CTA’s Roughest Bus Routes

[Javi78]

What bus routes do you think are the roughest or have the most crime in the CTA? 

[Shannoncvpi]

11 minutes ago, Javi78 said:

What bus routes do you think are the roughest or have the most crime in the CTA? 

79 3 4 12 126 63 20 53 28 I know it's gotta be a few others

[strictures]

1 hour ago, Shannoncvpi said:

79 3 4 12 126 63 20 53 28 I know it's gotta be a few others

The 4 Cottage Grove seems to have the most people trying to scam a ride.  Every time I ride it to or from Downtown to 58th, there are at least two people per ride that have cards that aren't any good & about 2/3rds of the time, the driver relents & lets them ride.  I've seen one driver absolutely refuse to let someone ride on an empty or expired card is the one who said to the passengers "That guy tries this almost every day!"

[YoungBusLover]

3 hours ago, Javi78 said:

What bus routes do you think are the roughest or have the most crime in the CTA? 

The roughest route to me is probably Garfield and maybe 79th. I would also add an honorable mention being 63rd. 

[Shannoncvpi]

4 hours ago, strictures said:

The 4 Cottage Grove seems to have the most people trying to scam a ride.  Every time I ride it to or from Downtown to 58th, there are at least two people per ride that have cards that aren't any good & about 2/3rds of the time, the driver relents & lets them ride.  I've seen one driver absolutely refuse to let someone ride on an empty or expired card is the one who said to the passengers "That guy tries this almost every day!"

Yea that shit do make u mad when it be the same people everytime I be like get off the bus but half the time if it's somebody I never seen I be be like come on idc I'm still getting my money if u pay or not

[NewFlyerMCI]

This topic seems, circumspect, to say the least, but I will say something always happens when I ride the 79 for more than 10 minutes. Can be anything, minor or major, but I usually have a story to tell. The 78 as well, I used to take it when I was younger when my mother worked at hull house and I would also occasionally go to the B&GC over there, but I Had interesting rides on there, which persisted the couple of times I rode years later (best taco spot in the city is at Montrose/Lincoln). Most recently was the drunk white man with an open container of what I think was R&R about 2 years ago

[MrH345]

I’d say the 4 Cottage Grove. Not only do you get a mixed bag of ridership, but the surrounding activity makes a huge difference. Between 83 and 63 you can run up against, anything from a gun battle to a drug od in the middle of the street. 

[Shannoncvpi]

7 minutes ago, MrH345 said:

I’d say the 4 Cottage Grove. Not only do you get a mixed bag of ridership, but the surrounding activity makes a huge difference. Between 83 and 63 you can run up against, anything from a gun battle to a drug od in the middle of the street. 

Yea u definitely right about that

[MrH345]

2 hours ago, Shannoncvpi said:

Yea u definitely right about that

I did all Cottage for an entire pick, a few springs ago. I never had a day, nothing happened!!!

[Shannoncvpi]

3 hours ago, MrH345 said:

I did all Cottage for an entire pick, a few springs ago. I never had a day, nothing happened!!!

Its never a dull moment at CTA 

[chitowndude84]

Easy. Any bus/train route that operates on the west and south sides ?

[YoungBusLover]

6 hours ago, chitowndude84 said:

Easy. Any bus/train route that operates on the west and south sides ?

There are a few routes like the 1,2,8,24,29,52A,53A,54B along with the Midway Corridor routes that aren't rough at all on the southside, An honorable mention would be Ashland.

[strictures]

On 6/28/2020 at 1:55 PM, MrH345 said:

I did all Cottage for an entire pick, a few springs ago. I never had a day, nothing happened!!!

I ride the Cottage bus occasionally.  Every single time, there's someone who boards with an expired fare card & tries to scam the driver out of a ride.  Also saw a few bizarre screaming matches on it.    But on the North Side, the problem are people, 90% of whom are young women that must use their phones to add money to their Ventra account.  None of them have the brains to do so at home or even while waiting for the bus!

[sht6131]

51 minutes ago, strictures said:

I ride the Cottage bus occasionally.  Every single time, there's someone who boards with an expired fare card & tries to scam the driver out of a ride.  Also saw a few bizarre screaming matches on it.    But on the North Side, the problem are people, 90% of whom are young women that must use their phones to add money to their Ventra account.  None of them have the brains to do so at home or even while waiting for the bus!

I know this is not regarding transportation but the last sentence is like a person at the cashier writing a full check holding everybody up instead of writing the amount only. 

[Tcmetro]

Crazy stuff seems to happen all over the city. Last fight I saw was on the 9 by Chicago and Ashland. Routes like Belmont and Lawrence have their fair share of characters. I used to live off the #12 (probably a bit biased from riding it everyday) and I always thought that one takes the cake. 

Fare issues happen everywhere, I feel like operators give people more slack on the north side compared to the south side. 

