Restored Service/Routes

[jajuan]

8 hours ago, Busjack said:

As strictures and I noted above, not relevant to this topic.

For instance, in the days after the Sandy Hook Massacre, there became a difference between bus riders and Uber riders. For instance, Uber riders all have smartphones.

Well, that's relevant. The question is whether today, the west side (west of Western; relevant to the N. Lawndale article) or the south side (excluding around 35th and North Kenwood) have gained enough population to justify increased transit service? Compared to the justi4fications for beefing up Brown Line service, no.

Perhaps not, but transit agencies also gain or keep ridership by being able to show that the service is convenient. And that tends to be the other side other than the lower population count compared to north side areas of why bus passenger counts on the west and south sides have dropped over the decades. If a community can say hey we have this new school, this newly built retail complex with X number of employees and drawing Y number of customers, or any other newly developed location that's a potential passenger draw of significant numbers a transit agency should have enough flexibility to say we may want to at least test this out to find out if the potential actually pans out. That's why it was smart that community leaders and organizations identified in the article were advising and teaching residents to think in those terms and that they were actually ready to say hey we got this new school here, new development there, and further new economic investment here. CTA won't get numbers up by staying stagnant and letting the only service changes they do be cuts. They have to be willing to experiment when a community shows they have a potential for further growth. And Carver has shown he's willing to do that. Some of expansions showed themselves still unable to draw passengers like weekend service on the 39, and others have proven to be working out quite well like the restoration of X9 and X49.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

If a community can say hey we have this new school, this newly built retail complex with X number of employees and drawing Y number of customers, or any other newly developed location that's a potential passenger draw of significant numbers a transit agency should have enough flexibility to say we may want to at least test this out to find out if the potential actually pans out.

I have no debate with that. In fact that's the point of my insistence that those proposing new routes identify traffic generators. I said in my first reaction to the North Lawndale article that the activists were doing that.

What I (and I guess @strictures) did not want was a discourse on how people going to a Hebrew school in 1937 needed the 127 Jackson-Independence bus, some Jazz age musician needed the 1 Drexel-Hyde Park, or Cottage Grove no longer has the 1 Cottage-55, 4 Cottage-Pullman, 5 Cottage-South Chicago and local streetcar to 71st, or that Kedzie service used to go to the Sears Catalog product distribution center. Those people are no longer there, but, more important, that demand is not there. Now, Method Soap and Whole Foods Market building facilities in Pullman, that is something.

Same thing in the suburbs, with reduced bus service because Kraft moved out and Avon sold most of its poperty for the Mariano's plaza, ITW, and Audi, and Sears in Prairie Stone becoming a basket case..

[jajuan]

8 hours ago, Busjack said:

I have no debate with that. In fact that's the point of my insistence that those proposing new routes identify traffic generators. I said in my first reaction to the North Lawndale article that the activists were doing that.

What I (and I guess @strictures) did not want was a discourse on how people going to a Hebrew school in 1937 needed the 127 Jackson-Independence bus, some Jazz age musician needed the 1 Drexel-Hyde Park, or Cottage Grove no longer has the 1 Cottage-55, 4 Cottage-Pullman, 5 Cottage-South Chicago and local streetcar to 71st, or that Kedzie service used to go to the Sears Catalog product distribution center. Those people are no longer there, but, more important, that demand is not there. Now, Method Soap and Whole Foods Market building facilities in Pullman, that is something.

Same thing in the suburbs, with reduced bus service because Kraft moved out and Avon sold most of its poperty for the Mariano's plaza, ITW, and Audi, and Sears in Prairie Stone becoming a basket case..

And I have no debate with that. As the two of you appropriately said, it has no relevance unless it's about that particular community with the additional caveat that there were similar conditions back then that a new potential passenger draw might match or come very close to doing so in the here and now and thus bolster community activists' position that a service extension should be done. 

[andrethebusman]

Sections of the South Side (particularly north of Englewood) are now at the point where abandoned buildings and vacant lots greatly outnumber occupied buildings. West side isn't quite as bad, but some areas such as along 16th west of Kedzie certainly are. There are routes such as 51st that basically serve an unpopulated area, so it is no wonder that route has gone from 24/7 to daytime only. Ogden is basically a ghost town west of Douglas Park all the way to Cicero. Serves no purpose to run buses where there is nobody living, working, or shopping. In fact, one has to wonder why 16th bus exists west of California.

[jajuan]

11 hours ago, andrethebusman said:

Sections of the South Side (particularly north of Englewood) are now at the point where abandoned buildings and vacant lots greatly outnumber occupied buildings. West side isn't quite as bad, but some areas such as along 16th west of Kedzie certainly are. There are routes such as 51st that basically serve an unpopulated area, so it is no wonder that route has gone from 24/7 to daytime only. Ogden is basically a ghost town west of Douglas Park all the way to Cicero. Serves no purpose to run buses where there is nobody living, working, or shopping. In fact, one has to wonder why 16th bus exists west of California.

