Return of the 11 & 31 Bus

[Busjack]

Another example of inconsistent nomenclature in Bus Tracker for 11 (compare progress and the map)

[TaylorTank1229]

I was on bus 1876 on Lincoln going south and there were at least 12 passengers between Western station and Belmont. Decent for it's 3rd day of the comeback.

[BusHunter]

Hmm at Ashland/lincoln on the #11 they had 11 riders sb and 1 nb Seem more riders want to go south than north.

[sw4400]

1 hour ago, BusHunter said:

Hmm at Ashland/lincoln on the #11 they had 11 riders sb and 1 nb Seem more riders want to go south than north.

Well, it's been while, but I believe that Lincoln drops you close to the Lincoln Park Zoo(I've taken Clark there before, but I think Lincoln drops you close as well). With the weather warm, maybe people are spending time there.

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Hmm at Ashland/lincoln on the #11 they had 11 riders sb and 1 nb Seem more riders want to go south than north.

Whoever goes usually has to get back somehow.

1 hour ago, sw4400 said:

Well, it's been while, but I believe that Lincoln drops you close to the Lincoln Park Zoo(I've taken Clark there before, but I think Lincoln drops you close as well). With the weather warm, maybe people are spending time there.

If you get off at Halsted Fullerton, you can walk about 3 blocks east. No direct public transit that way; otherwise you have to ride something on Stockton.

[BusHunter]

This was around 6PM, so I don't think people were going to the zoo. It's just drawing from the north for some reason. I wonder how ridership is around Montrose? Maybe there just isn't enough real estate to draw from the south.

[XE NewFlyer]

what about the 31? its said return of the 11 and 31

[Busjack]

2 minutes ago, XE NewFlyer said:

what about the 31? its said return of the 11 and 31

Read the topic and you would have determined that that is Sept. pick. The info was there.

[jajuan]

22 hours ago, sw4400 said:

Well, it's been while, but I believe that Lincoln drops you close to the Lincoln Park Zoo(I've taken Clark there before, but I think Lincoln drops you close as well). With the weather warm, maybe people are spending time there.

 

21 hours ago, Busjack said:

Whoever goes usually has to get back somehow.

If you get off at Halsted Fullerton, you can walk about 3 blocks east. No direct public transit that way; otherwise you have to ride something on Stockton.

Busjack is right that there isn't as direct a transit connection to the zoo coming from the #11. There used to be though when the #11 at least terminated on Clark at North Avenue. You were able to get off on Clark like with the #22 and #36 and make that ridiculously short jot across the west edge of the park and enter the zoo. It's probably better to take buses that run on Clark (22 and 36) and Stockton (151 and 156) for a more direct connection with minimum walking. However, you still may be right SW that the zoo may be part of the picture in that riding on the #11, you're getting a one seat ride most of the way down from the northwest as opposed to riding an east-west bus route to Clark, Broadway or Sheridan and taking a bus south for zoo access from Clark or Stockton. On a nice warm, sunny day like today, folks may not mind the still relatively short walk east in that case especially if they get off the bus at Lincoln and Webster instead of Fullerton and Halsted. 

[Juniorz]

The Return!

Scene's from week one of the six month Route 11 Extension Pilot!

[BusHunter]

Why does that bus look like it's laying over at the Red line?

[Juniorz]

This the Fullerton station, layover is 5 minutes except during the evening rush, where the route is in continuous service 

[jajuan]

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Why does that bus look like it's laying over at the Red line?

Because that's exactly what it does after making that Lincoln Webster loop BH. I've observed the layovers to be 5 to 10 mins long actually during both off-peak and rush periods. I only saw buses not do a layover if they were running behind. 

[Busjack]

5 hours ago, Juniorz said:

Scene's from week one of the six month Route 11 Extension Pilot!

Your picture of the bus stop sign is much more legible than the others.

[BusHunter]

Still says it goes to fullerton halsted.  Maybe they intended to confuse everyone cause that's not the layover.  I don't get why the layover isn't simply fullerton and halsted. So the #74 has to pull around the #11's in the rush. I don't get then why the #74 is not the staggered stop. Theres more #74's than #11's.

[Juniorz]

The 74 stops in front of the station westbound and yes, that is the layover for Route 11. It through serves Fullerton eastbound, loops around Halsted and upon arriving at Fullerton westbound, the destination sign changes from "Fullerton/Brown Line" to it's Howard terminus. 

Also, there is a general service announcement about the pilot service while riding along Route 11. I will say this, the route is very vital to the area that it serves and is a better option than the Brown Line (between Fullerton and Western) during the afternoon rush. I really do hope this pilot does well.

P.S. the majority of the ridership seems to make up of senior citizens, so you see where the support for the route will come from. A few young professionals here and there but, those seniors are turning it out to support this extension.

[jajuan]

19 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Still says it goes to fullerton halsted.  Maybe they intended to confuse everyone cause that's not the layover.  I don't get why the layover isn't simply fullerton and halsted. So the #74 has to pull around the #11's in the rush. I don't get then why the #74 is not the staggered stop. Theres more #74's than #11's.

But do you really think the general riders who wanted that part of the route back care to nitpick over BH? I'm willing to wager they don't. As long as it gets them to that general vicinity, they'll be happy.