 

[NewFlyerMCI]

10 hours ago, chitowndude84 said:

Easy. Any bus/train route that operates on the west and south sides ?

Idk about you, but I've seen more robberies happen on the north side than south side. Let's shy away from over-generalization, its not like the north side is this magic bastion of safety and the south & west sides aren't monolithic

[NewFlyerMCI]

4 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

There are a few routes like the 1,2,8,24,29,52A,53A,54B along with the Midway Corridor routes that aren't rough at all on the southside, An honorable mention would be Ashland.

Surprisingly, all my J14 issues have either been driver-started or haven't involved the bus ride, just a location (i.e. Jeffery Plaza). But I've always had good rides on that route, the 6, 26 & 30 as well

[NewFlyerMCI]

I will say, the 79 is always a circus. I loved working at FedEx, but I have a story for literally almost every time I rode the 79. I wouldn't even mind advocated for hazard pay for those drivers.

[YoungBusLover]

7 minutes ago, NewFlyerMCI said:

Idk about you, but I've seen more robberies happen on the north side than south side. Let's shy away from over-generalization, its not like the north side is this magic bastion of safety and the south & west sides aren't monolithic

Yeah I don't what he's smoking as if routes like the 22,36,77,81,90,92 and 151 doesn't have its fair share of nuts on it. 

[NewFlyerMCI]

1 minute ago, YoungBusLover said:

Yeah I don't what he's smoking as if routes like the 22,36,77,81,90,92 and 151 doesn't have its fair share of nuts on it. 

My mother has stories about the 151 back from when she worked at Hull House and that was nearly 15+ years ago 

[YoungBusLover]

Just now, NewFlyerMCI said:

My mother has stories about the 151 back from when she worked at Hull House and that was nearly 15+ years ago 

I've always been interested about riding that route during the summer months because I saw a lot of funny stuff on it while going through Lincoln Park and Lakeview. 

[Mr.NewFlyer1051]

52 minutes ago, YoungBusLover said:

I've always been interested about riding that route during the summer months because I saw a lot of funny stuff on it while going through Lincoln Park and Lakeview. 

i ride 151 every day it’s a lowkey good route 

[strictures]

58 minutes ago, Mr.NewFlyer1051 said:

i ride 151 every day it’s a lowkey good route 

There are actually two 151 routes.  The short one out of K & goes to just Belmont/Halsted is fairly normal.   But the long 151, out of North Park, goes through Uptown & the ride between Sheridan & Pine Grove to Sheridan/Foster has some of the most burned out people in the city!   That two mile stretch has people too addled to figure out how to use a fare card, let alone how to think & breathe.  Booze, drugs & serious mental illness are the problems there & then they get on the bus & make their problems your problems.

[artthouwill]

21 minutes ago, strictures said:

There are actually two 151 routes.  The short one out of K & goes to just Belmont/Halsted is fairly normal.   But the long 151, out of North Park, goes through Uptown & the ride between Sheridan & Pine Grove to Sheridan/Foster has some of the most burned out people in the city!   That two mile stretch has people too addled to figure out how to use a fare card, let alone how to think & breathe.  Booze, drugs & serious mental illness are the problems there & then they get on the bus & make their problems your problems.

The short 151 has its roots in the old 153 Wilson/Michigan.   That route was  split into two..  The 145 covered between Belmont and Wilson/Ravenswood before running express from Belmont to downtown .  Since the 151 mirrored the old 153, the trips south of Belmont were made 151s.  For years, those trips kept the 153's south terminal of Michigan / Congress.

[jajuan]

On 11/3/2020 at 8:34 AM, strictures said:

I ride the Cottage bus occasionally.  Every single time, there's someone who boards with an expired fare card & tries to scam the driver out of a ride.  Also saw a few bizarre screaming matches on it.    But on the North Side, the problem are people, 90% of whom are young women that must use their phones to add money to their Ventra account.  None of them have the brains to do so at home or even while waiting for the bus!

The 22 is really notorious for this especially very early in the morning at about the time that owl service is about to transition into morning rush service. It's so annoying because everyone else like myself are trying to get to work, and their procrastination is holding everyone else up. Before the pandemic, before a lot of downtown workers started working from home, this could be an almost daily occurrence. As for the more rowdy instances that can make a route a challenge to ride, again 22 is a top contender.. Prior to the pandemic, you had the drunk loud mouths coming from Cubs home games at Wrigley Field. There were sometimes loud or rude teenagers from Lakeview High School after classes let out. Weekends, it was the antics of drunk passengers coming from the bars and clubs in Boystown as well as the ones in Wrigleyville along the stretch of Clark between Wrigley Field and Belmont, though the Wrigleyville sports bar patrons tended to be the worse of the two groups. And of course, there were the occasional woes from drug addicts who'd board the bus at various points along the whole route.