Giant Ginkgo

The Chicago Transit Authority early last year decided to purchase new buses to replace the aging fleet of Seattle articulated buses that have compromized the bulk of the express route lines. Of course, it took them an additional 6-8 months to actually receive the vehicles that they said would be arriving in the late spring/early summer of 2003.

The new buses finally started to appear on the bus routes a couple of months ago, and boy, it wasn't worth the wait. While they don't look too bad, the manufacturing on them is absolutely horrendous. In the few months I have been riding them, I've seen the following problems:

• Back doors that won't open
• Back doors that don't want to open, but grudgingly will
• Back doors that don't want to close after grudgingly being opened
• Fair taking machines that are broken
• Digital signs that aren't on, or display the wrong information
• GPS location tracking that isn't working, or is disabled

I don't want to think how poorly these machines are going to be in another decade. I just hope that the air conditioning will work on them, since the two decades old Seattle buses don't. The manufacturing quality is absolutely absymal - proof of what happens when you go with the lowest bidder. What was the CTA thinking?