More Bus Moves

[NewFlyerMCI]

You got to wonder if this will hurt #49 ridership. I was on a bus this evening with 6 or 7 riders and that's kind of rare for the #49. Plus the schedule has got to be screwed up because all the operators are losing 20-30 minutes easy by the time they get to the north terminal. I've seen alot of ins and outs at Berwyn. Yesterday they had a supervisor up there. I don't know why they don't do more short turns at the Brown line because this has to be messing up the relief times out south but anyone with a NP bus probably needs to go to Berwyn because some are pullins or they might be doing reliefs. Now the SB is hurting also because they have this detour now, so it will be hard to stay on schedule and there will be alot of bus bunching. They must really have a blast when Lane gets out. Probably 30-40 minute delays then.

Would temporarily truncating the 49 at Logan Sq or Addison/Rockwell have worked better and extended the 49B down? Reasoning being is that the 49B is slightly less essential than the 49, and due to it being shorter, the detours won't affect it that much. Only thing I might be missing is frequency, I can't remember if the have the same frequency or one route has more/less than the other.

[Buslover88]

Would temporarily truncating the 49 at Logan Sq or Addison/Rockwell have worked better and extended the 49B down? Reasoning being is that the 49B is slightly less essential than the 49, and due to it being shorter, the detours won't affect it that much. Only thing I might be missing is frequency, I can't remember if the have the same frequency or one route has more/less than the other.

As far as I know, #49B does have service that runs pretty often, but there is not much of a comparison between that route and #49. I'd like to believe #49 has much more service.

[Busjack]

Would temporarily truncating the 49 at Logan Sq or Addison/Rockwell have worked better and extended the 49B down? Reasoning being is that the 49B is slightly less essential than the 49, and due to it being shorter, the detours won't affect it that much. Only thing I might be missing is frequency, I can't remember if the have the same frequency or one route has more/less than the other.

You could have looked up the schedules on the CTA site. 49 is about every 5 to 7 to 6 to 9 minutes afternoon rush hour; 49B is every 9 to 10.

Logan Square is way too far west, being at (roughly) Kimball (3600W). I see your point, but a transfer point would have to be established.

[Buslover88]

You got to wonder if this will hurt #49 ridership. I was on a bus this evening with 6 or 7 riders and that's kind of rare for the #49. Plus the schedule has got to be screwed up because all the operators are losing 20-30 minutes easy by the time they get to the north terminal. I've seen alot of ins and outs at Berwyn. Yesterday they had a supervisor up there. I don't know why they don't do more short turns at the Brown line because this has to be messing up the relief times out south but anyone with a NP bus probably needs to go to Berwyn because some are pullins or they might be doing reliefs. Now the SB is hurting also because they have this detour now, so it will be hard to stay on schedule and there will be alot of bus bunching. They must really have a blast when Lane gets out. Probably 30-40 minute delays then.

That is just awful. CTA really needs to figure out how to get #49 to return back to relatively normal service. This may be able to done either by short turning every other bus or every third bus, or just by having the route temporarily end somewhere between, say, Diversey or Fullerton, and have the #49B extended south to at least Irving Park or Addison until this madness is done. As far as the Lane Tech kids goes, maybe they could have #50 swing over there (though I don't know how much of an inconvenience this would be), or better yet, maybe have #52 terminate there until this is done. Something has to work, though, because #49 is really messed up with all of this.

[Busjack]

That is just awful. CTA really needs to figure out how to get #49 to return back to relatively normal service... Something has to work, though, because #49 is really messed up with all of this.

Considering today's article that the Purple Line Express won't be express for the next couple of years, and that is something that at least is in CTA's control, I'm pretty sure CTA will blame this on someone else and ignore it.

[BusHunter]

I was looking yesterday, everyone was piled up on the bridge over Belmont NB as all those three lanes, two on the bridge and one local lane from Belmont merges together at Roscoe. It was a sea of headlights. Well hopefully the loads the bridge can stand are OK because they have standing semis on there also. I guess we'll find out, but the bridge is supposed to be demolished in a few months, hopefully nothing will happen by then.

