# Questions about CTA (Chicago mass transit) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-cta-chicago-mass-transit/169408 "2003-04-17T20:54:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qazzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/aeb1de/32.png) [@Qazzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qazzz)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-cta-chicago-mass-transit/169408/1 "2003-04-17T20:54:30Z")
Lots of nagging questions about the trains and buses of Chicago’s CTA system: – On the trains, why is a piercing, high-pitched beep in the operator’s vestibule emitted just before and during braking? Why not a more pleasant sound? – Why, around the 47th street stop of the Red Line, do the tracks tilt? Was it a design flaw? Could the train ever tip? – Why does the operator guy on the weekday southbound “nine fifteen” run in the morning always click the microphone button - seemingly testing to see if it works - at every stop? He also seems to cycle through announcements just for fun. – If “rapid transit” is supposed to be rapid, why do the buses, especially the 36 and 151, seem to move at a snail’s pace in order to make their time quotas? I understand that they want to be on schedule, but isn’t it kind of contradictory to the point of mass transit? – Has the tunnel leading from the Green Line to the Red Line just before Roosevelt ever been utilized? Thanks for any input! ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-cta-chicago-mass-transit/169408/2 "2003-04-17T21:33:46Z")
– On the trains, why is a piercing, high-pitched beep in the operator’s vestibule emitted just before and during braking? Why not a more pleasant sound? Is it the sound of the brakes? – Why, around the 47th street stop of the Red Line, do the tracks tilt? Was it a design flaw? Could the train ever tip? I don’t know about the 47th street stop, but around Belmont the track tips, and (20?) years ago a train fell off the tracks there. Now they go around that bend more slowly. ---
**Author:** ![Emilio\_Lizardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Emilio\_Lizardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emilio_Lizardo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-cta-chicago-mass-transit/169408/3 "2003-04-17T23:02:09Z")
The beeping sound is an alarm meaning the motorman is going too fast. So you have causality reversed – he brakes because of the noise, not vice versa. As to why its not a more pleasant sound, well, its an alarm; if it was pleasant he’d never slow down! ---
**Author:** ![Emilio\_Lizardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Emilio\_Lizardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emilio_Lizardo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-cta-chicago-mass-transit/169408/4 "2003-04-17T23:07:10Z")
The beeping sound is an alarm meaning the motorman is going too fast. So you have causality reversed – he brakes because of the noise, not vice versa. As to why its not a more pleasant sound, well, its an alarm; if it was pleasant he’d never slow down! ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2003, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-cta-chicago-mass-transit/169408/5 "2003-04-20T02:18:00Z")
Click here [http://www.chicago-l.org/index.html](http://www.chicago-l.org/index.html)