Back in August I launched the CTA Alerts with my brother Kevin over at www.ctatattler.com. Since that time, 406 people have signed up and made hundreds of posts. Here’s a look at the things I’ve learned from CTA Alerts:
- The CTA can be pretty forthcoming with information when they’re given a platform. Shorty after we launched, the CTA signed up and started posting. They are by far the most prolific posters. In fact, the system has really turned into a top/ down communication tool instead of a rider-to-rider tool that I had envisioned when I launched it. I think the CTA deserves a lot of credit for this
- There are more medical emergencies on the CTA than I thought
- When given a chance to bother 400 people by pushing a few buttons, people who sign up for the CTA Alerts rarely do so
- The CTA is on the avant garde of a lot of news stories. I found out about the Midway plane slide and the Pilgrim Baptist Church fire through the alerts
- On the other hand, I learned that there’s an awful lot of fires,
police activity, anti-war rallies, and crashes that affect traffic but never hit the news - The rider-to-rider nature of the system works when it needs to. We all got tons of high quality rider-to-rider accounts of the November 17 accident on the Red Line
There’s more to learn, one message at a time.