A Push To Reinstate The #41 Elston bus

[strictures]

21 minutes ago, Busjack said:

The essential problem is that people don't ride buses to big boxes unless the buses pull in. One thing that proves this is that Walmart does have the buses pull in or nearer than the nearest parking space,* including at 83rd and Pullman Park. Now, if said merchants paid for a trolley replica....**

 

I often take the bus to the Clybourn Costco & Menard's for small items.  I've even ridden my bike there & once carried home a huge package of toilet paper on the bike.

[BusHunter]

4 hours ago, Busjack said:

The essential problem is that people don't ride buses to big boxes unless the buses pull in. One thing that proves this is that Walmart does have the buses pull in or nearer than the nearest parking space,* including at 83rd and Pullman Park. Now, if said merchants paid for a trolley replica....**

_____________

* Despite the activists claiming about 10 years ago, during the "keep Walmart out of the city at all costs" campaigns, that Walmart was not transit friendly.

**However, I don't think that many people take their IKEA Soingesand double bed on the Schaumburg trolley, even though IKEA has a sign that you can take it to the NWTC and get a bus to the Purple Line, and I don't think they are going to take much from Menards or Costco on the bus, either. Better chance on the Little Journey stuff from Aldi.

Bottom line is there is a lot of foot traffic. The Apple store is on the route too. I don't know but when I rode a bus I went to that menards I guess I'm an anomaly. Store total on the route is upwards of 50 stores equal to a mall. You could actually have store to store commuters. Can anyone say Xmas? Lol!!

Now remember when North/Clybourn red line was an owl route I bet they wouldn't consider that now even though the contactless card system basically eliminated that. Why is that? Someone is going there. 

I hate to say it but it might actually do better than the #11 Did south of western. One thing that helped to kill that is all the traffic lights on the route. The #11 is painfully slow something the brown line is not plus Clybourn has no alternate. It would be interesting to say the least.

Don't know what to say about Wal-Mart but the North ave one has no door to door service. I think what your seeing is the strength of the Alderman in those communities. Strange while walmart has closed locations here Target is actually flooding the Chicago market there's been at least 5 new stores I can think of two in the wrigleyville neighborhood. Almost makes you wonder If the fix is in for Wal-Mart here 

[Busjack]

21 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Strange while walmart has closed locations here Target is actually flooding the Chicago market there's been at least 5 new stores I can think of two in the wrigleyville neighborhood. Almost makes you wonder If the fix is in for Wal-Mart here 

Are you referring to the small ones, which never worked (sort of like the smaller Meijers)? On the other hand, the 4 SuperCenters still seem open.On the other hand, Sam's in several suburbs closed rather quickly.

[BusHunter]

13 hours ago, Busjack said:

Are you referring to the small ones, which never worked (sort of like the smaller Meijers)? On the other hand, the 4 SuperCenters still seem open.On the other hand, Sam's in several suburbs closed rather quickly.

Yes, the business was good there. From an operational standpoint I can only think they closed them because there is no profit in selling groceries only.  The profit is on the higher priced items. Target which is basically trying the same thing if you check out it's Clark/Belmont location is going to try this out as well. Maybe they'll have better luck. 

Sam's closed because they wanted to make those distribution warehouses. Maybe they don't have a warehouse nearby and the online market is on fire. Warehouse clubs are slowly dying because how do you justify buying tons of food when you don't need all that. Sam's strength is it's higher quality items which you can't get too easily. I find myself buying it's bigger ticket items because the quality is good. They have good deals you just have to know what to buy. The gas ain't bad either. 

The future of shopping is buying online and possibly picking up items at a location. I buy off ebay and you can pick up your items at fedex locations all over the city. Now I notice Amazon has opened a store at Webster/Sheffield so the concept is growing. A lot of people are just too busy to shop or too tired. People don't have time for this is out of stock. It's becoming an on demand world. 

Bringing this conversation to transit this seems to be what's up with cta and uber. Uber is basically on demand cta you wait. Cta might have something to worry about. Uber is the mcdonalds of transportation. A few good moves and they could be moving into bill gates territory as far as product gross. CTA will need to do what they do cause bus transport is going to be hurting. Cant beat the "L" though nothing can beat its speed.

