Aaron Maertins

JR Yamanote Line train arriving at a station

Bowl of ramen, bowl of rice, and side of extra garlic

Exterior of a Japanese 7-11

Japanese wafer and chocolate ice cream

When you’ve got a six hour layover and have critical business to attend to

Crowded Metra train with nearly every seat full, and a Bike Car 1.5 with three bikes.

Packed trains, room for bikes, and happy riders!

Paper sign saying “UP-N weekend service will run every 60 minutes starting September 20th … start taking the train!”

Paper sign saying “If you see something, say something. Call the Metra police to contribute to a safer transit system”

Paper sign saying “Thank you for not driving”

There’s a tactical urbanist on the loose in Evanston and I’m here for it

Metra train arriving at Ravenswood station with riders on the platform waiting to board

Today, Chicago’s third-busiest regional rail line got its most robust weekend schedule since at least 1981. These people are about to board a train during the middle of what was a two-hour gap in service. As a transit planner, there’s almost nothing better than watching people use a new service.

Inside of a Metra train with most seats filled

Lots of folks out celebrating today!

That’d require a -big- Mannheim fix

I’ll say I’ve done my best to make that workable on my end - the off peak train comes at the same time every hour, 7 days a week, and it’s been like that since last May. Easy to schedule around. But the 330 is not clockfaced, and also for some reason stops at Archer/Harlem rather than going to MDW.

You’ll NITA find someone who can look into that.

Well this would seem to sever my own one-seat ride to ORD so now I’m not sure.

Milwaukee District capacity would definitely make it interesting but would be cool to see one of those lines go to ORD - one seat ride for the greater South Side/South Burbs to the largest single site employer (that is ORD right?) + connection for McCormick Pl

Well I’ve wanted to shed those old railroad-y names since I walked in the door, but I suppose we only began studying it a little under a year ago so I’m happy to concede that you got there before me.

I cant shake the thought that I want more connectivity for that X7 and X8 service. Also knew you’d come around to the alphanumerics.

It’s a solid first step we’ve been trying to implement for over a year. Can’t wait to see what ridership looks like. Fiscal cliff shenanigans notwithstanding, hoping next year we can add the four additional round trips to make it true hourly.

BNSF carried 50K yesterday just saying.

Crowd of people boarding a train in the morning, with two other trains visible in the distance

We love (new) 15 minute frequencies. Decent crowds only three days in!

Person taking a video of an arriving subway train

Happy to have trained @michidander.bsky.social to capture the moment when he rides a new subway system he’s never ridden

In effect on Monday for Labor Day

South Shore Line weekend schedule

Weekend schedule

I can’t wait to get the data out there for public consumption/analysis. Since it’s based on actual ticket sales it shows nuances like event ridership and some stations being busier on weekends than weekdays, vs. the 2018 and prior counts which were just a weekday snapshot.

226 - Manhattan (SWS)
227 - Laraway Rd (SWS)
228 - Belmont Ave/Franklin Park (NCS)
229 - State St (ME)
230 - Rosemont (NCS)
231 - 123rd St (RI)
232 - Racine (ME)
233 - West Pullman (ME)
234 - Mannheim (MDW)
235 - Prairie St (RI)

27th is ranked 204, and the ranking excludes Zone 1

We’re working on an updated station ridership metric using a combination of Ventra App and vending machine data - hoping to release some updated station-level data this year. Right now 10 least busy (excluding stations closed for part of the year) are:

I can’t even imagine the chaos this would cause if we were days away from implementing a service change - crew implications, GTFS, scheduling software, incorrect printed posters at hundreds of locations…

And on UPW, Kedzie now served until end end of service on weekdays and all day on weekends!

It’s finally happening

Maybe there’ll be a reason to revisit the UPN in the next month or so…

Luckily that’s just the express so there’s an immediate follower, but dang filling up at Lisle…

Certainly not my decision

🤮

Georgia Aquarium. Tiger Sharks.

Eventually I’d like to do a hack night of sorts, bring in some data wonk folks to tear apart our station-level data and anonymized customer data to see what they can find.