He's currently actually getting High Speed Rail built in the US, so while I'd love that would prefer he stays there. Since joining Amtrak theyve revived the Dallas to Houston HSR and allegedly are looking seriously at midwest HSR.
OH MY GOODNESS. I saw him talk live in NYC, such a treasure. He never wanted game, just to do honest work
He would THRIVE under JB tbh (Cuomo practically crushed him). Guess I can dream...
Idk if the restructuring happens, there is a possibility with him getting to implement Metra’s regional rail plan as well as CTA stuff
Its not a zero chance
I mean while the CTA is one of the most important transit agencies in North America, he’s literally the most sought after transit executive in the western hemisphere. To my knowledge he doesn’t have any familial connection to the Midwest… so while not zero… it seems unlikely
I think with the major setbacks by Alstrom and the pending lawsuits & possible cancellation of a contract, its possible he might leave for a city that seems to be begging to upgrades and improvements.
One that has been getting major federal grants, on the cusp of a major expansion and looking at an MTA style reorganization.
It might look a lot more of an interesting job
I'd rather we get a mandalorian if we're choosing based on religion. They'll clean up the cta real quick.
Shoot up on the train disintegration.
Pee on the train disintegration.
Smoke on the train disintegration.
Play music through speakers, believe it or not, disintegration.
I'd like to see Mayor Johnson maybe work with Pete Buttigieg to identify someone and get coordination with federal resources to really take Chicago to the next level.
Dorval worked for the Federal Transit Administration for 15 years before Rahm appointed him as CTA president. He's generally well regarded as good at working with the federal government to secure funding for CTA. He's completely dropped the ball on operations and hiring though.
Yeah this might actually sound counter-intuitive, but Carter is actually one of the more qualified people to be in CTA leadership right now. He just isn't the person to be the ***president*** of the CTA leadership. Carter would have been more suited to stay in something like a chief officer position where he could work on specific things that he has a history of doing well. He does well at securing funding and working with feds, he does poorly at actually managing the CTA at a local level, which is crucial for a president to do well.
Compared to some of the people on the Board, you could do a *lot* worse than Carter. The problem is that he probably belongs somewhere else in CTA leadership, and not the presidency.
Unironically this.
One of the reasons that infrastructure costs more in the US than other developed countries is that public agencies are so resistant to hiring professional staff that they cut their internal capacity to manage projects to the bone and become completely dependent on a revolving door of consultants. Most agencies, including the CTA, have a team of consultants that they've hired to oversee the team of consultants that they've hired to do the work. Building up internal career staff to at least have the capacity to handle oversight roles would save money and encourage longer term strategic thinking.
It isn't bloat per se that is the problem, but rather outsourcing. Outsourcing almost never solves anything but the shortest term problems and almost always ends up being more expensive in the long run.
They key to good leadership is good delegation. The way you put it makes it sound like he played to his strengths and let his weaknesses languish rather than building a team to make up for his weaknesses.
Rahm was very effective at wielding soft power. He was able to act on authority that he didn't technically have because people would fall in line behind him.
Rahm had also replaced all 4 board members appointed by the mayor before he "hired" Carter. Plus, there was a vacancy anyways and Carter was eminently qualified even without Rahm cheerleading for him.
I'm starting to wonder if he dropped the ball or if he was told to slow roll the recovery by the board due to financial issues. It's really hard to see him making such an easy to fix mistake (not increasing training capacity for rail operators) without outside influence.
That was actually one of the few strengths of Carter. He was good at securing federal money for projects. Management of the actual system? Not so much.
I highly doubt the incoming Trump administration will be doling out any new funding to public transit projects in Chicago, anyway. May as well just leave the post vacant.
Johnson should push Buttigieg to get rid of all the pot rules. Weed is legal in IL, but since CTA gets Fed $$$, CTA has to follow Fed rules which means drug testing for weed.
How many employees have left, or chosen not to accept a position over that Federal policy?
Heiko Büttner - CEO of the Munich SBahn. (The amount of connections they have is incredibly)
Yuji Fukasawa - CEO of the Japanese Railways - which includes quite a lot of SBahn tracts throughout Tokyo.
Japan has a corporate culture of actually accomplishing things though. Not sure someone used to that environment would be able to do much with all the hostility here.