Sorry but that's not entirely true. The folks in that area were able to list off several new development completed fairly recently including a new school that would increase the chances of CTA management taking them more seriously as more than just a bunch of folks demanding restoration of service that no one will ride. The article we've been discussing clearly stated that one of the activists that helped lead the push for restoration of the 31 had counseled  the community activists of that west side area that CTA ask what's around now that didn't exist before that help attract passengers to any theoretical restoration as one of their first and most important questions. Even without any of this though your statement still is not entirely true. A number of the abandoned buildings you mentioned either got totally restored from the inside out to once again see life as residences or got torn down to make room for new residential and in a few instances retail space built new from the ground up. I know this because I actually lived in the West side for a time before becoming a North side resident. Yes that area still has its rough patches, but it's not the ghost town you're describing. Something positive has to be occurring besides West Loop and UIC development for CTA to expand service hours on the 18 along its entire route a number of times in the last several years. I don't see CTA expanding service hours on a route just to serve a virtual ghost town especially in this current age of scaling back resources where needed less in favor of redeployment to the areas that gace the larger need. 

[Busjack]

51 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Sorry but that's not entirely true. The folks in that area were able to list off several new development completed fairly recently including a new school that would increase the chances of CTA management taking them more seriously as more than just a bunch of folks demanding restoration of service that no one will ride.

But that was an argument for Ogden, not whether 16th St. needs service west of Kedzie.

I was expecting that since you gave the impression you used to live around there, whether there are residents.

[garmon757]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

But that was an argument for Ogden, not whether 16th St. needs service west of Kedzie.

I was expecting that since you gave the impression you used to live around there, whether there are residents.

I used to live over there on Albany and Douglas from 1991-1994. I must say that #37 was such a must needed route back then especially going to the hellhole Cook County Hospital, in which I was born there. I'm not sure how ridership were on #18 back then but it did come in handy between Mount Sinai Hospital and Cicero. 

[jajuan]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

But that was an argument for Ogden, not whether 16th St. needs service west of Kedzie.

I was expecting that since you gave the impression you used to live around there, whether there are residents.

Actually restoration of service along Ogden was only one of a list of things those folks hoped to ask the CTA to look back into. The article used the Ogden argument as an example of how those folks overall are learning from the experience of the Chinatown and Bridgeport folks getting 31 restored. And to answer your question, yes there are residents along the 16th corridor. The buses though saw an even split of folks who lived on 16th itself and on the side streets that parallel and cross 16th. Many of the rehabs of old abandoned buildings were happening on those side streets and did have new people coming back to those parts of the community. Before I moved from near there (I lived closer to Roosevelt Rd but still traveled around the community near 16th), I saw that that portion of the 18 started seeing increases from folks living on those side streets. Plus a good number of the older school kids from the schools near 16th used the 18 to and from school.

[andrethebusman]

What is quite noticeable is that the "Medical Center West" yuppie residential area is spreading west. Pretty much up to Rockwell consistently, as far as Homan in spots. However, Ogden is still basically DOA. Some new stuff, but not a heck of a lot.

You want to see desolation? Look around Halsted-Racine-Ashland from about 49th down to 59th. In fact all the way down 51st to King Drive is pretty dismal. This is a good part of the reason why the #51 is a minimal-service route these days.

[BusHunter]

I think Cottage Grove is sort of desolate north of 47th but I hear the Oakland area in chicago is amobg the poorest. Strange because bronzeville I thought was one of the better black communities but its slowly getting diversified with condos and new construction especially around 35th state.

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, BusHunter said:

I think Cottage Grove is sort of desolate north of 47th but I hear the Oakland area in chicago is amobg the poorest. Strange because bronzeville I thought was one of the better black communities but its slowly getting diversified with condos and new construction especially around 35th state.

Oakland is basically an issue whether any development expands south from about 35th or north from about 45th.

[BusHunter]

Eventually Oakland  will get developed because  its next going south from bronzeville. The downtown area seems to have expanded greatly since I was a kid especially around Roosevelt and Michigan and points south.

[jajuan]

10 hours ago, andrethebusman said:

What is quite noticeable is that the "Medical Center West" yuppie residential area is spreading west. Pretty much up to Rockwell consistently, as far as Homan in spots. However, Ogden is still basically DOA. Some new stuff, but not a heck of a lot.

You want to see desolation? Look around Halsted-Racine-Ashland from about 49th down to 59th. In fact all the way down 51st to King Drive is pretty dismal. This is a good part of the reason why the #51 is a minimal-service route these days.

