BusHunter Posted July 2, 2012 Report Share Posted July 2, 2012 Ever since this new pick there seems to have been problems on the #77 at 5PM EB and 6PM WB weekdays. One day I noticed at the blue line there were 5 buses gapped together headed EB. I just thought it was freakish occurance and passed it off. One day last week I was at the Red line WB at 6PM and there was no service for 50 minutes in the rush hour. The station starting piling up with riders so I walked to Halsted. There were no buses in either direction for about 30 minutes. I knew this was a bad sign, but it was a weird sight not to see any buses. Then I saw 7 buses gapped together heading eastbound. You know not one of them short turned at Halsted, they all went to Diversey/Lakeshore. So about 20 minutes later they were on the WB side at halsted. I think I was on the 4th or 5th bus. This was fascinating to me, I've never seen that big of a gap before on a major route at rush hour. By the time my bus got to the red line the other 3 or 4 in front had picked up the riders. My driver had a broken farebox and everyone rode for free. So he passed the other buses by Western and picked up the riders. There were so many there they filled all the seats at that one stop. By the time we got to Spaulding the stop before the Blue line. There were 20-25 guys waiting for the bus there. I guess they were trying to get ahead of the blue line crowd. When the bus got to the blue line they had a line that went back to the station glass, east to the driveway, north to Belmont and west to Kimball. Someone said look at that line!! There must have been 100-150 riders there. I believe if the 20-25 guys from spaulding were there the line would have completed in a circle, also some riders gave up and walked or seeked alternative service so there was probably alot more than that. 3 buses pulled in the terminal at the same time and picked up the passengers. With the four buses waiting to enter the terminal, they had the traffic pretty much blocked out. What a surreal experience. That was a wild day for sure on the #77!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busjack Posted July 2, 2012 Report Share Posted July 2, 2012 Someone doesn't know that CTA has an application called Bus Tracker. Supposedly, the supervisors had it first. Maybe he was using his laptop for porn. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artthouwill Posted July 2, 2012 Report Share Posted July 2, 2012 Someone doesn't know that CTA has an application called Bus Tracker. Supposedly, the supervisors had it first. Maybe he was using his laptop for porn. That is if Bustracker is working properly. It it rains or storms, forget about it, aleast with storms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ctafan630 Posted July 2, 2012 Report Share Posted July 2, 2012 That is if Bustracker is working properly. It it rains or storms, forget about it, aleast with storms. I have noticed a lot of issues on Bustracker in the past few weeks: It will track buses and say the bus is due and then the bus never shows up. Buses will be tracking and then suddenly disappear, only to reapper a couple of minutes later. If a bus is starting a route, sometimes the bus will not show up on bus tracker until it arrives to start the route. Another route all buses show 17-24 minutes as the wait time regardless of the time of day. Then the buses switch order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusHunter Posted July 3, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 3, 2012 I have noticed a lot of issues on Bustracker in the past few weeks: It will track buses and say the bus is due and then the bus never shows up. Buses will be tracking and then suddenly disappear, only to reapper a couple of minutes later. If a bus is starting a route, sometimes the bus will not show up on bus tracker until it arrives to start the route. Another route all buses show 17-24 minutes as the wait time regardless of the time of day. Then the buses switch order. Or you could look on your phone and see the bus isn't coming for 30 minutes start walking and watch it pass you by. You can only trust Bustracker so far. It's not perfect. BTW, if someone has that issue again at the red line and doesn't have access to bustracker, Belmont/Red line is in on the pilot I was talking about where the train tracker signs give bus arrivals. It's behind the fare area on the south side of the street. Good vision may be required. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ctafan630 Posted July 3, 2012 Report Share Posted July 3, 2012 Or you could look on your phone and see the bus isn't coming for 30 minutes start walking and watch it pass you by. You can only trust Bustracker so far. It's not perfect. BTW, if someone has that issue again at the red line and doesn't have access to bustracker, Belmont/Red line is in on the pilot I was talking about where the train tracker signs give bus arrivals. It's behind the fare area on the south side of the street. Good vision may be required. I did look on my phone. The phone said the bus wasnt coming for 20 minutes and then showed up as scheduled on time. The issue is with Bus tracker and how the CTA calculates the ETA. But that will take them admitting there is a problem with bustracker in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusHunter Posted July 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 4, 2012 I was checking yesterday to see if the #77 was still experiencing problems. They did have the same issues if you were traveling WB in the 3PM hour. There were 6 buses bunched together around 3:40 PM yesterday going WB to the west end around Harlem. One bus did short turn at Octavia. There was another pack of 5 buses 30 minutes behind the 6 pack. I was thinking here we go again. But then the packs seemed to straighten out. The bus at Octavia was ten minutes ahead of the remaining 5 pack at Cumberland. The first bus was packed not seeing any service on the west end for about 30 minutes. They had standing riders at Harlem EB. The remaining buses instead of coming in a pack EB were all about 5-10 minutes apart. So the EB wasn't that bad unless you were at the west end. I couldn't help but notice a radio car/Supervisor was stationed at Central. The evening rush was pretty good other than that. BTW, I heard from a operator they had a meeting about the big gaps in service. So maybe someone was listening to what I had to say. It did seem really weird that they went from late buses in a pack going into the rush hour and came back out in a organized pattern. If someone was reading this thread, they probably got a real kick out of Busjack's comment. :lol: Thinking back on that, that was probably the laugh of the day. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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