Return of the 11 & 31 Bus

[2200SeriesFan]

On 8/31/2016 at 11:09 PM, Busjack said:

As long as you get out before 7 p.m.

At least it's better than having to get out of the Burrito House by 4 p.m. to catch the last 410.

If you want to go to Maria's and miss the last #31 bus, remember it's only a few blocks east to Halsted to catch an #8 bus, which runs till pretty late in the evening. Which is till something like 12:30am-1am? I'm not sure the exact last time the #8 runs by 31st/Halsted going north.

 

3 hours ago, geneking7320 said:

I have ridden the #31 twice and have seen it a few times (today included). I don't think the seats were half filled when I rode.

I do hope that the pilot will be successful though. If the bus is extended and is running during the summer of 2017 will CTA extend it

to the 31st street beach?

I'd bet there'd be a good chance of the CTA extending summer #31 runs to the 31st St. beach if the pilot is successful, a la how CTA does with summer #72 runs going to North Ave. Beach, or summer #78 runs going to Montrose Beach. I thought they did that with one of the other east-west bus routes on the south side, but I forget which one it was.

Hadn't ridden the #31 yet, but I worried about the chances of the #11 pilot when I rode it a little bit after it debuted in July in the afternoon, and didn't see many people waiting for a southbound bus except at 2 stops. Didn't see anyone transferring to any of the east-west buses, either.  I should ride the #11 again very soon, and see if ridership on the #11 has improved since. I'll be sad, if the #11 weekday pilot south of Lawrence isn't successful. Hopefully the #31 pilot succeeds, as well. Since 31st has some decent businesses along it west of the Dan Ryan Expwy, and that it'd be nice to have a way to get to places on that street other than biking, or taking Uber/Lyft to that area and back.

[Juniorz]

The 11 will succeed, the 31 will bust. The support for both routes are there, but those riders along the 11 are coming out to support. Hopefully, the CTA has an aggressive marketing campaign coming this fall because from the looks of it, the 31 doesn't stand a chance at this rate.

[2200SeriesFan]

2 minutes ago, Juniorz said:

The 11 will succeed, the 31 will bust. The support for both routes are there, but those riders along the 11 are coming out to support. Hopefully, the CTA has an aggressive marketing campaign coming this fall because from the looks of it, the 31 doesn't stand a chance at this rate.

Interesting you said that, since I've been really itching to want to ride the #11 weekday pilot again to see if ridership has improved, since I last rode it. Hopefully I'll do so again by next week, if I don't do so by Friday. I wouldn't mind riding the #31 once sometime, to see how ridership is going on that route.

Forgot to say I rode the #11 from the Western Brown Line stop all the way south to Fullerton/Halsted, when I rode it not long after its pilot began. Good to hear former #11 riders are starting to take advantage of this pilot, and that they aren't ignoring it. I was a little worried too, since I didn't see a lot of fliers promoting the new #11 pilot service from looking at businesses along Lincoln between Irving Park and Wilson. Excluding the obvious places where you'd see such a flier, such as Sulzer Library.

[jajuan]

And one thing I think we should remember is the 31 actually has to get past the six months successfully before any talk of extensions to 31st beach. And since the route has its service hours tailored more to seniors' needs and how they think many seniors would travel, out after the morning rush ends and back home by early evening, talk of beach service is far too premature from the start. Also the 35 handles 31st beach service, so that's one other thing that makes 31 service highly unlikely anywhere on the horizon. The 31 was brought back more because it was said seniors wanted it back, not because anyone was trying to get to the beach. With the half hour headway on the 31, more people would still opt for the 35 instead for that particular service. I'd have to say it would be quite an irony if 11 succeeded and 31 failed given that the 11 to Fullerton was brought back by Pawar getting smart and piggybacking that effort to the push to bring back the 31. 

[TaylorTank1229]

On 9/22/2016 at 2:31 AM, Juniorz said:

The 11 will succeed, the 31 will bust. The support for both routes are there, but those riders along the 11 are coming out to support. Hopefully, the CTA has an aggressive marketing campaign coming this fall because from the looks of it, the 31 doesn't stand a chance at this rate.

Let's not lose hope yet, it's only been like 3 weeks since the 31st bus started, and it had okay ridership for the 2 times I been on it. But it's still too early to tell how it's really going with about 5 months remaining. As for the 11, we'll see what becomes of it in December.