10 minutes ago, Juniorz said:

The 74 stops in front of the station westbound and yes, that is the layover for Route 11. It through serves Fullerton eastbound, loops around Halsted and upon arriving at Fullerton westbound, the destination sign changes from "Fullerton/Brown Line" to it's Howard terminus. 

Also, there is a general service announcement about the pilot service while riding along Route 11. I will say this, the route is very vital to the area that it serves and is a better option than the Brown Line (between Fullerton and Western) during the afternoon rush. I really do hope this pilot does well.

P.S. the majority of the ridership seems to make up of senior citizens, so you see where the support for the route will come from. A few young professionals here and there but, those seniors are turning it out to support this extension.

Earlier photos showed the signs displaying "Fullerton/Halsted" actually. But your overall observation about the seniors riding on the extension backs up my sighting Monday morning of folks having walked together along Leland to the Western Brown Line station to get that first bus to run on the extension. Many of them in fact were seniors. 

[Juniorz]

30 minutes ago, jajuan said:

But do you really think the general riders who wanted that part of the route back care to nitpick over BH? I'm willing to wager they don't. As long as it gets them to that general vicinity, they'll be happy.

Earlier photos showed the signs displaying "Fullerton/Halsted" actually. But your overall observation about the seniors riding on the extension backs up my sighting Monday morning of folks having walked together along Leland to the Western Brown Line station to get that first bus to run on the extension. Many of them in fact were seniors. 

I stand corrected, it was in fact Fullerton/Halsted, and it carries that sign until returning to Fullerton.

I'm just going to throw this little notion out there, it's one thing to come with assumptions, there's another when there is actual observation. I will just throw that out there because some of these statements that turn into "minor disputes" is because there are "ALOT" of assumptions  

[jajuan]

2 minutes ago, Juniorz said:

I stand corrected, it was in fact Fullerton/Halsted, and it carries that sign until returning to Fullerton.

I'm just going to throw this little notion out there, it's one thing to come with assumptions, there's another when there is actual observation. I will just through that out there because some of these statements that turn into "minor disputes" is because there are "ALOT" of assumptions  

As hard as these folks pushed to get this bus running south of the Western Brown Line, it's a pretty safe assumption that not that many of them are going to squawk all that much over the minor difference between the bus saying to Fullerton/Halsted with the bus actually taking them there and having a layover at the Fullerton Red/Brown/Purple Line station because the extension was marketed as operating up to the Fullerton Red Line. They're just not going to make a fuss over the bus running that few extra blocks east of the station. If anything they'd probably look at it as a minor bonus.

[BusHunter]

4 hours ago, jajuan said:

As hard as these folks pushed to get this bus running south of the Western Brown Line, it's a pretty safe assumption that not that many of them are going to squawk all that much over the minor difference between the bus saying to Fullerton/Halsted with the bus actually taking them there and having a layover at the Fullerton Red/Brown/Purple Line station because the extension was marketed as operating up to the Fullerton Red Line. They're just not going to make a fuss over the bus running that few extra blocks east of the station. If anything they'd probably look at it as a minor bonus.

Well there's some reason the #11 doesn't do good nb. Maybe riders can't find the bus? I'm sorry if I make an issue of this. It's just the little things may come back to hurt the ridership.

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Well there's some reason the #11 doesn't do good nb. Maybe riders can't find the bus? I'm sorry if I make an issue of this. It's just the little things may come back to hurt the ridership.

As I indicated, usually someone who uses the bus one way has to get back somehow. Once provided with a bus, I don't think they were returning by taking 74 to 49 to the Brown Line. Thus, it must be time of day.

I'll agree that there are more attractions at the south end, but somehow people have to get their food back from Whole Checkbook Market, and I don't think they use a Uber to do it, unless it is too close to 7 p.m.

The marketing issue is pointed out by jajuan noting, as expected, that the elderly were lining up to board, while the marketing materials were aimed at  yuppies. Maybe they don't need the bus to go to the spa, but that's whom someone thinks the additional riders will be.

[jajuan]

17 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Well there's some reason the #11 doesn't do good nb. Maybe riders can't find the bus? I'm sorry if I make an issue of this. It's just the little things may come back to hurt the ridership.

I don't think that relatively minor difference is strong enough to hurt ridership. And the reason the #11 didn't do well was mainly because of the corporate  and political hack minded Claypool. The same folks who pushed for the current extension now were willing three and a half to four years ago to compromise and accept cutting things back to the former Clark/North terminus that the route historically did on weekends since that's where the route was performing stronger while separating the 37 back out as a separate route. But Claypool insisted unilaterally that everything had to be cut back to the Western Brown Line, not so much because I'm starting to think because his boss Emanuel favors the south side over the north, but because Emanuel is of the mind that he has the north and northwest sides locked in. A politician doesn't spend as much time in areas that he figures he has locked in as he does those he calculates has the larger chance of bailing on him. 

[Johnny 5]

Here's an voice announcement of the new #11 extension to Fullerton Station (launched 6/20/16).

Route_11_Extension_CTA.mp3

[Juniorz]

On 7/6/2016 at 10:15 AM, Johnny 5 said:

Here's an voice announcement of the new #11 extension to Fullerton Station (launched 6/20/16).

Route_11_Extension_CTA.mp3

Thank You! Crystal Clear recording!

[Busjack]

Sun-Times article that the CT Board got some protest to the terms of the 31 experiment, and that Carter said he would tweak service "after it gets up and running."