Again, that is not entirely a true statement. Expand beyond just the street proper and you find the area is far from desolated. And working for the CTA, you should know that in many cases, a bus route's passenger count does not come from just the streets that route runs along. They also come from those side street areas along the periphery. If you have a population increase in those periphery areas have the potential for growth of a bus route that operates along a main artery or expansion along that artery that has no bus service especially if you have newly constructed schools and businesses offering employment to anchor that population growth. One thing I already noted is that the periphery areas near 16th Street as well as near Ogden had been seeing population growth. That growth was coming from more than just expansion westward of the so-called Medical Center West residential areas. The growth was coming from more younger people  who'd grown up in the community and achieved a middle income renting and buying from properties that were redeveloped through new construction or the rehabbing and restoration of once abandoned buildings after deciding to start and raise families of their own in the very communities in which they'd grown up as well as other middle income people with no prior ties to either the Medical Center community expansion or the North Lawndale community deciding to reside in the area. As for Ogden itself, yes there are still empty areas, but that's now increasingly more from the old abandoned buildings being torn down for that land's future use than from those buildings still left standing to further decay and be a blot on that street. 

And sorry but the 51st Street bus operating only up to the Dan Ryan is not entirely because of the street being desolated, which again isn't entirely the truth in that case either. It's because CTA created the 15 as part of the Lake Shore route realignments of 2003 and routed its northern end from Lake Park down 51st and the Wentworth-47th-Wells loop to serve the 47th Street Red Line station as a second replacement (extension of 47 to Lake Park is the other) of the 28 no longer going there initially from CTA's experiment with the 28 being a full time express route before they returned it to a local route ending at 47th/Lake Park. The 51 as a result was scaled back to avoid service duplication, and from experience that 51st Street portion of the 15 isn't hurting for ridership which would appear to suggest the 51 wouldn't be either if it still operated east of the Dan Ryan.

1 hour ago, BusHunter said:

Eventually Oakland  will get developed because  its next going south from bronzeville. The downtown area seems to have expanded greatly since I was a kid especially around Roosevelt and Michigan and points south.

Yes that area just north of and near 47th and Cottage is seeing an upturn. From what I've seen from visiting a friend who lives a short distance south of there, middle income African Americans have been moving back to the area in combination with middle income populations from Hyde Park and Woodlawn expanding northward. Add those conditions to the business growth I've been seeing near there, and it's no surprise that I've been observing the total rehab and restoration of old abandoned buildings for residential use similar to what I had been observing of North Lawndale on the West side.

[Busjack]

19 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Again, that is not entirely a true statement. Expand beyond just the street proper and you find the area is far from desolated. And working for the CTA, you should know that in many cases, a bus route's passenger count does not come from just the streets that route runs along.

But that gets back to the argument whether the Pink Line and 21 buses are adequate. As I previously said, it isn't like someone in Pullman or around 119th and Halsted having to take a bus to get to an overcrowded rail station.

20 minutes ago, jajuan said:

especially if you have newly constructed schools and businesses offering employment to anchor that population growth

But, similarly, 60 was diverted to serve Benito Juarez Academy. No need to give it a separate route.

I would also argue that a couple of festivals in Douglas Park are not permanent traffic generators.

 

[jajuan]

37 minutes ago, Busjack said:

But that gets back to the argument whether the Pink Line and 21 buses are adequate. As I previously said, it isn't like someone in Pullman or around 119th and Halsted having to take a bus to get to an overcrowded rail station.

But, similarly, 60 was diverted to serve Benito Juarez Academy. No need to give it a separate route.

I would also argue that a couple of festivals in Douglas Park are not permanent traffic generators.

 

On both your points, it basically also gets into a matter of transit also being convenient in addition to staying as close as it can to population demand. For example, my prior mention of the 18 seeing expanded service hours several times in the last decade isn't necessarily because the 21 and Pink Line aren't enough, but because in addition to bumps in population in North Lawndale, more riders that transfer to and/or from north-south routes have been gravitating to the 18 as an alternative to the 12 which can encounter some pretty hefty delays because of the large numbers of folks who ride that route. The argument has been made to expand artic coverage beyond their use on weekends. However, beyond Kedzie's artics being sucked up by use on the 125, 134, 143, 151 and 156 on weekdays making that logistically near impossible to do, my weekend observations of the 12 show that having all artics on the route doesn't stop the delays. Hence the increased gravitation to the 18 and that route increasingly being a way to relieve pressure off the 12. And while the mentioned festivals in Douglas Park may not be permanent traffic generators in the here and now, the fact that they're even there at all gives those residents room to argue that the park can potentially be used for more of them and other big events and thus increase the value of the park itself as a traffic generator. More importantly it gives the current alderman Michael Scott room to get savvy and negotiate bringing more big events to the park based on those current festivals successes and use that as leverage to draw more business development to the area and use that growth to draw more people to live in the community. For example radio station V103 has been sponsoring a big musical fest in Douglas Park the last two or three years at least. Of course that goes hand in hand with also reestablishing any lost trust between community and police and hitting back the increased gun violence that's been occurring there like in so many other areas across the city as a whole.