[Busjack]

38 minutes ago, TaylorTank1229 said:

Let's not lose hope yet, it's only been like 3 weeks since the 31st bus started, and it had okay ridership for the 2 times I been on it. But it's still too early to tell how it's really going with about 5 months remaining. As for the 11, we'll see what becomes of it in December.

July 2016 Ridership Report doesn't even mention 11 Lincoln among the changes. Only indication is that average weekday ridership on #11 is up from 1,689 to 1,899, or 12.4%.

YTD rides were down 1.7%, so we have to assume that any growth in July was on the extension (unless CTA is going to release the GPS passenger counter data).

Start was June 21, so this is the first complete month.

I guess that the other frame of reference is that in the May report (last full month before the extension), current year average weekday was 1720.

[pudgym29]

On 9/22/2016 at 2:30 AM, 2200SeriesFan said:

If you want to go to Maria's and miss the last #31 bus, remember it's only a few blocks east to Halsted to catch an #8 bus, which runs till pretty late in the evening. Which is till something like 12:30am-1am? I'm not sure the exact last time the #8 runs by 31st/Halsted going north.

I'd bet there'd be a good chance of the CTA extending summer #31 runs to the 31st St. beach if the pilot is successful, a la how CTA does with summer #72 runs going to North Ave. Beach, or summer #78 runs going to Montrose Beach. I thought they did that with one of the other east-west bus routes on the south side, but I forget which one it was.

Hadn't ridden the #31 yet, but I worried about the chances of the #11 pilot when I rode it a little bit after it debuted in July in the afternoon, and didn't see many people waiting for a southbound bus except at 2 stops. Didn't see anyone transferring to any of the east-west buses, either.  I should ride the #11 again very soon, and see if ridership on the #11 has improved since. I'll be sad, if the #11 weekday pilot south of Lawrence isn't successful. Hopefully the #31 pilot succeeds, as well. Since 31st has some decent businesses along it west of the Dan Ryan Expwy, and that it'd be nice to have a way to get to places on that street other than biking, or taking Uber/Lyft to that area and back. [/quote]

{Because not specifying the font size resulted in the 'eye chart' remarked upon by busjack.} As somebody who obviously goes to the bar on W. 31st St., It took an internet connection from Maria's on Discover Chicago .com {which seemingly is no longer available} to unearth that the route #62 Archer bus - which has 24 hour service - is available by walking 3 blocks north-northwest from there. Yes, I would appreciate a bus route with more frequent hours operating on W 31st St. But it isn't the end of the world for me if it doesn't survive. One element I will identify here is that when I began going to the Map Room bar on W Armitage Ave {unlinked because Laura does not appreciate me}, the route #73 Armitage bus only ran until 7:00 pm. Its hours were expanded. Maybe, this can happen to the #31 bus.

 

[TaylorTank1229]

3 hours ago, pudgym29 said:

 

Exactly. Maybe at the halfway point or on the 4th month or so, if the pilot seem to be doing decent, maybe they give the bus earlier or later hours to see how that will affect ridership counts.

[jajuan]

On 9/23/2016 at 0:44 PM, Busjack said:

July 2016 Ridership Report doesn't even mention 11 Lincoln among the changes. Only indication is that average weekday ridership on #11 is up from 1,689 to 1,899, or 12.4%.

YTD rides were down 1.7%, so we have to assume that any growth in July was on the extension (unless CTA is going to release the GPS passenger counter data).

Start was June 21, so this is the first complete month.

I guess that the other frame of reference is that in the May report (last full month before the extension), current year average weekday was 1720.

So from the looks of it, so far the #11 is surpassing the number of weekday riders needed to keep the extension. It only needed 1500 from what Dorval Carter had told the local newspapers. So it's beating that by just under 400 riders. 

[Busjack]

3 hours ago, jajuan said:

So from the looks of it, so far the #11 is surpassing the number of weekday riders needed to keep the extension. It only needed 1500 from what Dorval Carter had told the local newspapers. So it's beating that by just under 400 riders. 

I don't think the math works that way. The gain is probably more than the 200 indicated, but if the short run between Howard and Western was already generating 1600 something, the goal couldn't have been 1500 for the entire route.

