After the Alert: Bus Shooting on 103rd

My brother and I are planning a relaunch of his site, CTA Tattler. One of the features we want to add is, "after the alert", which would be follow-ups on the story behind an alert we received on our wireless notification utility CTA Alerts. Here's one:

Yesterday at 4:16 PM, we got the following alert from CTA headquarters, written in the reliably flat CTA_HQ style:

#103 buses rerouted EB - 103rd, Halsted, 102nd, Wallace, 103rd. WB - 103rd, Normal, 102nd, Halsted, 103rd

Come to find out why the reroute-- one teenager dead and 4 wounded when someone boarded a bus and began firing:

Police also say at least four of the victims are students at Percy L. Julian High School, at 10330 S. Elizabeth St.

The shooter was not in custody as of early Friday morning, but police said they do know who they are looking for, so as a precaution, extra patrols will be set up at Julian High and at Corliss High School, at 821 E. 103rd St.

The shootings happened on Thursday afternoon when the gunman boarded the bus at 103rd and Halsted streets. He opened fire on passengers aboard as the bus traveled east on 103rd Street.

When the bus driver pulled over the bus at 103rd Street and Lowe Avenue, the gunman fled on foot. It was only about 3 1/2 blocks east of where the gunman got on.

Often more to the alerts than first meets the eye.

Comments

[Bill D.]

Is there a way to keep the changes to ctaalerts you made last week, but have the alerts be readable via the web without having to register with upoc?

Workarounds like bugmenot and mailinator don't address that having the ability to read the alerts over the web without registration, instead of having them delivered via SMS, served as a way to keep the CTA publicly accountable for promptly communicating service disruptions.

This is useful as the CTA removes customer alerts posted to their website when the incidents are over.

[DXO]

Bill:

I will look into this. Basically it seems you're looking for an RSS feed of the alerts that is permanent and viewable on a page w/ no login.

I will see what I can do...

[JD]

I also noticed the change. I have the page bookmarked, and like to check it before I commute, but no longer can we see what is going on without being registered. I don't want to register because I get charged per text message. Thanks!

[KM]

I am in the same boat as JD! I really miss the alerts!