Posted on Oct. 3 at 1:30 p.m.

Rejoice, my South Side fam.  We have not been forgotten in the ctagifts.com store.  There was a scare yesterday when an evidently uninformed ctagifts.com rep sent an e-mail to a rider saying that South Side items for the customize your shirt, mug, baby bib, etc. were not yet ready to be shipped. "Going Public" got in on the action to avoid transit tranvesty.

But luckily, the rep's comments were not accurate, as confirmed by Adam Case, the CTA's guru of Customer Information who called me to make sure I got the memo.  South Side stops are also available when you order your custom item on the site.

What a relief!  Despite my threat in yesterday's post, I was never that good at making my own T-shirts with bubble paint and didn't want to start now to make sure the stops south of Cermak showed up. 

Let mass transit memento-buying resume!

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.

Posted July 18 at 12:22 p.m.

It's hot.  I know I'm not telling you anything new.  But this is almost the kind of hot that infamously touched off the drama in "Do the Right Thing."  I'm two steps away from going old-school and calling Rosie Perez to bring me some ice.

That's why it's really dangerous to be a luggage lout right about now.  I know, I know.  You need to ride the buses and "L" trains and you also need to be able to bring your stuff (groceries, luggage, grocery carts).  But there should be some kind of limit, folks, and if you do bring things onboard, be careful with them. 

Or you just might anger the wrong rider.  I got an e-mail and some pretty choice photos from a rider named Erica who used her camera phone to memorialize a rider with quite a lot of baggage who was causing quite a lot of blockage.

Tell me, honestly.  Have you ever done this?  What do you think the CTA could do to mitigate the baggage boors?  Personally, I think you should either streamline your stuff or pitch in with some buds on a shared limo in some extreme carry-on cases.

Posted July 7 at 3:12 p.m.

Head's up, home team.  I may be running some blog posts in "Hey, CTA!" tomorrow, so if you have any compliments or complaints for CTA service, hit me up below.  We're making sure we have a mix of comments and commenters, so from time to time, you'll see your posting in the paper.

Don't be shy.  I know someone has got something to say about Taste of Chicago service, particularly on the Fourth of July.  Kinda glad I was out of town for that fiasco. 

Posted June 25 at 3:02 p.m.

Sometimes, even "Going Public" gets called out.  And it happened yesterday, for sure.   While tallying "Rotten Route" votes from my e-mail and this blog, I received a call from a woman who said she was a CTA employee and boy, was she mad and seemingly ready to let me have it.  She said she knows things aren't 100% with the CTA, but it infuriates her to constantly read rider complaints in the RedEye maligning transit agency employees when riders themselves are part of the problem.

"These people need to have a mirror put up to their faces," she told me during the approximately 10-minute conversation.  She pointed out, and rightfully so, that buses do not pull out dirty in the morning and that only happens once riders get in on the equation.  One particular pet peeve, she offered, in response to those who say bus operators are rude:

"We face bad attitudes all the time, especially from the ones who come in from the suburbs and think that $2 buys them the world."  By the time the call ended, I encouraged her to sound off on this blog with more stirring insights, and I hope she takes me up on that offer.  I got an ear full, but felt I learned something too.

Then, today, I got another note from a gentleman who said he is a bus operator.  His e-mail was very humble and I could totally sympathize with his situation, as he appealed to riders to get up on time, use the Internet to plan their routes, and use some restraint when taking out their system-inspired anger on individual employees. 

In closing, he wrote: "Thank you for this opportunity and I wished the best to all customers of Chicago and  others, and remember we will be there for you." 

So do you have empathy for CTA employees? Do the many get a bad rep due to the actions of a few bad apples? Or is the apple cart rotten through and through? CTA employees, we want to hear from you too.

Posted June 2, 8:58 a.m.

Have you ever gotten touched by one of your transit peers in order to help you, or rather their commute, along?

I remember a woman who put her hands on my waist and semi-slid me over while I was standing, in order to make her way off of the Red Line "L."  I thought it was wicked weird, since an "excuse me," would have done the trick, but ah well.  No harm, no foul.

