Not sure when RedRider is riding; I take the red line from Edgewater and I hear announcements all the time.

Try getting any information or direction from the CTA when entering the "Twilight Zone"--otherwise known as the Howard CTA station on weekends.

Most of the time no signs or directions as to where to catch the Red/Purple/Yellow lines...southbound/northbound...when only two tracks are open due to construction and completely crowded with people on half the platform and no place to move. Sometimes we were never told when a Red Line train was directly ahead of us when we get off the Purple Line.

One time a CTA employee insisted the normal signs pointing to the northbound Purple Line platform were actually meant to direct me to the other platform where the Purple Line was actually running from.

By the way, anyone riding any train into the Howard station on weekends should add 20 minutes or more to your travel time. You WILL stop and wait a few times before reaching Howard...and don't "expect to be moving shortly" or momentarily. Apparently it's an extremely timely manuever to stop a train, empty it, and move it on out of the way. Last weekend, an empty train pulled up on the lone northbound track, and then we heard the train was not in service, and the driver left it there shortly, not allowing the running trains to come in. I don't get that one.

I Take the #50 Damen and hear automated announcements prior to every stop.

What I like about the Damen bus:

* Has cta bus tracker
* Always clean
* Not many people

What I don't like about it
* Often up to 2 minutes late even when ctabus tracker is just 10 minutes out.

Today..Sat. Aug. 23...another fine example of CTA's inept performance in the Howard "Twilight Zone". Taking a Purple Line southbound from the last station South Blvd. into the Howard Station to the Red Line only took 40 MINUTES. OK, we hear the announcement about construction delays again and we'll be moving "shortly", but as we sit just north of the Howard station waiting, an empty Red Line passes ahead of us about every 5 minutes, and we and another Purple Line behind us are frozen in time. The last announcement we heard was that a Yellow Line train was ahead of us and we would be next going in....a total lie as several Red Line trains kept passing us by.

Apparently there were "switching" problems I was told later, which didn't seem to affect the parade of Red Line trains passing by us. Of course, we were never told any specific details while sitting on the train AGAIN, because AGAIN the CTA does not care to communicate with the passengers on the train paying their salaries. Again, you are the CTA, not the CIA, you can give us information on what is happening on the tracks ahead of us...instead of the silent and dumb routine. I honestly would be less upset if you simply told your customers what is going on, which I assumed was part of your job. But I guess you would rather aggravate all of us, instead of just giving us a simple explanation once in a while.

The bus drivers on 47 street are nice and kind. They will help you in a second. But why is the buses allways breaking down.I saw four buses break down in less that two hours. Who is in charge of fixing them. Azell Edwards woodlawn 34

Azell-

Buses on the #47 break down a lot because they are some of the oldest buses in the system. The garage that runs the #47 has mostly old buses.

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