Bus Priority Zones

[Busjack]

City announcement that the bus lanes on Chicago Ave. between Western and Ashland will be made permanent, and, as part of the Bus Priority Zone (BPZ), improvements,  other BPZ projects will be done on Western in the Logan Square area and 79th around Kedzie and Columbus Ave.

[jajuan]

14 hours ago, Busjack said:

City announcement that the bus lanes on Chicago Ave. between Western and Ashland will be made permanent, and, as part of the Bus Priority Zone (BPZ), improvements,  other BPZ projects will be done on Western in the Logan Square area and 79th around Kedzie and Columbus Ave.

I wish they could have extended that to include other portions of the pop-up bus lanes in Chicago Avenue, given the stretch they made permanent is actually just one portion of a stretch that encompassed Laramie to Ashland. But I guess this is something. My question now is will they continue to have bus lanes in the stretch between Western and Laramie, or will they open the right lanes in that part of Chicago Avenue back up to car traffic? Looking at how the 600s have been seeing longer service hours on the 66, the bus lanes not only a matter of speeding up the buses. They also seemed to me to be a help in reducing the carbon imprint along Chicago since having a dedicated bus lane in place of a travel lane would in theory make less car drivers want to drive along Chicago due to an impression actual car traffic would be slower with less car lanes available.

[Shannoncvpi]

11 hours ago, jajuan said:

I wish they could have extended that to include other portions of the pop-up bus lanes in Chicago Avenue, given the stretch they made permanent is actually just one portion of a stretch that encompassed Laramie to Ashland. But I guess this is something. My question now is will they continue to have bus lanes in the stretch between Western and Laramie, or will they open the right lanes in that part of Chicago Avenue back up to car traffic? Looking at how the 600s have been seeing longer service hours on the 66, the bus lanes not only a matter of speeding up the buses. They also seemed to me to be a help in reducing the carbon imprint along Chicago since having a dedicated bus lane in place of a travel lane would in theory make less car drivers want to drive along Chicago due to an impression actual car traffic would be slower with less car lanes available.

It's a good idea on paper but it's gone gone sped up service in the real world pnly way it would speed up service if cta stop the service gaps they have 20-30min waits & also if they want to make it permanent then the drivers need to stay in the bus lane not hog up 2 lanes if they don't have to plenty of times I see drivers holding up 2 lanes when they had their so called own lanes which I still ride both lanes unless I'm passing a bus or if a bus is stopped 

[YoungBusLover]

10 hours ago, Shannoncvpi said:

It's a good idea on paper but it's gone gone sped up service in the real world pnly way it would speed up service if cta stop the service gaps they have 20-30min waits & also if they want to make it permanent then the drivers need to stay in the bus lane not hog up 2 lanes if they don't have to plenty of times I see drivers holding up 2 lanes when they had their so called own lanes which I still ride both lanes unless I'm passing a bus or if a bus is stopped 

Well that's a manpower issue but with this winter pick and system pick going into effect in January hopefully things will get better. They did decrease the runs and increased the intervals on certain routes though that I've come across.

[Shannoncvpi]

2 hours ago, YoungBusLover said:

Well that's a manpower issue but with this winter pick and system pick going into effect in January hopefully things will get better. They did decrease the runs and increased the intervals on certain routes though that I've come across.

Aw 

[artthouwill]

16 hours ago, Shannoncvpi said:

It's a good idea on paper but it's gone gone sped up service in the real world pnly way it would speed up service if cta stop the service gaps they have 20-30min waits & also if they want to make it permanent then the drivers need to stay in the bus lane not hog up 2 lanes if they don't have to plenty of times I see drivers holding up 2 lanes when they had their so called own lanes which I still ride both lanes unless I'm passing a bus or if a bus is stopped 

I saw a news report that said absenteeism in the vuses was averaging 14 5% systemwide.   However,  77th garage absenteeism was the highest in the system at 18% and 103rd was at 17.6% while P was only at 10%.  It's hard to cover service when nearly 1/5th of drivers at a garage are absent from work.  Add to that fact that 2 garages have that problem and they are neighboring garages on the south side.   Those garages can least afford increased gaps in service but are mist likely to get them.

[YoungBusLover]

1 hour ago, artthouwill said:

I saw a news report that said absenteeism in the vuses was averaging 13% systemwide.   However,  77th garage absenteeism was the highest in the system at 18% and 103rd was at 17.6% while P was only at 10%.  It's hard to cover service when nearly 1/5th of drivers at a garage are absent from work.  Add to that fact that 2 garages have that problem and they are neighboring garages on the south side.   Those garages can least afford increased gaps in service but are mist likely to get them.

I wish that news report would dug deeper and exposed which routes have the highest amounts of absebteeism. It would shed light on a bigger issue alot us are facing with the pubic in regards to safety and general respect were not getting.I can't speak much for 103rd but as far as 77th is concerned a big chunk of absent operators/runs come from 79th,Cottage Grove and King Drive.  

[artthouwill]

39 minutes ago, YoungBusLover said:

I wish that news report would dug deeper and exposed which routes have the highest amounts of absebteeism. It would shed light on a bigger issue alot us are facing with the pubic in regards to safety and general respect were not getting.I can't speak much for 103rd but as far as 77th is concerned a big chunk of absent operators/runs come from 79th,Cottage Grove and King Drive.  