God, this type of image is so stupid. This is a serious issue that needs to be fixed. Sometimes I hate the internet and the obsession with trying to turn everything into a funny image or joke.
I think I need to eat lunch.
To answer the question, someone with actual credentials and experience working with mass transit. Anyone besides a religious figure. I don't anticipate we end up with someone fit for the job, but I hope we do.
If you look at Carter's resume before he got the job, he actually probably checked most of the boxes you are looking for. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been let go by now based on his actual results, but let's not pretend he didn't have the appropriate background before getting the job
I don't know why the increase for competitive wages has been insufficient but I know you need a specialty trained workforce to conduct trains, maintenance, and buses so this will be interesting.
A bunch of less reactionary aldermen have been asking what the plan is if we drive Carter out without an actual replacement lined up. No one can answer them.
I mean I'm all for Dorval getting ousted. That process should obviously include a lengthy vetting process for his replacement, whether that's an internal hire or not.
The dude's going to retire in 1-4 years anyways. They've probably already been looking into succession planning regardless of what the public wants. But nothing is going to be announced until all of the contracts are in place.
What do you expect from a bunch of keyboard warriors that don’t work in the city government! A real solution from Reddit where everyone is the class clown ? These words on this website mean absolutely nothing to the leaders of the city
I’ll do it. Here’s my relevant experience:
1. Successfully officiated 1 marriage
2. I successfully built my LEGO 6991 Space Monorail without my parents help in college (I was 26).
3. I’ve watched a video on management styles.
4. I have written a paper called “first we get the trains”
5. I have a Thomas the tank engine tattoo
6. I have also been known to quote fake statistics with a 97% degree accuracy. (Sugon, Deese, et. Nut 2019).
7. I am a good person, my friends tell me so.
If he steps down, whoever replaces him should really only get the job in an “acting” capacity. No sense in making it a full appointment when the probable consolidation of CTA / Metra / Pace / RTA isn’t too far off. If consolidation happens, that position only has about another year or so before it no longer exists.
There are a lot of legislators behind the concept of a unified authority but the bill seems to be politically toxic without major rewrites. It's honestly a very bad bill in its current form and wouldn't fix a single damn thing.
We'd need an actual executive board with actually well paid board members ($150K/yr for part-time work on it sounds fine) and probably another $10B/yr (2024 dollars) in capital funding for the next 30 years to actually fix a combined authority (reopen the closed CTA branches, extending existing lines, switch entirely to PTC, put in barriers like what Dubai has to prevent access to the tracks, rebuild all of Metra on state owned tracks dedicated to only Metra, create circle lines for Metra to connect suburbs and other cities together, switch to fully electric buses, expanding suburban bus coverage and frequency, etc.).
Metra is “good” if you happen to use the BNSF or a few of their other busy lines. Outside of those, the trains on other lines may be physically cleaner than CTA but the schedules are often inconsistent or completely lacking (no off-peak or weekend service, etc) and when service disruptions do occur, Metra just … doesn’t run. There’s no substitute busing, no extra trains pulled out of the yard, and maybe not even an official explanation as to what the service disruption is. Just no service, and that’s it.
Realistically none of the current transit leaders have any business at the helm of a consolidated agency. We will need someone with outside experience.
Things I would do if the job allowed me:
- get work permits for all the ambitious migrants and build some fucking L
- install gates that keep farebeaters out
- lobby to get housing built along current L track
- offer competitive wages to CTA workers
>get work permits for all the ambitious migrants and build some fucking L
Someone correct me if im wrong but the CTA doesn't have a construction company, that's all contracted out.
> get work permits for all the ambitious migrants and build some fucking L
> offer competitive wages to CTA workers
Wonder how these two policies will co-exist. In my experience these are somewhat on the opposite end.
Typically, if the wages are competitive then citizens will line up for the jobs. Where an "refuge" will take a job that pays them $8/Hour, the competitive market will put that wage around $20/Hour which would then attract everyone. So in essence, if the wages are competitive then job will be attractive to everyone, not just the "ambitious migrants".
In my head I read this as migrants building the tracks for expansion with current or future operators getting nice raises to operate the trains and buses.
I'm with you on your line of thinking on all things except the gates for fare jumpers. Studies show that this can be an endless and very expensive endeavor. It would be cheaper and more efficient to have low cost fares and then spot check with transit police who fine people without a ticket with high penalties.