But sometimes a touch is really too much, especially after I read a rider e-mail titled "Ride at Your Own Risk." 

It may make you think twice about being too transit touchy feely:

No rider should EVER put hands on another rider for any reason. Nobody is aware of another rider's physical condition/health risks.  Another boarder placed his two hands on the small of my back and shoved me hard in a failed attempt to push me up the bus steps faster. I was carrying a heavy load and was having a problem boarding. This man severely damaged my spinal cord. It's been a year and a half and I am still not healed and may never be. I am facing spine surgery now. I went from feeling like a forty something to feeling like a seventies something. I was 63 when this occurred in mid October 2006, boarding the CTA bus at the Broadway and Diversey stop around 9:00 PM.

Posted May 29, 8:50 p.m.

There's nothing wrong with a CTA rant.  It helps us blow off CTA steam after a super slow commute, close encounter with an ornery operator, or getting splashed by a subway puddle of who-knows-what. 

But there is no excuse for the race-based rants that occasionally enter the "Going Public" inbox.  They start in the usual fed-up rider format, but then delve into tirades about Latinos doing this, whites doing that, Asians doing this, and blacks doing the other...

Each time, I've tried to explain to the offensive e-mailer that gross generalizations won't do anyone any good.  More importantly, haven't we all realized by now that CTA stupidity is raceless, classless and gender-less? 

Apparently not, as two eagle-eyed riders sent me the same racially charged post from Craig's List.  Though it pained me to read it, it pays to know what some ignorant people are thinking.  That's why I'm sharing it with you.  Check out this foolishness from a poster who sounds like he or she could use some grammar lessons as well as a stint in a racial sensitivity seminar. 

The post is titled "Why do blacks run from one CTA car to another?"

...one hand holding the crotchof His His Baggy Gang Banger Pants He runs from this car to the next Car to the front of the Train to the last car of the Train than He takes a look through the glass of the Train Car (could He be trying to make sure thre are no Police? (He dosent have to worry about doing that! the Police are at Duncan Donuts!) And go ahead folks, feel free to light up a Ciggarette or a joint...the Police dont seem interested in having under cover Detectives on the CTA Trains. The Uniformed Police are a total Joke! all the Uniformed CTA Police do, is Arrest Homeless People for having alcoholic Beverages in there Bags, or Drinking on the Train, or sleeping on the Train. If You go to the 95th Street CTA "end of the Line" stop, between 2:00 and 4:00 You can enjoy watching the brave Private Security Guards of the anti Homeless Squad kick the Homeless off of the train! I's fun to listen to the "spanglish" speaking Lateno Security Guards tell the Homeless "You not supposed to be here!" "You gotta pay again! Do You unner-stan Me?" At least I have a Job and an Apartment. The Homeless Bums that ride the CTA seem for the most part rather well behaved. (smelly yes, but well behaved.) The Criminal element appears to be (generaly) well dressed (in clean looking Gang atire)Young, Male and Black. I have seen vary Young Black Children running from one car to the next (with no Adult) after 12:00 Midnite. Dose the CTA and the Chicago Police Department prefer to ignore the problem because it is overwhemingly BLACK? O.k. now: 1: Criticize My Spelling, punctuation and grammar. 2:Call Me a "Racist" or a "Hater" 3: Flag this Post.

How about introducing option #4? Ban this obnoxious Archie Bunker from further written communication as well as riding the rails and routes. 

The CTA is a mass transit  melting pot, making it a bigger shame that people insist on bringing their ignorance onboard along with their overstuffed backpacks.

Posted May 8, 11:57 a.m.

It's no great surprise that Google is a to-die-for tool when it comes to finding useless information.  Just a few clicks and you can find old friends, obscure song lyrics, or the fate of that high school biology teacher who gave you a C- for refusing to dissect that frog. 

You can even use it for travel, and a little while back, the CTA signed on with Google Transit in an attempt to make travel easier.  But it's not exactly working out for everyone.  Here's a comment from a rider who isn't too ga ga over Google when it comes to CTA directions.

