Random CTA

[Busjack]

On 5/14/2026 at 1:18 AM, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

Bus involved is #8665.

bus took Belmont, Broadway into Clark, and the crazy encounter ended at Clark & chestnut in gold coast at 3am

Tribune article on the suspect being charged. Essentially, Transee was correct, at least within a block. However, if he really had to go to a hospital, it is unclear to which one, as, since he was from Little Village, he could have gone to Mt. Sinai, but maybe he expected a chauffeured ride to Northwestern. 

Also note, that since he assaulted a CTA driver, he got an additional charge of aggravated assault against a state employee.  [720 ILCS 5/12-2(a)(7), which includes an employee of a municipal corporation, although they could have charged him with (a)(8), for aggravated assault on a transit employee.]  

The article also didn't make clear that the "56 year old man who flagged the bus" was a CTA supervisor (or why else would the two take "cover in the man’s CTA vehicle?")

QUESTION: Didn't the driver have the plastic door to the driver's compartment locked? {I'm also assuming she jumped from the driver's window.) Is there any training for this?

[pokemonprime]

Mayfest in Lincoln Park this weekend is mucking with the 73, which is already detoured to get around the closure of the Cortland St bridge... buses now take North Ave to Halsted to get back to Armitage, which while certainly more direct means the Armitage Brown Line station now lacks any bus service. All a bit strange; you could technically just about route the bus up Sheffield and still serve the Brown Line, but maybe that was considered 'too close' to pedestrians as the western side of Armitage/Sheffield is closed for the festival. The signage being hand-written on the incorrect placard doesn't exactly inspire confidence. 😜

 

[Sam92]

9 hours ago, pokemonprime said:

Mayfest in Lincoln Park this weekend is mucking with the 73, which is already detoured to get around the closure of the Cortland St bridge... buses now take North Ave to Halsted to get back to Armitage, which while certainly more direct means the Armitage Brown Line station now lacks any bus service. All a bit strange; you could technically just about route the bus up Sheffield and still serve the Brown Line, but maybe that was considered 'too close' to pedestrians as the western side of Armitage/Sheffield is closed for the festival. The signage being hand-written on the incorrect placard doesn't exactly inspire confidence. 😜

 

It hits north/Clybourn red which in cta's eyes is good enough for DT riders. They probably figured instead of doing all that to still serve Armitage short distance riders they can just take a bus since they Brown Line is the "Local".

[Busjack]

6 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

It hits north/Clybourn red which in cta's eyes is good enough for DT riders. They probably figured instead of doing all that to still serve Armitage short distance riders they can just take a bus since they Brown Line is the "Local".

Besides that, stations like Armitage and Wellington are basically for the immediate neighborhood, which is dense enough to support walk-in traffic. And, as far as I know, nobody is going to Lincoln Yards.

[Sam92]

14 hours ago, Elkmn said:

That's my read on it. What's even more deeply concerning to me is the proposed elimination of the 54A but that's for a different topic.

 

There's no justification to keep it a CTA route.  The lower half is surrounded by the expressway and u walkable areas thus the replacement route was supposed to serve skokie Blvd then bypass the area via the Edens into Jeff Park so if anything the serve isn't cut; CTA is just saying this is more of Pace's Jurisdiction considering the riders primarily board in the burbs. Similar to 145 being folded into 146. The amount of service didn't change just the route number 

14 hours ago, TaylorTank1229 said:

My guess is the proposal to eliminate 54B could more than likely happen. With 383 covering service on Cicero south of Midway. The route already has an improved service than was implemented last year with earlier and later operating hours. And 383 is one of few Pace routes that’s getting more service changes in June. My guess is they’ll be improving on the frequency.

 

14 hours ago, Elkmn said:

RIP 

They probably can't keep ford city as a layover, since there won't be a bathroom (does SOLO cup have a bathroom?) There's no shortage of parking lots with shops in that area. 

Additionally, this further puts the future of the 54B in question. Assuming the 54 extension to MDW comes to fruition, what's the point of the 54B? A shuttle from a transit center to a dead mall along a corridor that has plenty of pace service will not be needed, especially post-NITA when at least one of those pace routes will become frequent (most likely)

Ford city's been dying years before this. If anything the signs were probably kept as "to Ford City" for the same reasons buses show nearby well known streets like Harlem/ Devon instead of the actual turnarounds (familiarity). They bought a dedicated terminal for themselves vs years of layover in a corner of the mall lot 

54B- an extension of 54 to Midway makes 54B expendable. 54B would have to pull numbers like 108 to justify keeping (pace couldn't outright replace 108 because it's that heavy) otherwise pace can implement short turns on 383, cut the inefficient parts of 385 and restructure the hours into the surrounding grid and cross Streets serving the same destinations it serves. 