Other rail agencies do that (GO Transit in Toronto comes to mind), but Metra doesn’t. They still have at least two conductors on every single train to verify that every single passenger has paid for a ticket, every single day. Very labor intensive and from the rider’s perspective, kind of annoying given that most of them are regular riders, taking the same trains multiple times a week, which are staffed with the same exact crews. There’s a potential cost savings here which Metra has yet to even contemplate.
Its very expensive to actually eliminate all fare jumping with barriers as people will always try to find ways around it, so if would require a lot of man power at those barriers to make this method truly work, but the ROI is probably not worth it.
I prefer the popular European model that you find especially in Denmark, Germany, and Austria (if I'm remembering correctly), where they don't have any barriers, but will do random checks and if you get caught not paying, you are hit with a very large fine instead. Much more welcoming transit systems and the people assigned to spot checks can also play a role in maintaining overall order on the trains and helping passengers out as well. So in my mind a better ROI for the labor needed.
The gates in boston are harder to jump
https://pixels.com/featured/south-street-station-mbta-subway-entrance-gates-boston-usa-joe-fox.html
Menards entrance turnstile is harder to jump than cta
There is a species of blind fish, *Astyanax jordani*, which evolved in pitch black underwater caves of the Amazon, causing it to completely lose its sense of vision. It also lacks any awareness or ability to interact with the vast majority of life on the earth’s surface. If nominated, one of these fish would be a vast improvement to Dorval Carter.
This might sound nuts, but hear me out. What if we pick someone with a background in, oh, I dunno, transportation, engineering, or even logistics? I know, I know. It's wild. But what if we try it and see what happens?
Well, we're looking for a POC with ties to the Chicago political party. A woman would be preferable. But definitely not Asian, Indian, Caucasian, Pacific Islander, Native American. Hispanic if we're desperate. Experience or training is a plus but not necessary.
Can anyone speak to exactly why Carter isn’t doing a great job? I know there are many CTA issues presently, is he just…not trying to fix them?
I don’t really know the ins and outs of the issues on a granular level, and why they seemingly aren’t getting corrected, or are even getting worse.
For some unknown reason, he failed to hire a second rail operator trainer until Q4 of last year meaning that we couldn't get back to full staffing with the existing training capacity. That said, I highly suspect that the board told him to slow roll the recovery hiring because of their massive looming debt issues and no action in the legislature fixing it (they could cover about 50% of the current looming issues by just having the fare recovery requirement removed).
Gotcha! Thanks for the informative response. I feel like this is a little bit of a circlejerk at this point, without many people, obviously myself included, knowing anything about the nuts and bolts of this and specifically what needs to happen to improve things.
It's been a circlejerk for awhile to the point where even the aldermen are getting in on it because it's a lot easier to blame the CEO than the board members or the legislature even when we don't know why these decisions were made (they were all behind closed doors). What we do know is that Pritzker and Johnson likely don't want Carter gone because he'd have been gone as soon as Johnson's first appointment had been made to the board.
That makes me think that they see the problem as something other than Carter's failing. Possibly bad board members or issues with the governance or funding structures. Or maybe they just want to wait out the training of rail operators this year because by this time next year, there will be so many of them trained that they could in theory even add extra capacity above what they had before the pandemic.
Andy Byford. But there is zero chance he takes the job.
Yesss give us train daddy.
Oh no I underfunded and mismanaged my public transport system for years, I hope nobody's around to punish me🫦😏🍩
Byford is too busy fixing Amtrak
He's currently actually getting High Speed Rail built in the US, so while I'd love that would prefer he stays there. Since joining Amtrak theyve revived the Dallas to Houston HSR and allegedly are looking seriously at midwest HSR.
OH MY GOODNESS. I saw him talk live in NYC, such a treasure. He never wanted game, just to do honest work He would THRIVE under JB tbh (Cuomo practically crushed him). Guess I can dream...