Alan Ferguson of Andersonville writes:

Please bring back the old trip planner on the website or improve the one from [Google].
1. It doesn't give you the option of trains only or buses only.
It gives you two or three ways to get somewhere but what if both options aren't viable? I don't want to take three buses when I could take a train. I tried to piece together my own schedule but the PDF train and bus schedules don't give exact times when the trains or buses arrive/leave. Even if you don't want to give exact times, give approximate times ... Something, anything. Not this "Every 7 to 10 minutes" business. Let me get my slide rule and my graphing calculator so I can figure multiples of 8 for when I will arrive at a certain station or when I need to get to a certain station.
It's a massive headache to try to get the Google planner to do what you want. The old one was really easy and user friendly so please bring it back.

So what's the verdict, riders?  Is Google helpful for your CTA travels? If so, give our Andersonville friend your best tip on how to get around using these techno tools.

Posted April 23, 11:20 a.m.

Like Whitney Houston, I believe the children are the future.  But the future is kind of bleak on the CTA.

Yesterday evening, I was riding a Red Line train from Grand and State to Roosevelt when I heard some of the foulest language ever since I experienced N.W.A. in the late '80s.  I was afraid to turn my head and look at the source of the verbal villainy because it seemed he was looking for trouble, commanding a seemingly drunk Cubs fan rider (and serenader) to "shut up his corny singing" and saying he was going to put a "hole in somebody's head."  The ruffian spoke loudly into his cell phone, which unfortunately worked underground, obviously attracting the attention of everyone in the vicinity

I ignored him since I didn't have my fighting shoes on.  But as he walked past me to exit the train, I was surprised to find out he was a baby-faced pre-teen with a bookbag bigger than he was.  Surprising, and sad....even sadder than the sloshed Cubs' fan's rendition of "Some Kind of Wonderful."

This kid was obnoxious, but not as awful as students who stop the buses or try to leap out of emergency exits or do car-crossing, harassing other riders in the process.  Not to pick on the kids, but seriously:

Youth of today, what's really going on?  And fellow riders, have you run into trouble with these "L"-ectric youth?   

Posted April 19, 3:57 p.m

Baseball season is on and popping, and you can see signs of it all over the city, especially as the weather warms up.  White Sox and Cubs hats are cocked to the side almost everywhere you look.  I even spotted a cute puppy wearing pink baseball gear, touting their owner's team of choice.

You can also see the signs of baseball season along the CTA, some of which aren't so positive.

That includes drunken baseball revelers on the trains and buses.  A Red Line rider sent me a hilarious description of some Sox fans' antics onboard a train leaving the Cell.  Here's an excerpt from his e-mail:

"Riders reported that a totally glazed Old Style drinking crew appearing to be DePaul students or of University age proceeded to show total disrespect to the rather packed subway car from Sox Field to Fullerton.  At least two entered the car with open beer cans carrying a 24-pack of Old Style, which they nursed through their trip to Fullerton.  In addition, they sporadically opened beer cans, drank, cussed and otherwise abused the ridership.  They also seemed to have the desire to repeatedly sing "Roxanne" to a crowd unimpressed with the out of tune ballads to other toasted students.  The group seemed to consist of mostly white University aged adults seemed intent on antagonizing others.  They left their Old Style empties in the train car and disembarked at Fullerton around 11:45 p.m.  After embarking, one of the observers reported that an older man in his thirties started clapping in relief that the crew disembarked at Fullerton."

Before you get bent out of shape, Sox fans, I am a South Sider and am not picking on the team on my side o' town.

A few weeks ago, I was crammed into a car with some Cubs fans, some of which did not know the rules of the rails.  They were blocking doors, chanting and engaging in other silly shenanigans on a packed train headed to Wrigely Field.

So my question to you, fans and non-fans: Who acts the biggest fool on the CTA on game day?  Sox fans or Cubs fans?  And don't respond based on your own affiliation.  This isn't going to win anyone a World Series.