As far as the buses, they could probably maintain schedule just making the NB terminal the Brown line, at least temporarily, but if things got really bad they could extend the #49B to the #52's north terminal and just share it with the #49, but the bottlenecks the NB are facing the SB will face also when they work on that side of the street. They are fixing a 100 year old water main from Roscoe to Addison and will be on that side before too long. The whole Addison to Roscoe thing is supposed to last two months, but then they will probably go into bridge demolition which will bottleneck both sides with one lane of traffic and possibly entire street closures. So an exciting year for Western is on tap!!

I was reading also they want to build protective bike lanes (with the cones) on Belmont from the Chicago river to Kedzie, so Belmont will be a single lane now. They were wanting to build it to Halsted, but they have the no parking signs up already by the bridge. I don't know if they intend to build it to Halsted or not, but that is really going to screw up Belmont traffic.

[Tcmetro]

I believe CDOT is going to demolish the viaduct over Belmont this year too. At least that's what the interwebs told me.

The commute on the 49 has been pretty bad with this traffic. The 50 isn't much better, especially on the weekends with all the shopping by the Chicago River.

[jajuan]

You got to wonder if this will hurt #49 ridership. I was on a bus this evening with 6 or 7 riders and that's kind of rare for the #49. Plus the schedule has got to be screwed up because all the operators are losing 20-30 minutes easy by the time they get to the north terminal. I've seen alot of ins and outs at Berwyn. Yesterday they had a supervisor up there. I don't know why they don't do more short turns at the Brown line because this has to be messing up the relief times out south but anyone with a NP bus probably needs to go to Berwyn because some are pullins or they might be doing reliefs. Now the SB is hurting also because they have this detour now, so it will be hard to stay on schedule and there will be alot of bus bunching. They must really have a blast when Lane gets out. Probably 30-40 minute delays then.

Yeah it sounds like the relief situation might be screwed up for the 74th operators on the 49. The NP operators though do use the Berwyn terminal for their reliefs. But it doesn't sound like they have any easy solutions that don't involve more money that CTA doesn't have. Speaking of express bridge demolitions, things on the #9 were screwed up too when they were demolishing the Ashland bridge that used to be over Pershing. Buses on that route had lots bunching and easily had regular delays of 20 to 30 minutes between bunches, and it got to a point that passengers like me regularly asked if buses were going all the way to Irving Park or simply got in a habit of automatically waiting to get the third bus in a bunched up pack because supervisors short turning NB buses at Belmont had become so regular.

You could have looked up the schedules on the CTA site. 49 is about every 5 to 7 to 6 to 9 minutes afternoon rush hour; 49B is every 9 to 10.

Logan Square is way too far west, being at (roughly) Kimball (3600W). I see your point, but a transfer point would have to be established.

Kimball is 3400W actually. But Logan Square is at Milwaukee and Kedzie, which is 3200 W with the auxiliary entrances and exits at Spaulding (3300 W). Either way you are right that Logan Square is too far west.

Overall, it seems that if possible passengers should look into just using the #9, #50 and #52 as alternatives until the mess on Western is less of a detriment to using the #49. Maybe that's why I'm noticing a bit of an uptick in riders on the #9 during times when passenger loads tend to be relatively lower.

[BusHunter]

Yeah it sounds like the relief situation might be screwed up for the 74th operators on the 49. The NP operators though do use the Berwyn terminal for their reliefs. But it doesn't sound like they have any easy solutions that don't involve more money that CTA doesn't have. Speaking of express bridge demolitions, things on the #9 were screwed up too when they were demolishing the Ashland bridge that used to be over Pershing. Buses on that route had lots bunching and easily had regular delays of 20 to 30 minutes between bunches, and it got to a point that passengers like me regularly asked if buses were going all the way to Irving Park or simply got in a habit of automatically waiting to get the third bus in a bunched up pack because supervisors short turning NB buses at Belmont had become so regular.

Didn't they used to do short turns on the #9 at Ashland Orange line south? Some buses never went north of the Orange line. But that might have been more around the year 2000. I remember the #6000's and #4400's doing that.

Somewhere along the line on Western they are going to shut down that intersection of Belmont/Western in totality. Hopefully they can demolish what they need to demolish there on the weekend. I think I remember the #77's using Roscoe once as a reroute for a festival on Belmont, so maybe they could use that for a reroute. Using Roscoe for the #49 also, might be a bit much but they could probably do it.