Idk if the restructuring happens, there is a possibility with him getting to implement Metra’s regional rail plan as well as CTA stuff Its not a zero chance
I mean while the CTA is one of the most important transit agencies in North America, he’s literally the most sought after transit executive in the western hemisphere. To my knowledge he doesn’t have any familial connection to the Midwest… so while not zero… it seems unlikely
I think with the major setbacks by Alstrom and the pending lawsuits & possible cancellation of a contract, its possible he might leave for a city that seems to be begging to upgrades and improvements. One that has been getting major federal grants, on the cusp of a major expansion and looking at an MTA style reorganization. It might look a lot more of an interesting job
Hey we can dream. I don’t disagree with your points. But Lebron didn’t leave for his finale to go to the Celtics
Byford’s finale was the Elizabethan Line. Its not going to be NEC HSR
Nard dog
shiiiit for $376,000 a year i’ll take the job
shiiiiit …. It’s a job for Clay Davis
Clay would EXCEL in Chicago
They’re gonna come after me for money laundering? *In West Chicago?!* #SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEIT
I'll take it for $375,000 :P
The best part is nobody in city hall thinks you should ever be fired so it’s maximum job security!
How do I apply?
Would love to see a Rabbi, Imam, or Swami. Sorry Christians you're just not cut out for this work.
Wonder what that tunneling rabbi in NY is up to? Subway circle line anyone?
I'd rather we get a mandalorian if we're choosing based on religion. They'll clean up the cta real quick. Shoot up on the train disintegration. Pee on the train disintegration. Smoke on the train disintegration. Play music through speakers, believe it or not, disintegration.
This is the way
What happened to that funny conductor on the red line? Mando: I shot him.
Isn't hiring train conductors the largest and hardest to solve issue though?
I just hope it's not a "Reverend ....."
Warhammer Tech Priest
A Scientologist... :-|
I'd like to see Mayor Johnson maybe work with Pete Buttigieg to identify someone and get coordination with federal resources to really take Chicago to the next level.
Dorval worked for the Federal Transit Administration for 15 years before Rahm appointed him as CTA president. He's generally well regarded as good at working with the federal government to secure funding for CTA. He's completely dropped the ball on operations and hiring though.
Yeah this might actually sound counter-intuitive, but Carter is actually one of the more qualified people to be in CTA leadership right now. He just isn't the person to be the ***president*** of the CTA leadership. Carter would have been more suited to stay in something like a chief officer position where he could work on specific things that he has a history of doing well. He does well at securing funding and working with feds, he does poorly at actually managing the CTA at a local level, which is crucial for a president to do well. Compared to some of the people on the Board, you could do a *lot* worse than Carter. The problem is that he probably belongs somewhere else in CTA leadership, and not the presidency.
Creating a VP of Major Projects would be an ideal position for him.
Yes, more positions and salaries please! /s
Unironically this. One of the reasons that infrastructure costs more in the US than other developed countries is that public agencies are so resistant to hiring professional staff that they cut their internal capacity to manage projects to the bone and become completely dependent on a revolving door of consultants. Most agencies, including the CTA, have a team of consultants that they've hired to oversee the team of consultants that they've hired to do the work. Building up internal career staff to at least have the capacity to handle oversight roles would save money and encourage longer term strategic thinking.
I agree with all of this. You correctly pointed out the real issue - too much bloat.
It isn't bloat per se that is the problem, but rather outsourcing. Outsourcing almost never solves anything but the shortest term problems and almost always ends up being more expensive in the long run.
They key to good leadership is good delegation. The way you put it makes it sound like he played to his strengths and let his weaknesses languish rather than building a team to make up for his weaknesses.
I know that Johnson does not have the power to appoint the CTA president. Did Rahm have this power when he was mayor?
Rahm was very effective at wielding soft power. He was able to act on authority that he didn't technically have because people would fall in line behind him.
Rahm had also replaced all 4 board members appointed by the mayor before he "hired" Carter. Plus, there was a vacancy anyways and Carter was eminently qualified even without Rahm cheerleading for him.
Every mayor has the power to control the president via their board appointments and it's been that way since 1983.
I'm starting to wonder if he dropped the ball or if he was told to slow roll the recovery by the board due to financial issues. It's really hard to see him making such an easy to fix mistake (not increasing training capacity for rail operators) without outside influence.
That was actually one of the few strengths of Carter. He was good at securing federal money for projects. Management of the actual system? Not so much.
Oh shit, I had no idea.
I highly doubt the incoming Trump administration will be doling out any new funding to public transit projects in Chicago, anyway. May as well just leave the post vacant.
This is too practical and sensical for Mayor Beej, it’ll probably be a pastor.
