People Mover/ATS @O’Hare/ORD shuttle train ceases ops until 202? [REOPENED 11/3/21]
 

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/pe...til-fall-2019/The People Mover, O’Hare’s shuttle train, to cease until Fall 2019

This is crazy. Is there no way to keep the ATS system at least partially open?

Wait until this happens at EWR. And that one will be down for a lot more than nine months and will cut off connection to rail also!

No bid contract. I'll take the over on the completion date.

Yes, it says "the CDA will operate a shuttle bus service that will take passengers to and from the airport terminals via a new bus lane"

This is what they did the last time I had to make the trek when the train was closed

At they time they had alot of buses lined up so there was not much waiting. They had a large tent with fans setup due to the summer heat.

It was not as fast as the train but not really that much longer.
A bit more inconvenient since you have to lug your bag(s) on/off the bus.


I don't understand why this would worsen vehicular traffic. Because the extra buses on the road? They say there will be a new bus lane. So they are removing one lane for cars and dedicating it to busses only?

I also think it is ridiculous that their only solution to worsening traffic is to tell you to take the blue line.

ORD is already less than desirable for international-to-domestic connections; this doesn't make things any better!

The EWR AirTrain is so bad that busing, in some cases, might even be faster. It is, without question, the worst primary* APM system at an airport I have ever used.

*= yes, I am familiar with the "creepy little IAH train", but it's essentially useless these days... does it even run anymore?

Full discussion here:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/midw...ay-30-a-3.html

In 2018 when they started the process, it was partially open: meaning it was open on the weekend but closed during the week.

We had to take the bus this past summer. It was in July on a Thursday at about 4:00 PM. The whole thing was a madhouse. The line was long with people cutting the line. Then the traffic was so slow that I could have walked faster. Oops! There's no way to walk from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1. Maybe with the dedicated bus lane it would be faster than what I experienced.

At least passengers arriving in Terminal 5 and connecting to American or United can give the luggage back as soon as getting out of the border control area. For other passengers it was very difficult. And those passengers with luggage were blocking the exiting of the bus when arriving at Terminal 1. They had to get out of the bus with their luggage to let people out and some did not want to do that with the heavy luggage.

What other choice do you propose for reducing the traffic instead of the blue line? Helicopters?

Surely they would still have a facility for rechecking your bags for connecting pax? The only bags you'd have to lug on and off would be carry-ons?

It happened in 2014. I lasted for about 2 months as I recalled. The entire Air Train was down. Passengers arriving on NJ Transit and Amtrack had to get off at Newark Penn station instead of EWR station and to catch Newark Bus from Newark Penn Station to EWR. Added 30 minutes to 45 minutes to the commute during non-rush hours. The real pain was the Newark Bus did not have luggage racks for the passengers.

OK... here are some facts for those freaking out...

• As mentioned, the ATS has mostly been closed since summer. It was only operating on weekends.
• There were lots of growing pains at first but they have moved the pickups/dropoffs around and lines are generally short now
• The system is closing so they can test the new cars and technology. They are DOUBLING the fleet and trains will come every minute when it starts in the fall.

The system is being improved. Relax.

They need to mark it better. I don't do a lot of domestic to intl at ORD and in September I had to do just that.
Took me few minutes to figure out where to go, then when I finally arrived at the station it was closed. No signs downstairs notifying about the closure.
Found the bus and at 7pm there was no problem transferring to int terminal (UA to LO).
I can't imagine transferring during the rush hour with the train down.

As for EWR, at least you can walk from A to B to C and vice versa. You can't do that at ORD, and even if you could, it would probably take an hour for the connection that I did last summer.

Beyond the initial growing pains (which were severe by many accounts), I believe most everyone has said the bus option has worked quite well, even at heavy connection times.

It's been closed weekdays for quite sometime, the only change now is it won't be running weekends either... so nothing to see here, move along. Or... well no, take the bus.

As it's been closed weekends for a while... don't have to imagine, just be there on a weekday during rush hour.

You can ABSOLUTELY walk between terminals 1, 2 and 3 (without leaving security even) at ORD. Terminal 5 does require the people mover or (now) bus.