[Busjack]

10 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Sam's closed because they wanted to make those distribution warehouses. Maybe they don't have a warehouse nearby and the online market is on fire.

They said that about some of them, but they don't need 7 warehouses in the area. Wheeling one looks abandoned.

 

[strictures]

12 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Cant beat the "L" though nothing can beat its speed.

Really?  There used to be a sign over Granville Ave on the bridge "24 minutes to Loop".  Now you're lucky to do it in 35 minutes!

Other than the morning rush, a car will get to the Loop in 20 minutes from Granville.  Even the 147 is faster.

[andrethebusman]

Rush hour is when the L matters. SB in AM and NB in PM on LSD is SLOOW. Midday a car (or the ODX) could ALWAYS beat the L, especially if the destination is North Michigan Ave.

[jajuan]

On 2/22/2018 at 1:54 PM, andrethebusman said:

Rush hour is when the L matters. SB in AM and NB in PM on LSD is SLOOW. Midday a car (or the ODX) could ALWAYS beat the L, especially if the destination is North Michigan Ave.

Even with LSD rush hour slowdowns, the 147 is still faster than the Red Line traveling to or from downtown. There is a reasons those artics are still very much crowded even after the route got beefed up through DeCrowd repooling of resources.

[andrethebusman]

The real AM rush hour overloading is on 135. SB in AM many are loaded to capacity by Waveland. If you live along LSD or Broadway in that area and are going downtown, of course a 135 (for LaSalle St) or 146 (for Michigan Ave) is faster than finding your way over to the Red Line.

[BusHunter]

Didn't they used to have lsd express buses terminating at Grace? I wonder if they have any that originate there? That would be smart and correct the overcrowding issue. 

Sounds like what is happening is loads are heavy to the North slowing down buses so they are later along the southern portion of inner lake shore. A short turn bus would help to alleviate this.

[Busjack]

12 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

Didn't they used to have lsd express buses terminating at Grace? I wonder if they have any that originate there? That would be smart and correct the overcrowding issue. 

Sounds like what is happening is loads are heavy to the North slowing down buses so they are later along the southern portion of inner lake shore. A short turn bus would help to alleviate this.

146  still has some trips ending at Grace. But some morning trips start at Irving Park, which is essentially the same thing.

[artthouwill]

35 minutes ago, Busjack said:

146  still has some trips ending at Grace. But some morning trips start at Irving Park, which is essentially the same thing.

Odd that 146 would still need trips starting at Irving Park.  The 148 covers 146 area between  Berwn and Lawrence and runs on Clarendon ( a short distance from Marine Dr between Lawrence and Montrose) to Irving Park.  The 144 used to cover  all of 146 between Berwyn and Irving Park.

[Busjack]

11 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

Odd that 146 would still need trips starting at Irving Park.  The 148 covers 146 area between  Berwn and Lawrence and runs on Clarendon ( a short distance from Marine Dr between Lawrence and Montrose) to Irving Park.  The 144 used to cover  all of 146 between Berwyn and Irving Park.

If you go back at least 15  years, the biggest squawkers are on LSD between Irving Park and Belmont. That's why the 145 remained local there, instead of the original plan to make it express from Irving Park, and undoubtedly why the Crowd Reduction Plan only changed the 145s to/from that area to 146s.

148 goes express at Irving Park, so it does nothing for those between Irving Park and Belmont.

[BusHunter]

That probably the issue. Plus it's been my experience that buses that have the first stop nb off the drive at Irving tend to lose half their loads there. So there's a major source of riders right there and at Belmont which is almost the same thing. They probably have a ton of riders flocking to the south that dont want to wait to be the last one's off at Brair for example on a #143 or #134 type route. 

Bottom line cutting routes like the #144 was probably a mistake because now the #146 has to pick up its riders. The ridership needs to be studied there to accurately see what is happening. But what was ultimately smart with that service turned out a negative with it's cut service now. Reminds me of the X routes. You take one step forward and three steps back.