[pudgym29]

The Authority had a horrible day Sunday on route #90 Harlem. Before noon, a bus broke down on the northern part of the route. Another bus had to be sent out from the Glen.  A 15-minute street turned into a 30-minute street, with 'bonus' bus bunching.

In the evening, the last two buses northbound from Harlem | Lake scheduled at 9:47 and 10:15 did not run. I chose to reroute myself on the Pace #307 Harlem bus to the CTA routes #74 and #54. 😩

[Adam Hubbard]

Which Bus number Broke down on the #90?

 

[pudgym29]

1 hour ago, Adam Hubbard said:

Which Bus number Broke down on the #90?

 

I do not know. The bus which arrived after the 30-minute gap; its operator related they had to swap it out for another vehicle.

[Elkmn]

On 5/18/2026 at 8:25 AM, Sam92 said:

There's no justification to keep it a CTA route.  The lower half is surrounded by the expressway and u walkable areas thus the replacement route was supposed to serve skokie Blvd then bypass the area via the Edens into Jeff Park so if anything the serve isn't cut; CTA is just saying this is more of Pace's Jurisdiction considering the riders primarily board in the burbs. Similar to 145 being folded into 146. The amount of service didn't change just the route number 

Still convenient as the only link from the blue line to skokie! (no i do not count the 93)! In its current form, it isn't that big a deal to operate (if forest glen can get the drivers). what would be cool, and possible under nita, is an extension of the 626 from dempster, via Dempster, Skokie Blvd, and then Touhy right back onto the edens until... irving? belmont? that's really an untapped market that the cta should look into in my opinion.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, Elkmn said:

Still convenient as the only link from the blue line to skokie! (no i do not count the 93)! In its current form, it isn't that big a deal to operate (if forest glen can get the drivers). what would be cool, and possible under nita, is an extension of the 626 from dempster, via Dempster, Skokie Blvd, and then Touhy right back onto the edens until... irving? belmont? that's really an untapped market that the cta should look into in my opinion.

• 54 adequately covers south of Montrose, and there was some unofficial talk of extending it to Jefferson Park.  The old X54 ran between Jeff Park and Midway.
• If you are saying anything staying on the Kennedy, why get stuck in a perpetual traffic jam when the Blue Line is there?
• What you are describing as a 626 extension is the 641 proposed as part of the North Shore Coordination Plan (on the Edens Expressway between Touhy and Foster), but Pace said it didn't have the resources to run it.
• What probably will happen if the Jarrett Walker plan is implemented, is that there will be some form of 254. Last year's draft had it from Jefferson Park to Old Orchard to Skokie Courthouse., then via Harms Road to Lake Ave. east, picking up part of 422. 

[Sam92]

10 hours ago, Elkmn said:

Still convenient as the only link from the blue line to skokie! (no i do not count the 93)! In its current form, it isn't that big a deal to operate (if forest glen can get the drivers). what would be cool, and possible under nita, is an extension of the 626 from dempster, via Dempster, Skokie Blvd, and then Touhy right back onto the edens until... irving? belmont? that's really an untapped market that the cta should look into in my opinion.

Again the only thing changing is the route number and jurisdiction (agency providing the service). The link from Skokie to Blue is still there: Instead of 54A the bus picking you up would be a pace 641 bus, either way you still get to the Blue Line. The north shore/CTA topic claifies why these were chosen but to paraphrase; it realigned the grid for straighter direct trips and got rid of poor performing segment hence 205 get cut in exchange for 213 and 208. What we're talking about was the final phase but as busjack said resources held that up. I'm I'm reading what he says about 254 replacing 422 right; then pacevision decided that might do better than 641 

[Javi75]

Would you guys consider the brown line the slowest of all L lines? Most of the time when commuting downtown I transfer to the red line at Belmont & end up downtown 10-15 minutes faster. 

[artthouwill]

26 minutes ago, Javi75 said:

Would you guys consider the brown line the slowest of all L lines? Most of the time when commuting downtown I transfer to the red line at Belmont & end up downtown 10-15 minutes faster. 

As far as slowest, that goes the Forest P branch of the Blue Line.

As far as the Brown vs Red, I suppose it depends on where your destination is.   Try commuting from downtown and see what's fastest.

A

[MetroShadow]

4 hours ago, Javi75 said:

Would you guys consider the brown line the slowest of all L lines? Most of the time when commuting downtown I transfer to the red line at Belmont & end up downtown 10-15 minutes faster. 

Forest Park (Blue) is notoriously worse.
 

Brown and Red moves, but @artthouwillwill mention that you test this theory to and from downtown. 
 

 

[Busjack]

8 hours ago, Javi75 said:

Would you guys consider the brown line the slowest of all L lines? Most of the time when commuting downtown I transfer to the red line at Belmont & end up downtown 10-15 minutes faster. 