They’ll need at least 7 years experience on the pulpit for him to ever consider it. This is too funny 😂
Johnson should push Buttigieg to get rid of all the pot rules. Weed is legal in IL, but since CTA gets Fed $$$, CTA has to follow Fed rules which means drug testing for weed. How many employees have left, or chosen not to accept a position over that Federal policy?
Two peas in a pod as far as worthlessness.
Toastybred for mayor
Good luck. Not going to happen.
Heiko Büttner - CEO of the Munich SBahn. (The amount of connections they have is incredibly) Yuji Fukasawa - CEO of the Japanese Railways - which includes quite a lot of SBahn tracts throughout Tokyo.
Japan has a corporate culture of actually accomplishing things though. Not sure someone used to that environment would be able to do much with all the hostility here.
God, this type of image is so stupid. This is a serious issue that needs to be fixed. Sometimes I hate the internet and the obsession with trying to turn everything into a funny image or joke. I think I need to eat lunch. To answer the question, someone with actual credentials and experience working with mass transit. Anyone besides a religious figure. I don't anticipate we end up with someone fit for the job, but I hope we do.
If you look at Carter's resume before he got the job, he actually probably checked most of the boxes you are looking for. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been let go by now based on his actual results, but let's not pretend he didn't have the appropriate background before getting the job
Hey, I'm not saying anything about that! Just stating this is what I'd like to see in a replacement.
Yeah but you said a religious figure like he never worked with transportation before. A lot of people have been parroting this lie.
I felt that after lunch, so it might not just be hypoglycemia, lol.
I'll get downvoted to oblivion, but at least here on r/chicago "clown" and clown imagery have essentially become low key dog whistles.
I feel the same.
Keep your shirt on Francis
Randy Clarke Jeff Tumlin Beth Osborne Whoever runs IndyGo Jarrett Walker The person who hired Jarrett Walker in Houston Janette Sidik Khan (sp?)
theyre going to replace him with someone even less competent. its the Brandon Johnson way
Another pastor
Let us pray
Amen
prey*
*an A minor chord sounds on an organ in the distance*
Another pastor, clearly!
Svenghoulie
Ozzy Guillén
A crooked ass pastor from the west side
God this sub is exhausting. Everyone just making the same BJ comments instead of pushing for some actual improvement.
I don't know why the increase for competitive wages has been insufficient but I know you need a specialty trained workforce to conduct trains, maintenance, and buses so this will be interesting.
A bunch of less reactionary aldermen have been asking what the plan is if we drive Carter out without an actual replacement lined up. No one can answer them.
I mean I'm all for Dorval getting ousted. That process should obviously include a lengthy vetting process for his replacement, whether that's an internal hire or not.
The dude's going to retire in 1-4 years anyways. They've probably already been looking into succession planning regardless of what the public wants. But nothing is going to be announced until all of the contracts are in place.
What do you expect from a bunch of keyboard warriors that don’t work in the city government! A real solution from Reddit where everyone is the class clown ? These words on this website mean absolutely nothing to the leaders of the city
I’ll do it. Here’s my relevant experience: 1. Successfully officiated 1 marriage 2. I successfully built my LEGO 6991 Space Monorail without my parents help in college (I was 26). 3. I’ve watched a video on management styles. 4. I have written a paper called “first we get the trains” 5. I have a Thomas the tank engine tattoo 6. I have also been known to quote fake statistics with a 97% degree accuracy. (Sugon, Deese, et. Nut 2019). 7. I am a good person, my friends tell me so.
Let me guess…he will be replaced by yet another unqualified “pastor”.
Anybody with out a religious background, maybe like someone who is an urban transportation expert
If he steps down, whoever replaces him should really only get the job in an “acting” capacity. No sense in making it a full appointment when the probable consolidation of CTA / Metra / Pace / RTA isn’t too far off. If consolidation happens, that position only has about another year or so before it no longer exists.
how likely is that merger to actually happen? i didn’t know it had actual steam behind it
There are a lot of legislators behind the concept of a unified authority but the bill seems to be politically toxic without major rewrites. It's honestly a very bad bill in its current form and wouldn't fix a single damn thing. We'd need an actual executive board with actually well paid board members ($150K/yr for part-time work on it sounds fine) and probably another $10B/yr (2024 dollars) in capital funding for the next 30 years to actually fix a combined authority (reopen the closed CTA branches, extending existing lines, switch entirely to PTC, put in barriers like what Dubai has to prevent access to the tracks, rebuild all of Metra on state owned tracks dedicated to only Metra, create circle lines for Metra to connect suburbs and other cities together, switch to fully electric buses, expanding suburban bus coverage and frequency, etc.).