[artthouwill]

3 hours ago, Busjack said:

If you go back at least 15  years, the biggest squawkers are on LSD between Irving Park and Belmont. That's why the 145 remained local there, instead of the original plan to make it express from Irving Park, and undoubtedly why the Crowd Reduction Plan only changed the 145s to/from that area to 146s.

148 goes express at Irving Park, so it does nothing for those between Irving Park and Belmont.

Bring back the 152 Addison Express?

[andrethebusman]

In recent times 2 out of 3 135's start at Irving Park in AM, and about that for 146. Until 1977, there was only 153-Wilson/Michigan Express between Grace and Belmont. But remember too the demographics in that are have changed TREMENDOUSLY in the last 40 years. In 1970's it was mostly retirees, and as soon as you went past Pine Grove, it was mostly lower middle class office drones that would go over to the L. There wasn't a heck of a lot of rush hour business. In fact, Addison Limited made only a single stop south of Addison, at Roscoe, before getting on the Drive. Also, until the early 70's the north end of the North-South L was the light end, and the south end was what determined the service needs.

[Busjack]

4 hours ago, BusHunter said:

That probably the issue. Plus it's been my experience that buses that have the first stop nb off the drive at Irving tend to lose half their loads there. So there's a major source of riders right there and at Belmont which is almost the same thing. They probably have a ton of riders flocking to the south that dont want to wait to be the last one's off at Brair for example on a #143 or #134 type route. 

Bottom line cutting routes like the #144 was probably a mistake because now the #146 has to pick up its riders. The ridership needs to be studied there to accurately see what is happening. But what was ultimately smart with that service turned out a negative with it's cut service now. Reminds me of the X routes. You take one step forward and three steps back.

• The main complaint when 145 went express from  Irving Park was "we can't  get on the bus at  Belmont." So they weren't taking the 143.
• You got stuck in a fallacy in saying there was a cut. Wilson lost all service, but the 145s to Grace all became 146s.

[andrethebusman]

FYI 0600-1000 at Belmont SB: 9/17 run pick

40 135's (17 from Wilson) - between 0730 and 0815 every FIFTH from Wilson, 3 min headway

37 146's (19 from Berwyn, 9 from Foster before 0900, 8 from Irving Park after 0900, no IPk starts before 0900 or after 1000. 4-5 min headway.

23 136's at Irving same hours, 5 from Bryn Mawr, rest from Devon. 6-7 min headway

34 148's all from Foster 4min headway.

By comparison, 

134 - 42 trips on 3 min headway

143 - 27 trips on 3-6 min headway

 

Shows there is substantially more LaSalle business south of Irving Park (and even south of Belmont) than Michigan, but much less LaSalle and more Michigan from north of there

[BusHunter]

19 hours ago, Busjack said:

• The main complaint when 145 went express from  Irving Park was "we can't  get on the bus at  Belmont." So they weren't taking the 143.
• You got stuck in a fallacy in saying there was a cut. Wilson lost all service, but the 145s to Grace all became 146s.

Yeah because they were pulling the slack that the cut #144 left in its wake. Wilson they could get away with but it makes you wonder what happened to the #78 ridership. Did it spike? 

[Busjack]

21 hours ago, BusHunter said:

Wilson they could get away with but it makes you wonder what happened to the #78 ridership. Did it spike? 

Hard to tell without the gps boarding data, but in Dec. 2010, before the Crowd Reduction Plan it was average weekday of 7231, and in Nov. 2017 it was 8132, so unlike most stuff that was down (bus boardings system wide down 3%), it was up.

[BusHunter]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

Hard to tell without the gps boarding data, but in Dec. 2010, before the Crowd Reduction Plan it was average weekday of 7231, and in Nov. 2017 it was 8132, so unlike most stuff that was down (bus boardings system wide down 3%), it was up.

That's probably what cta was thinking west of Clark on Wilson is pretty slow but east of Clark it picks up.

The gimmick (if I can say that) is to get the Wilson riders to use the red line.

[Busjack]

11 minutes ago, BusHunter said:

The gimmick (if I can say that) is to get the Wilson riders to use the red line.

Of course, and with a new station, they should. I don't know if the Traffic Institute foresaw that in 2010, but as far as Wilson riders are concerned, that makes sense (and they are also near the Brown Line at Ravenswood).