To add to the above, Red Line bypasses stations at Wellington, Diversey, and Armitage, and all the S-curves around North and Halsted, Chicago Ave., and north of the Mdse. Mart.

Howard only becomes relevant if the question is whether to take the Red or Purple Line from downtown. Theoreticallly, it is quicker to transfer from Red to Purple at Belmont, but I have been on Purple Line trains that were held before Howard to let Red Line trains it passed into Howard station.

[Sam92]

19 hours ago, Busjack said:

To add to the above, Red Line bypasses stations at Wellington, Diversey, and Armitage, and all the S-curves around North and Halsted, Chicago Ave., and north of the Mdse. Mart.

Howard only becomes relevant if the question is whether to take the Red or Purple Line from downtown. Theoreticallly, it is quicker to transfer from Red to Purple at Belmont, but I have been on Purple Line trains that were held before Howard to let Red Line trains it passed into Howard station.

 

On 5/23/2026 at 8:48 AM, Javi75 said:

Would you guys consider the brown line the slowest of all L lines? Most of the time when commuting downtown I transfer to the red line at Belmont & end up downtown 10-15 minutes faster. 

North of Belmont; Red Line is the Local, South of Belmont the Red is "express" and faster. That's when it comes to the Purple Line you'll here people asking for either all day express or using the red line tracks south of 95th. The time savings on the Express portion get negated by picking up brown line stops; thus if you stay on the purple line all the way you either arrive at the same time or maybe even later than if you would have transferred.

Here's an article that breaks all that down but basically moving the purple line to the subway would speed up the ride downtown, loyola/Wilson become express transfer options and you can reduce excessive reverse peak service on the Dan Ryan since the Purple Line is handling Northside capacity 

https://chicagoreader.com/news/how-to-fix-the-el/

[Busjack]

6 minutes ago, Sam92 said:

 

North of Belmont; Red Line is the Local, South of Belmont the Red is "express" and faster. That's when it comes to the Purple Line you'll here people asking for either all day express or using the red line tracks south of 95th. The time savings on the Express portion get negated by picking up brown line stops; thus if you stay on the purple line all the way you either arrive at the same time or maybe even later than if you would have transferred.

Here's an article that breaks all that down but basically moving the purple line to the subway would speed up the ride downtown, loyola/Wilson become express transfer options and you can reduce excessive reverse peak service on the Dan Ryan since the Purple Line is handling Northside capacity 

https://chicagoreader.com/news/how-to-fix-the-el/

From the article "But we’ll let Rahm worry about that." Article is dated 2011. In the ensuing 15  years, the Reader has to worry about staying in business.

There have been changes in the past 15 years. The Purple Line, at about 7 a.m. runs every 6 minutes. There isn't the same delay at Clark Jct.  They acknowledged a plan to rebuild Clark Jct., that happened. The transfer station at Wilson happened; the one at Bryn Mawr didn't.

The only two currently viable ideas are:

• Run the Purple Line in the subway: Some kind of trnaround would be needed, and the last time that happened, my understanding was that they reversed ends at 35th on the L.
• Thin out the south side by not putting additional trains on the RLE. I don't know the south side ridership 15 years later (now)  or what the ridership projections for after RLE are, but based on the earlier discussion on whether the CRRC contract should be terminated, maybe the cars won't be there.

[artthouwill]

4 hours ago, Busjack said:

From the article "But we’ll let Rahm worry about that." Article is dated 2011. In the ensuing 15  years, the Reader has to worry about staying in business.

There have been changes in the past 15 years. The Purple Line, at about 7 a.m. runs every 6 minutes. There isn't the same delay at Clark Jct.  They acknowledged a plan to rebuild Clark Jct., that happened. The transfer station at Wilson happened; the one at Bryn Mawr didn't.

The only two currently viable ideas are:

• Run the Purple Line in the subway: Some kind of trnaround would be needed, and the last time that happened, my understanding was that they reversed ends at 35th on the L.
• Thin out the south side by not putting additional trains on the RLE. I don't know the south side ridership 15 years later (now)  or what the ridership projections for after RLE are, but based on the earlier discussion on whether the CRRC contract should be terminated, maybe the cars won't be there.

I suppose Purple Line trains could go to 35th Bronzeville IIT and use 37th Middle to turn around  but I would rather have them continue to 63rd ( both branches) and have the Green Line circle the Loop and return west.

As for Red Line South ridership,  it has fallen.   Southbound trains leaving Jackson can be full but trains are somewhat cleared by Cermak Chinatown  or Sox 35th when the Sox are playing.   Once upon a time trains stayed full to at least 69th.  Basically today's Red line south is the old SSM before the 1992 realignment. 

