On Sunday, new bus and train schedules went into effect. The Chicago Transit Authority added service to 48 bus routes, eliminated 12 bus routes, and removed service on segments of 4 bus routes. Additionally, the CTA added 17 trains on the Red, Blue, Brown, Purple, Orange and Green lines (during rush periods). Pace Suburban Bus modified some of its routes to accommodate the CTA’s eliminated routes. See the full details on CTA’s website.
Did you notice your train or bus was a little less crowded?
Note: Northwestern University Transportation Center (NUTC) was a consultant to CTA to study the decrowding initiative, but there was no report issued. I asked CTA spokesperson Brian Steele about this: “To conduct the study, NUTC took multiple CTA data sets (including ridership, service planning, entries/boardings, operating costs, fare revenues) and did an analysis of service. NUTC then met with CTA and their analysis confirmed CTA’s initial analysis of the data – identifying the best routes on which to augment, discontinue, or reduce service.”