I estimated before that each trip (one direction) needed about 38 riders attributable to the extension, given the service hours involved. Since there are 28 full trips each way, that's like 2000 passengers. If Carter said 1500, o.k., but then the total would have to be something like 3100. Obviously, this is only the first month, but the extension isn't pulling like that during it.

[2200SeriesFan]

On 9/24/2016 at 4:29 AM, TaylorTank1229 said:

Exactly. Maybe at the halfway point or on the 4th month or so, if the pilot seem to be doing decent, maybe they give the bus earlier or later hours to see how that will affect ridership counts.

I had the impression they were going to keep these limited hours(as much as we all hate them, lol), for both bus weekday pilot runs. Who knows though, but with the way the CTA has done things in the past, I wouldn't hold my breath that they'd suddenly do a slight extension of either the #11(south of Lawrence) or #31 weekday pilot service hours.

 

On 9/24/2016 at 7:58 PM, jajuan said:

So from the looks of it, so far the #11 is surpassing the number of weekday riders needed to keep the extension. It only needed 1500 from what Dorval Carter had told the local newspapers. So it's beating that by just under 400 riders. 

I really hope you're right. Sometime really soon in the next week or 2(hopefully), I'll have to ride the #11 again on a weekday south of Lawrence to see if ridership has improved. I probably did judge prematurely from the one time I rode #11 mid-afternoon(and barely before the PM rush), that ridership wasn't coming back. Hopefully another ride will show me that ridership is starting to embrace the #11 pilot, whenever I ride it again. And it'd be nice to see the #31 succeed as well.

[Busjack]

2 minutes ago, 2200SeriesFan said:

...

I really hope you're right. Sometime really soon in the next week or 2(hopefully), I'll have to ride the #11 again on a weekday south of Lawrence to see if ridership has improved. I probably did judge prematurely from the one time I rode #11 mid-afternoon(and barely before the PM rush), that ridership wasn't coming back. Hopefully another ride will show me that ridership is starting to embrace the #11 pilot, whenever I ride it again. And it'd be nice to see the #31 succeed as well.

If you read after that, the problem was that jajuan had misconstrued the numbers I had posted from the July Ridership Report as applying to the extension, when they applied to the whole route between Howard and Fullerton.

What you'll have to see, if not immediately, but eventually, is that the bus is at least half full south of Western (which means about all of the seats are full).

[2200SeriesFan]

40 minutes ago, Busjack said:

If you read after that, the problem was that jajuan had misconstrued the numbers I had posted from the July Ridership Report as applying to the extension, when they applied to the whole route between Howard and Fullerton.

What you'll have to see, if not immediately, but eventually, is that the bus is at least half full south of Western (which means about all of the seats are full).

I figured the July ridership numbers would include the ridership numbers from the pilot. Anyway, my fingers will remain crossed that enough use it, that the CTA does make #11 service south of Lawrence permanent once the December decision day comes.

And speaking of what pudgy said above about the #73 bus, didn't they only expand that past 7pm on weekdays? I wish the #73 ran later including on weekends, but I doubt that'll occur anytime soon. At least you can easily walk to the #49 Western or the #50 Damen bus from Map Room. The #49 if you don't mind a 0.6 or 0.7(?) mile walk, and #50 is only I believe 1-2 blocks east.

[Busjack]

43 minutes ago, 2200SeriesFan said:

I figured the July ridership numbers would include the ridership numbers from the pilot.

I figured that too, but it showed an increase of about 200, while base ridership was something like 1700.

[TaylorTank1229]

1 hour ago, 2200SeriesFan said:

I had the impression they were going to keep these limited hours(as much as we all hate them, lol), for both bus weekday pilot runs. Who knows though, but with the way the CTA has done things in the past, I wouldn't hold my breath that they'd suddenly do a slight extension of either the #11(south of Lawrence) or #31 weekday pilot service hours.

 

I really hope you're right. Sometime really soon in the next week or 2(hopefully), I'll have to ride the #11 again on a weekday south of Lawrence to see if ridership has improved. I probably did judge prematurely from the one time I rode #11 mid-afternoon(and barely before the PM rush), that ridership wasn't coming back. Hopefully another ride will show me that ridership is starting to embrace the #11 pilot, whenever I ride it again. And it'd be nice to see the #31 succeed as well.

