Took my daughter into the Loop over Thanksgiving weekend for a matinee of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at the Chicago Theatre.
We rode the subway, and on the way Catherine confessed she was a bit scared. It’s one of her favorite stories, but she didn’t like the idea of being in the same room as that angry, obstinate Beast. She was even a little leery about being close to a talking teapot and a singing candelabrum.
Me, I wasn’t scared of the play. But that subway ride, that was another matter. The Chicago Transit Authority, you see, has turned its rapid transit service into an adventure with more goofy surprises than anything Disney could dream up.
I’m talking here about the new “single-operator” system.
More Top Picks Best Gel Insoles For Standing All Day
For a month now, the CTA has been running its high-volume Red Line (Howard-Dan Ryan) and Blue Line (Milwaukee-Congress) without conductors on the trains. A lone CTA “operator” (formerly known as the motorman) now operates both the throttle and the doors.
It’s one of the money-saving “service changes” announced last spring. The wholesale bus cuts were brutal, but veteran strap-hangers have known from the outset that the real time bomb was the proposal to pull conductors off the trains. Especially off the two subway lines, which originate above ground and traverse some of the city’s higher crime areas.
I used to ride the Red Line but decided a few years ago, after 15 years of running late and tempting fate, to switch to Metra. (There was a cop shot two weeks ago at my old subway station. The incident reminded me of how much I don’t miss the raving winos and shell-game hustlers.) Anyhow, I was among those whose eyebrows knitted last spring when David Mosena, former CTA chief, announced the transit system would save $10 million annually by running without conductors.
Months passed, other crises called, and I more or less forgot about the “single operator” change.
Until, that is, Catherine and I boarded an all-stop at Howard Street. I didn’t want her to miss anything so we sat up front in the first car. Not all the way up front, because there’s now a yellow crime-scene-type ribbon strung across the aisle so the operator can dash, unimpeded, from the driver’s side to the opposite window whenever the train pulls into a center, or left-side, station.
She was busier than a bug juggler, that operator, dashing in and out of the cab, announcing the name of the present and next stations, opening the window, sticking her head out, pulling the toggles to open the double-doors on all eight cars, waiting for everyone to get on board, closing the doors, jumping back into the cab, pushing the throttle.
All this as we rumbled ahead through a pea-soup fog that, before single-operator, would have commanded her full attention.
When we reached Loyola–a long, curved center platform–strange things began to happen. Two uniformed CTA employees were posted at each end of the station. Their job, I learned, is to tell the train operator, who can’t see the rear cars because of the curve, when all the passengers are on board so she can close the doors.
“They must get paid less than conductors,” I said to the operator, who had time for a word or two in between stops.
“Oh no,” she said. “Those are conductors. They had to put them there when they realized the operators can’t see the rear cars. You’ll see them at Wilson, too.”
Soon we pulled in to the Fullerton station and I sagely told Catherine to get ready for the always-exciting descent into the subway tunnel. But first another curious thing happened: A uniformed CTA employee boarded a middle car and assumed the role of conductor, operating the doors and announcing the next few stops.
“They decided it was unsafe to run without a conductor in the subway,” said my operator-friend. “So they get on at Fullerton and get off at Cermak. They go back and forth all day.” I would later learn that the same drill is practiced on the Blue Line, with conductors jumping on and off at the Clinton and Division stations.
“Let me get this straight,” I asked my busy friend, before gathering up Catherine to get off at State and Washington. “You mean they’ve got conductors (who start at $12.50 an hour) standing around at both ends of the subway tunnels and at these other stations? Where’s the savings in that?”
She just smiled.
I was informed later that the CTA plans to install cameras and TV monitors at Loyola and other obstructed-view platforms so operators will know, without help, when the doors are clear. And that subway cars will be reconfigured, over time and at great expense, so the operators can seclude themselves in cabs that have windows on both sides of the train. No more yellow tape. No more on-board contact between rider and operator.
Some things I still don’t know: What to make of unofficial reports that punks are roaming the Dan Ryan line, grabbing necklaces and snatching purses, safe in the knowledge that there’s no conductor on board with a two-way police radio. Nor do I know how a single operator would cope with a fire or derailment on an elevated train crowded with hundreds of panicky passengers.
Maybe Frank Kruesi, the mayor’s new guy at CTA, has all this figured out. Then again, maybe the bully boys up top just don’t want to admit they made a mistake.
The Beast was that way, too. Then he changed. Which is why that story had a happy ending.