[jajuan]

Didn't they used to do short turns on the #9 at Ashland Orange line south? Some buses never went north of the Orange line. But that might have been more around the year 2000. I remember the #6000's and #4400's doing that.

Somewhere along the line on Western they are going to shut down that intersection of Belmont/Western in totality. Hopefully they can demolish what they need to demolish there on the weekend. I think I remember the #77's using Roscoe once as a reroute for a festival on Belmont, so maybe they could use that for a reroute. Using Roscoe for the #49 also, might be a bit much but they could probably do it.

I remember the Orange Line short turns on the #9 too but I think they were probably long gone before the bridge demolition and intersection redesign at Ashland and Pershing.

[sw4400]

Busjack, I believe all that talk about injury advertising on buses paid off and came through.... look what happened on Tuesday!!!

[MRChiCity]

I've always wondered why the CTA transfers buses from one garage to another?

[jajuan]

Busjack, I believe all that talk about injury advertising on buses paid off and came through.... look what happened on Tuesday!!!

I saw that pic Wednesday and thought of the very discussion we were having on the injury lawyer advertising especially in light of so many former south side garage buses popping up at Chicago, Kedzie and North Park Garages.

[BusMaster]

Well #6838 is on the #56. But #6872 is on the #66!!

6872 at chicago surprising chicago hasn't seen amber sign novas since they were 1st delivered to CTA in 2002 and taken away in 2008

[BusHunter]

I remember the Orange Line short turns on the #9 too but I think they were probably long gone before the bridge demolition and intersection redesign at Ashland and Pershing.

Yeah that might go back to the cut of the #42 and #45, when they cut the #42, they replaced it with more #9 service. I guess eventually they figured they could use the extra service up north too.

[BusMaster]

Does anybody know if #76 Diversey still have runs that short turn at western EB

[Buslover88]

Does anybody know if #76 Diversey still have runs that short turn at western EB

It does not. It hasn't had those in a long time. The only short-turns we have now are the AM rush hour runs that short-turn at Logan Square after coming from the Nature Museum, PM runs that begin at Logan Square going to the Nature Museum and the late night runs that go to Logan Square after departing from the Neva bus terminal.

[Busjack]

Busjack, I believe all that talk about injury advertising on buses paid off and came through.... look what happened on Tuesday!!!

I thought I had seen one on TV of someone crashing into the 222-2222 one. This is a different one, or maybe just a different perspective.

[BusHunter]

6872 at chicago surprising chicago hasn't seen amber sign novas since they were 1st delivered to CTA in 2002 and taken away in 2008

They've had #6445? which is amber. And I believe #6441 and #6428 has a front sign as amber so they have a few buses.

[Brandon93]

1832 is on the 34.

[NewFlyerMCI]

Considering today's article that the Purple Line Express won't be express for the next couple of years, and that is something that at least is in CTA's control, I'm pretty sure CTA will blame this on someone else and ignore it.

This should be interesting. At least, the reactions of those who live in Evanston/Skokie. I'm predicting a slight to medium uptick in metra ridership at Davis & Rogers Park, maybe Ravenswood as well. The 147 probably still isn't faster. Slightly related, who could they [CTA] possible blame it on? And what part of Uptown needs redevelopment, especially in the economic form? They've been gentrifiying for the last 15 years! Condo prices have jumped nearly 60%-75% in the last 5-10 years alone!

I thought I had seen one on TV of someone crashing into the 222-2222 one. This is a different one, or maybe just a different perspective.

Was that #1524?

[Busjack]

...

Was that #1524?

Don't know, just a fleeting TV image.

[garmon757]

Was that #1524?

No, #1524 is at 103rd not Kedzie. That was #1074 and it just got rehabbed!!!

[Mr.cta85]

1832 is on the 34.

Yea that's one of the 1800's that didn't leave 103rd. We gave kedzie most of our 1800's in exchange for most of their 1100's.

[Guest]

I thought I had seen one on TV of someone crashing into the 222-2222 one. This is a different one, or maybe just a different perspective.

Im sure the person who ran their vehicle into that bus was dialing the number even before fire/paramedics arrived! He figured "Heyyyy!!!! I need a check!!!" "Lets see!!! Oh, that CTA bus looks like a good way to get paid!!!" LOL! That commercial is so annoying!!! LOL!