For the #11, I have a few guesses on how it could go down if the pilot succeeds. They could continue have buses run south of Lelead on weekdays only but have all scheduled weekday trips run to Fullerton instead of just starting in the mid-mornings, or they could have buses run to Fullerton on through the week giving them service on the weekends and holidays. I say they could returns the south terminus to North Ave./Clark but I'm pretty doubtful on that. For the #31 if they either succeed on the pilot or if the pilot is doing well enough at its halfway point, I could maybe see them giving the route earlier starting hours, somewhere between 6am-7am. I say later hours and better frequency during the rush hours I'll save that for if the pilot is successfully. They could maybe look into returning Saturday service as well, keep buses at 30 mins then, but like I said, these are just my thoughts on what could happen. None of this is accurate or official, so we'll just need to wait and see what CTA does between December 2016 and March 2017. 

[jajuan]

2 hours ago, Busjack said:

If you read after that, the problem was that jajuan had misconstrued the numbers I had posted from the July Ridership Report as applying to the extension, when they applied to the whole route between Howard and Fullerton.

What you'll have to see, if not immediately, but eventually, is that the bus is at least half full south of Western (which means about all of the seats are full).

Yes I kind rushed through that post before going to work, and was trying to remember what Carter said the extension would need to do. I realized my error just after closing our forum site on my laptop and dashing off to work. However I didn't have to go back and correct it before Jack spotted while I was away at work. 

[qwantae]

On 9/22/2016 at 3:31 AM, Juniorz said:

The 11 will succeed, the 31 will bust. The support for both routes are there, but those riders along the 11 are coming out to support. Hopefully, the CTA has an aggressive marketing campaign coming this fall because from the looks of it, the 31 doesn't stand a chance at this rate.

I agree about the 31st, I don't see that Route going to last past a year in my opinion. 

[Juniorz]

The "Strong" Support continues for Route 11!

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, Juniorz said:

The "Strong" Support continues for Route 11!

Do you know who posted it? However, the "use it or lose it" doesn't seem a big vote of confidence.

BTW, this prompted me to look for the Ridership Report, but nothing has been posted since July's.

[jajuan]

On 11/20/2016 at 0:13 AM, Busjack said:

Do you know who posted it? However, the "use it or lose it" doesn't seem a big vote of confidence.

BTW, this prompted me to look for the Ridership Report, but nothing has been posted since July's.

I don't know if it's a lower level of confidence as much as it is the community now acknowledging that it understands that CTA chooses whether to scale back, keep or add service based on different metrics of a route's usage by the public. They know Claypool came after the route in the first place because he looked at it and decided that that section of the route didn't get much usage at the time he got the cut instituted. Also with the route having been extended in June, the start of winter pick changes next month would be the point where we find out if the extension stays or goes. So it's now crunch time either way. 

[andrethebusman]

No changes to either 12/16

[Busjack]

26 minutes ago, andrethebusman said:

No changes to either 12/16

Since they are both on 180 days experiments, and the earliest one started June 20 (up the thread re 11), that would be pushing it, and probably would have required board approval. No sense being Scrooge a week before Christmas, especially when there might be passengers doing their shopping, which might add to the count.

I still find it notable that CTA still hasn't published a Ridership Report since July's.

 

[Juniorz]

Well, a decision on the Route 11 extension should arrive "very soon"! 

 

[Pace831]

Tribune article about the possibility of extending the pilots. Most notable is the ridership numbers: 11 is averaging about 500 rides per day, with the goal of 1500. Tammy Chase says it is "definitely underperforming". 31 is actually doing better than predicted, averaging 649 rides out of 830.

[Juniorz]

On 9/22/2016 at 2:31 AM, Juniorz said:

The 11 will succeed, the 31 will bust. The support for both routes are there, but those riders along the 11 are coming out to support. Hopefully, the CTA has an aggressive marketing campaign coming this fall because from the looks of it, the 31 doesn't stand a chance at this rate.

WOW! I am actually quite shocked by statistics released! I actually thought the 31 didn't stand a change at all, goes to show you, that you can gather up the support but the support doesn't help in the effort in the case of the 11 extension. I believe the extension of the 11 pilot is a sympathy extension seeing that local dignitaries are showing strong support for both routes, but one that they thought would actually become an over success is actually the struggling underdog. Tough luck Route 11.