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

but I would rather have them continue to 63rd ( both branches) and have the Green Line circle the Loop and return west.

But unless you are suggesting Purple Line Express 19 hours a day, and all weekend, it doesn't work.

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Busjack said:

But unless you are suggesting Purple Line Express 19 hours a day, and all weekend, it doesn't work.

Exactly what I am suggesting 

[Sam92]

13 hours ago, Busjack said:

From the article "But we’ll let Rahm worry about that." Article is dated 2011. In the ensuing 15  years, the Reader has to worry about staying in business.

There have been changes in the past 15 years. The Purple Line, at about 7 a.m. runs every 6 minutes. There isn't the same delay at Clark Jct.  They acknowledged a plan to rebuild Clark Jct., that happened. The transfer station at Wilson happened; the one at Bryn Mawr didn't.

The only two currently viable ideas are:

• Run the Purple Line in the subway: Some kind of trnaround would be needed, and the last time that happened, my understanding was that they reversed ends at 35th on the L.
• Thin out the south side by not putting additional trains on the RLE. I don't know the south side ridership 15 years later (now)  or what the ridership projections for after RLE are, but based on the earlier discussion on whether the CRRC contract should be terminated, maybe the cars won't be there.

I probably should have just posted the pic. This pic basically breaks down why the routing south of Belmont negates the time savings. 

Everything else is basically spot on. Peak hour headways pre-covid were 6-8 min for the Ryan so replacing some of those with purples shouldn't be an issue. 

While the reasons in the article aren't really relevant, inner loop capacity might still be an issue and cta's possible answer to that may be either changing route patterns (most likely Purple Line sharing the outer loop with the brown) or "moving a route into the State or Dearborn subways (pretty much eliminating the pink line). 

https://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/6/RP_CDMSMITH_RCM_Task2AExecutiveSummary_20170628_FINAL.pdf

[Busjack]

14 hours ago, artthouwill said:

Exactly what I am suggesting 

Do you have an estimate of the cost?

Also, the Green Line schedule has morning rush hour trains every 8-10 minutes, while the Purple Line Express schedule has trains every 6 minutes. So they don't match.

Essentially what you are doing is taking cars out of the north side, where they are needed, and diverting them to the SSM, where they are not.

So, it doesn't make any sense.

 

[Busjack]

9 hours ago, Sam92 said:

I probably should have just posted the pic. This pic basically breaks down why the routing south of Belmont negates the time savings. 

Everything else is basically spot on. Peak hour headways pre-covid were 6-8 min for the Ryan so replacing some of those with purples shouldn't be an issue. 

While the reasons in the article aren't really relevant, inner loop capacity might still be an issue and cta's possible answer to that may be either changing route patterns (most likely Purple Line sharing the outer loop with the brown) or "moving a route into the State or Dearborn subways (pretty much eliminating the pink line). 

https://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/6/RP_CDMSMITH_RCM_Task2AExecutiveSummary_20170628_FINAL.pdf

0

If I'm reading this correctly, it is only 2 minutes difference in favor of the Purple Line. So those riding the Purple Line are just too antsy.

What's probably more relevant is that the Red Line Belmont to Jackson is 17 minutes while the Purple Line is 25.

Diverting the Purple Line raises the subway's capacity (as opposed to the Loop's) and where the turnback would be (as I indicated in response to @artthouwill, anywhere south of Roosevelt is dead mileage). I suppose that the Purple Line could switch to the inner track at Belmont, but then you would need more Brownage trains.

[Sam92]

23 hours ago, Busjack said:

If I'm reading this correctly, it is only 2 minutes difference in favor of the Purple Line. So those riding the Purple Line are just too antsy.

What's probably more relevant is that the Red Line Belmont to Jackson is 17 minutes while the Purple Line is 25.

Diverting the Purple Line raises the subway's capacity (as opposed to the Loop's) and where the turnback would be (as I indicated in response to @artthouwill, anywhere south of Roosevelt is dead mileage). I suppose that the Purple Line could switch to the inner track at Belmont, but then you would need more Brownage trains.

I wonder since the 13th portal is technically expendable (outside of 2013 when reused for the Ryan protect but a really rare situation and we still have ways to transfer rolling stock) I wonder is there enough level space to work with between that and 17th Junction for some turn back space?

[artthouwill]

1 hour ago, Sam92 said:

I wonder since the 13th portal is technically expendable (outside of 2013 when reused for the Ryan protect but a really rare situation and we still have ways to transfer rolling stock) I wonder is there enough level space to work with between that and 17th Junction for some turn back space?

I guess CTA would have to buiid a middle track  between 18th and Cermak.   Currently there aren't any crossover tracks between 16th and 37th.   Perhaps the best place would be south of the Cermak McCormick station.