So a couple of Chicago alderman are up in arms about re-hiring CTA train conductors so they can help out in the event of future evacuations on the CTA. My brother Kevin writes about it over at CTA Tattler.
Apparently there is some Homeland Security cash available and the alderman know exactly how the CTA should spend it. The CTA says they want to spend it on technology, like cameras.
I say go ahead and spend the money on cameras. But they should also publish detailed subway maps (with exit holes), allow citizens to tap the cameras on their cell phones,
upgrade the emergency and "way out" path lighting, and do other practical things that would make evacuations less of a mystery for normal riders.
What if they put a great big pulsing light under every evacuation manhole in the subway? Just like the advertisements on the Blue Line between Clark and Washington? That way, if something happens, people on the back of the train could say, "I know we just passed an exit, go this way!" and people on the front of the train could say, "I know from riding this train every day that there’s a pulsing light/ exit just ahead", and they could go that way.
What if motivated citizens (and if you’re on CTA Alerts, you know as well as I do, there are a lot of train wonks out there) were given extra training on evacuations? No obligation to help, no promise to be on the train on a certain day, just an informal
network of people who would help out if they could. I think we’ve all seen in an emergency situation that vocal people/ leader-types emerge. Let’s give these people some tools to know what they’re saying.
These are just a couple of ideas. I know there are more ideas– better ones– out there. Not every communal problem is solved by hiring more government workers. This is the way of Open Source Emergency Response. CTA Alerts is one idea in this direction. There have got to be more.