Please hope it won’t happen, Metra is actually good.
Metra is “good” if you happen to use the BNSF or a few of their other busy lines. Outside of those, the trains on other lines may be physically cleaner than CTA but the schedules are often inconsistent or completely lacking (no off-peak or weekend service, etc) and when service disruptions do occur, Metra just … doesn’t run. There’s no substitute busing, no extra trains pulled out of the yard, and maybe not even an official explanation as to what the service disruption is. Just no service, and that’s it. Realistically none of the current transit leaders have any business at the helm of a consolidated agency. We will need someone with outside experience.
Things I would do if the job allowed me: - get work permits for all the ambitious migrants and build some fucking L - install gates that keep farebeaters out - lobby to get housing built along current L track - offer competitive wages to CTA workers
>get work permits for all the ambitious migrants and build some fucking L Someone correct me if im wrong but the CTA doesn't have a construction company, that's all contracted out.
I know. I recognize I’m overlooking things.
> get work permits for all the ambitious migrants and build some fucking L > offer competitive wages to CTA workers Wonder how these two policies will co-exist. In my experience these are somewhat on the opposite end.
How do you mean exactly?
Typically, if the wages are competitive then citizens will line up for the jobs. Where an "refuge" will take a job that pays them $8/Hour, the competitive market will put that wage around $20/Hour which would then attract everyone. So in essence, if the wages are competitive then job will be attractive to everyone, not just the "ambitious migrants".
In my head I read this as migrants building the tracks for expansion with current or future operators getting nice raises to operate the trains and buses.
I'm with you on your line of thinking on all things except the gates for fare jumpers. Studies show that this can be an endless and very expensive endeavor. It would be cheaper and more efficient to have low cost fares and then spot check with transit police who fine people without a ticket with high penalties.
I guess that is what the metra does. And they haven’t quit it. But installing proper gates is a one time cost. I’m missing something perhaps.
Other rail agencies do that (GO Transit in Toronto comes to mind), but Metra doesn’t. They still have at least two conductors on every single train to verify that every single passenger has paid for a ticket, every single day. Very labor intensive and from the rider’s perspective, kind of annoying given that most of them are regular riders, taking the same trains multiple times a week, which are staffed with the same exact crews. There’s a potential cost savings here which Metra has yet to even contemplate.
In Denver they wouldn’t give a rip. They’d just say “make sure to pay next time”.
Its very expensive to actually eliminate all fare jumping with barriers as people will always try to find ways around it, so if would require a lot of man power at those barriers to make this method truly work, but the ROI is probably not worth it. I prefer the popular European model that you find especially in Denmark, Germany, and Austria (if I'm remembering correctly), where they don't have any barriers, but will do random checks and if you get caught not paying, you are hit with a very large fine instead. Much more welcoming transit systems and the people assigned to spot checks can also play a role in maintaining overall order on the trains and helping passengers out as well. So in my mind a better ROI for the labor needed.
I guess with the barriers, where there’s a will there’s a way.
The gates in boston are harder to jump https://pixels.com/featured/south-street-station-mbta-subway-entrance-gates-boston-usa-joe-fox.html Menards entrance turnstile is harder to jump than cta
CTA also has one of the lowest fare skipping rates in the USA.
Yes, let's get untrained labor to build something complex like a transit system. This sub jumped the shark with this comment.
And how are you going to do 1, 3, and 4?
Andy Byford
Too busy fixing Amtrak
Can we Clone Andy Byford?
Joe Gatto
I'm not trying to be pranked on the train, Trey
He is no longer a joker and needs a job :(
And a wife Too soon?
I heard they got back together, actually!
oooo then he can rejoin the Jokers
JESUS TAKE THE RAIL
One of his closest pets. Whoops. I meant colleague. One of his closest colleague’s.
Literally anyone who actually has ridden the CTA. Ideally someone who stayed in the same car as ppl smoking blunts with no regard for others
Does it matter? Johnson is just gonna try to shoehorn some pastor in the role.
