CTA Yellow Line to resume service on Friday, over 7 weeks after crash
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The CTA Yellow Line will resume service on Friday morning – more than seven weeks after a crash that left dozens of people injured.
The Chicago Transit Authority said service on the Yellow Line – also known as the Skokie Swift – will resume at 4:45 a.m. Friday. The CTA said it has worked extensively with the National Transportation Safety Board during the investigation of the Nov. 16 crash and has reevaluated safety protocols.
"We extend our gratitude to our riders impacted by this incident and for their patience," CTA President Dorval R. Carter Jr. said in a news release "My No. 1 priority for our customers and employees is safety. I wanted to make sure we looked at every aspect of this incident, as thoroughly as we could, to ensure the highest levels of safety when we reopened. I will never compromise safety for expediency."
The CTA will be implementing new safety measures on what it says is an interim basis. Most notably, and as announced before, Yellow Line trains will run at a maximum speed of only 35 mph rather than 55 mph.
The CTA also earlier said it was slowing trains to 25 mph in the area where the crash took place – where trains exit a below-grade trench that runs through southern Evanston, and follow a sharp curve as they proceed onto a stretch of open track in the Howard rail yard.
The transit agency has also added an "extra later of communication and protection," which includes the "manual blocking" of rails for non-transport vehicles such as snow plows like the one the train hit in the accident.
Supervisors will also join train operators on the first few runs, and the CTA also the Yellow Line tracks have been power-washed to clear debris from the Yellow Line tracks.
"The NTSB did not require CTA to implement these safety enhancements; these mitigation measures are being made out of an abundance of caution to further protect our employees and riders," CTA Chief Safety and Security Officer Nancy-Ellen Zusman said in the release.
In addition to injuring everyone on board – 31 passengers and seven CTA employees – the crash caused an estimated $8.7 million in damages to CTA equipment.
Ever since, shuttle buses have been running in place of the Yellow Line trains from the Howard Station to the Dempster terminal in Skokie.
The NTSB's preliminary report on the crash stated the Yellow Line train that crashed in November was going 54 mph when the operator received a stop command because the snow plow was less than half a mile ahead.
When the operator saw the machine, they hit the brakes and the emergency brakes, but the train didn't stop in time, hitting the snow plow at 27 mph. The train's event recorder showed a system designed to reduce wheel sliding on the train activated throughout both braking operations, but that wasn't enough to stop the train before the crash.
The NTSB said previously that a "design flaw" was to likely to blame for the accident – noting that the signal system on the Yellow Line was configured to allow for a stopping distance of 1,780 feet, while the current guideline is a stopping distance of 2,745 feet.
Trains are configured to take a certain amount of distance to stop. The larger and faster the train, the longer the distance it will need to slow down.
The CTA is responsible for calibrating the distance.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy has said the NTSB believes the train operator did nothing wrong according to CTA protocol – nor did the CTA workers who were operating snow removal equipment on a clear, sunny day.