babbling blue

It’s been a couple weeks since I’ve blogged again. Bad Josh! Eh, who cares?

Anyway, I’m still alive and still blogging, when I get around to it. Summer is coming, so don’t expect me to spend too much time slaving away at the keyboard to update all 2-3 of you on the mundane details of my unexciting life! But then again, the presidential campaigns are under way, so I may need to get back into more political blogging. Time will tell.

As far as my life now, I’m still working and in class (stupid quarter system!). I had a neat experience recently that I plan to blog about soon, complete with (camera phone-quality) pictures. But not today.

The CTA went to it’s three-track system last month. To compensate for that, they added more buses to certain routes. That included the route I ride most often, 22-Clark. For a few weeks commuting was almost enjoyable. There were more buses which meant shorter waits and I was frequently able to get a seat. I stayed on the bus instead of switching to the train like I used to. For awhile, things were pretty good. (But only during rush hour. . . off hour commutes were still pretty pathetic.) I predicted early on that it wouldn’t last. The bean counters would see that the buses were no longer running at 110% of capacity and way behind schedule. They would realize they could save money by cutting back on the extra buses, resulting in service levels on those lines more like what they were before the 3-track cutover (service levels I would classify as POOR, by the way). And it seems that finally happened. Starting last week, I’ve had to wait longer for buses, both in the morning and evening and those buses have been much more full than they were. *Sigh* I miss the old days (well the recent old days) when I could get a seat on the bus and read my book.

This scaling back in service happened not long after a new person was put in charge of the CTA. I know people are (skeptically) hoping he will clean things up over there, but if what I’ve seen is a sign of things to come under his leadership, I’m not very optimistic.