Routes that have high ridership

 

I will see if I can find it, but on YouTube the report i saw was based on the customer perspective.   They called it ghost buses .   I figured safety was an aspect.

[Shannoncvpi]

56 minutes ago, YoungBusLover said:

I wish that news report would dug deeper and exposed which routes have the highest amounts of absebteeism. It would shed light on a bigger issue alot us are facing with the pubic in regards to safety and general respect were not getting.I can't speak much for 103rd but as far as 77th is concerned a big chunk of absent operators/runs come from 79th,Cottage Grove and King Drive.  

Tbh I be feeling safe alot of people show me respect every now & then I get some crazy people but I don't be having that issue as much as it's reported 

[Busjack]

Off topic again.Try here.

It's like you guys on the Route 4 bus routinely pick up passengers on Montose.

[artthouwill]

53 minutes ago, Busjack said:

Off topic again.Try here.

It's like you guys on the Route 4 bus routinely pick up passengers on Montose.

If the 4 is picking up passengers on Montrose, that can certainly explain the service gaps on that route?

In regards to extending the Bus Lanes on 79th,  absenteeism could be relevant.  Whatever gains, if any, are made in speeding up trips could be offset by increased intervals in the schedule.  @YoungBusLover alluded to driver safety concerns on the 3, 4, and 79 as reasons why 77th has the highest absenteeism rate among all CTA bus garages.  Simply adjusting the schedule to increase headways might not solve the problems and extending the length of the bus lanes work do any good if there's increased dwell times as a result of scheduling.   If anything,  overcrowding may occur unless they put more artics back on 79th.

[jajuan]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:44 AM, Shannoncvpi said:

It's a good idea on paper but it's gone gone sped up service in the real world pnly way it would speed up service if cta stop the service gaps they have 20-30min waits & also if they want to make it permanent then the drivers need to stay in the bus lane not hog up 2 lanes if they don't have to plenty of times I see drivers holding up 2 lanes when they had their so called own lanes which I still ride both lanes unless I'm passing a bus or if a bus is stopped 

CTA's manpower issue does not negate them still trying to do what they can to make improvements anyway they can. Everyone keeps squawking about how they should do X, Y and Z on that front but continue to fail to acknowledge that manpower is an actual problem for them just as it is for just about every transit system in the country. I actually give them credit for not taking the route of making deep cuts in service in the form of whole routes disappearing like other big city TAs have done in response to the labor shortage that's still being fueled in part by the pandemic. Those TAs are finding bringing those routes back as their riders would like to see is much harder to do than they anticipated. Where they made their mistake is in not adjusting headways to reflect that they don't have the manpower that they had before. Maybe the weekday scheduled headways for the 79 and 147, for example, shouldn't be at a three or four minute minimum for the time being when accounting for their combined short trips and full trips on their individual schedules. But getting back on topic, the city and CTA working together to find ways to speed up what buses are running is a step in the right direction. Sometimes that 20 to 30 minute wait is still due to the problems that existed before the pandemic and resulting labor shortage existed, namely increasing car traffic slowing buses down and city's recent pushes to choke off traffic lanes to go bike lane crazy slowing down buses even further because no thought was put into balancing bike lane implementation with also keeping city streets bus friendly. Can we for once give CTA credit when it actually does something right? Sheesh.

[Busjack]

15 hours ago, artthouwill said:

extending the length of the bus lanes work do any good if there's increased dwell times as a result of scheduling.   If anything,  overcrowding may occur unless they put more artics back on 79th.

This is the only part that's relevant to this topic.

I don't think that artics can speed up service unless there is a bus lane or at least a 60-foot bus stop. Part of this project is bus stop bump outs, but that may help loading and handicap access, but not use of the rear door. On 79th,I don't see room for a bus lane between State and Stony Island, where the biggest bottleneck is. The various sources indicate they are doing it on Chicago Ave. between Western and Ashland to relieve a bottleneck.

 

[artthouwill]

23 minutes ago, Busjack said:

This is the only part that's relevant to this topic.

I don't think that artics can speed up service unless there is a bus lane or at least a 60-foot bus stop. Part of this project is bus stop bump outs, but that may help loading and handicap access, but not use of the rear door. On 79th,I don't see room for a bus lane between State and Stony Island, where the biggest bottleneck is. The various sources indicate they are doing it on Chicago Ave. between Western and Ashland to relieve a bottleneck.

 

I don't think artics would speed up service on the bus lanes.  But they may help handle the increased loads associated with increased headways, depending on the intervals.

[Busjack]

40 minutes ago, artthouwill said:

I don't think artics would speed up service on the bus lanes.  But they may help handle the increased loads associated with increased headways, depending on the intervals.

Only if they don't increase the dwelltimes. as you implied.

[Shannoncvpi]

6 hours ago, Busjack said:

This is the only part that's relevant to this topic.

I don't think that artics can speed up service unless there is a bus lane or at least a 60-foot bus stop. Part of this project is bus stop bump outs, but that may help loading and handicap access, but not use of the rear door. On 79th,I don't see room for a bus lane between State and Stony Island, where the biggest bottleneck is. The various sources indicate they are doing it on Chicago Ave. between Western and Ashland to relieve a bottleneck.

 

That won't do anything but jam up traffic 

[Shannoncvpi]

22 hours ago, Busjack said:

Off topic again.Try here.

It's like you guys on the Route 4 bus routinely pick up passengers on Montose.

Wait the 4 don't go to montrose it doesn't even go that far north