Posted Oct. 1 at 11:45 a.m.

CTA, you are asking for it.  I know you're trying, but you'd better find a way to serve your public transit peeps better.  "Going Public" had barely settled into my seat this morning when I received not one, but two separate rants from riders about train service on different lines.  Not to mention that Twitter was going nuts a day or so ago about ridiculously long Green Line delays.

But I digress.  Check out what rider Kim Charbonneau has to say in an e-mail sadly titled: "Frustrated."  You've got to give this woman points for trying not to complain too much.

"Every day I tell myself to write a letter to Kyra…but then I get to work and try to calm down after a painstaking train ride to work and tell myself that it’ll get better…WELL…It never does!!!  Today I left at 8:15 from the Bryn Mawr station.  I live 6 miles from work.  Why did I get to work at 10:00??  Oh, yes, “defective equipment..”  then fix the damn thing!  After everyone had to exit the brown line at Sedgwick, nobody knew what the hell was going on or where to go, or how to get to work from there.  There were no CTA personnel around.  After 20 minutes of standing there with our thumbs up you know where…a bunch of us went downstairs to get train delay notices, and the one CTA worker took 15 minutes to give 3 passes out.  THEN I had no idea how to get to the loop from that station...I don’t live around there! I had to follow the mass of people and get on the #11 which was insanely packed of course.  I finally got to work at 10:00 AM.  I will have to make up this time.  It is very unfair.   I despise the CTA."

And wait, there's more.  I'm going to run this next letter in its entirety in a "Hey, CTA!" coming up, but check out a taste of the heat rising off of this Logan Square rider who said he was bypassed by four express trains along the Blue Line's O'Hare branch.

"I think that a better hold needs to be caught on this whole mass transit deal, because this has really gotten out of control. But fares are still on the rise."

Yes, the CTA doles out millions of rides, but this is just a sampling of the sentiment in my inbox.  Did you have a frustrating commute today?  And if so, what caused it?  Share, and let the healing begin.  Hope you're listening, CTA.

Oh Kyra,
You are wonderful! Thanks for posting my rant :) It was a LONG TIME COMING!

Yep, I was on the same train as Kim. The conductor was very good while we were on the train. He said a train at Chicago had mechanical problems. This went on for about 10 minutes. Then he said everyone had to get off the train because he was instructed to head back north. So everyone got off and then no communication from the CTA about what to do! Zip. Nothing. Nada. It was shocking. I waited for about 20 minutes at the stop. Someone called 911 I think because 2 fire engines and an ambulance came to check out the stop. Crazy! Maybe they should put a tshirt on their new merchandise web site that says, "Closed for Service."

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