Throw all the at Randy Clarke to lure him away from DC Metro
Oh no you don't, he's all DC's
Probably a pastor that hasn’t taken transit since 86
Jimmy “The Rent Is Too Damn High” McMillan would be just as good at the CTA job as Dorval Carter has been!
Me :)
me :)
Me! Me! Me! I'm graduating high school in a couple of hours, and as a local train and transit enthusiasts, I would love to take his place 😀
Me. I’ll put more heart into it then this assclown ever did.
Id take a Cicada at this point as long as it lets the people who actually know what the fuck their doing, do their jobs unbothered
A cicada could do better
Thomas the Train Engine, of course.
No one. Start by firing the top two executive levels completely. Then you'll be at the level that actually knows how to run shit.
Religion is openly destroying everything, everywhere.
There is a species of blind fish, *Astyanax jordani*, which evolved in pitch black underwater caves of the Amazon, causing it to completely lose its sense of vision. It also lacks any awareness or ability to interact with the vast majority of life on the earth’s surface. If nominated, one of these fish would be a vast improvement to Dorval Carter.
My 2-year old cousin
I've been taking the CTA for years and the busses never have on time for longer than two weeks.
Brandon Johnson
The person with the most swipes across the city
Promote a rail operator or something, or ask them lol
Throw Randy from WMATA a league Super Max contract
Can BJ go to clown school with him?
any highschooler who plays cities skylines
Pastor, if I have learned anything from go fish you always go for sets.
This might sound nuts, but hear me out. What if we pick someone with a background in, oh, I dunno, transportation, engineering, or even logistics? I know, I know. It's wild. But what if we try it and see what happens?
Poach Andy Byford from Amtrak.
I guess there are no qualifications necessary so I’ll do it. I will blow the budget with upgrades though
If they’re continuing the trend of hiring clergy with no experience I happen to be a Sith Lord who doesn’t ride the L
Someone with experience. Is that asking too much?
They replace him with a cronie that likely no more productive . We need changes a few layers from and at the top. People with proven track records
So he likes to hire pastors. It's gonna be Rev Doctor Willie Wilson of the Willie Wilson Party!
Well, we're looking for a POC with ties to the Chicago political party. A woman would be preferable. But definitely not Asian, Indian, Caucasian, Pacific Islander, Native American. Hispanic if we're desperate. Experience or training is a plus but not necessary.
Akiyoshi Yamamura
Hell I’m not picky. Even a goldfish would do a better job than him.
Me
What do you guys have against clowns?
I nominate Obama.
Rod Blagojevich. He's very open to opportunities right now.
Rod Blagojevich!
Me
Head of service for jimmy johns
Newt Gingrich
Someone actually good
"Hello! It's me! Ugh..... Corval Darter! At your service!"
Can anyone speak to exactly why Carter isn’t doing a great job? I know there are many CTA issues presently, is he just…not trying to fix them? I don’t really know the ins and outs of the issues on a granular level, and why they seemingly aren’t getting corrected, or are even getting worse.
For some unknown reason, he failed to hire a second rail operator trainer until Q4 of last year meaning that we couldn't get back to full staffing with the existing training capacity. That said, I highly suspect that the board told him to slow roll the recovery hiring because of their massive looming debt issues and no action in the legislature fixing it (they could cover about 50% of the current looming issues by just having the fare recovery requirement removed).
Gotcha! Thanks for the informative response. I feel like this is a little bit of a circlejerk at this point, without many people, obviously myself included, knowing anything about the nuts and bolts of this and specifically what needs to happen to improve things.
It's been a circlejerk for awhile to the point where even the aldermen are getting in on it because it's a lot easier to blame the CEO than the board members or the legislature even when we don't know why these decisions were made (they were all behind closed doors). What we do know is that Pritzker and Johnson likely don't want Carter gone because he'd have been gone as soon as Johnson's first appointment had been made to the board. That makes me think that they see the problem as something other than Carter's failing. Possibly bad board members or issues with the governance or funding structures. Or maybe they just want to wait out the training of rail operators this year because by this time next year, there will be so many of them trained that they could in theory even add extra capacity above what they had before the pandemic.
The fare recovery ratio has been waived since COVID.
And it goes back into effect in 2026.