Obama/MSI Express (Route 10) Discussion

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

31 minutes ago, jajuan said:

With the 10 now being year-round daily service and the 35 set to become part of FBN starting Sunday, it makes me wonder if K losing buses in the fall every year has become a thing of the past. 

They should be using artics on the 10, there was one just once in June and it never happened after that. 80% of the 10 buses that i see are standing room only and packed to the max

[79th to lakefront 1302]

That's why I take the 10 at ether end,starting point so I can get me a screenshot 

 

[jajuan]

On 8/19/2026 at 8:23 PM, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

They should be using artics on the 10, there was one just once in June and it never happened after that. 80% of the 10 buses that i see are standing room only and packed to the max

At what times of the day are you observing this? I ask because I've been riding the 10 quite regularly since I moved and haven't really been seeing this that often. When I have seen it, it's been because a bus is late for the direction in question. I've seen buses that have almost every seat taken, typically morning southbound trips when the Obama Center is just kicking off the day, like when I rode the first 10 bus of the day this morning and late afternoon northbound as the Museum of Science and Industry is getting close to the end of the business day. But I haven't observed anything that says the 40 foot buses can't handle things.

The main heavy lifting has pretty much been the instances I mentioned. Outside of that, half the riders have been tourists who are moving between the Mag Mile and State Street and not really leaving the boundaries of downtown. Buses on LSD and Stony Island portions have typically been half to three quarters full on average due to folks going to MSI and the Obama Center late or leaving MSI early. Notice I didn't mention leaving the Obama Center, and that's because those visiting have tended to stay and frequent the free areas after the main museum portion has closed just as some of us speculated could be the case when discussing the extension of the 10. 

[Sam92]

5 minutes ago, jajuan said:

At what times of the day are you observing this? I ask because I've been riding the 10 quite regularly since I moved and haven't really been seeing this that often. When I have seen it, it's been because a bus is late for the direction in question. I've seen buses that have almost every seat taken, typically morning southbound trips when the Obama Center is just kicking off the day, like when I rode the first 10 bus of the day this morning and late afternoon northbound as the Museum of Science and Industry is getting close to the end of the business day. But I haven't observed anything that says the 40 foot buses can't handle things.

The main heavy lifting has pretty much been the instances I mentioned. Outside of that, half the riders have been tourists who are moving between the Mag Mile and State Street and not really leaving the boundaries of downtown. Buses on LSD and Stony Island portions have typically been half to three quarters full on average due to folks going to MSI and the Obama Center late or leaving MSI early. Notice I didn't mention leaving the Obama Center, and that's because those visiting have tended to stay and frequent the free areas after the main museum portion has closed just as some of us speculated could be the case when discussing the extension of the 10. 

 

On 8/19/2026 at 8:23 PM, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

They should be using artics on the 10, there was one just once in June and it never happened after that. 80% of the 10 buses that i see are standing room only and packed to the max

Artic use on the #10 has always been spotty and I personally didn't see the extension justifying any changes to that. Holiday seasons and school vacation times/breaks have been the times to really see some type of consistent artic use on that route. K's reluctance on weekend artic use might kill that though 😮‍💨

[Erin Mishkin Jr.]

1 hour ago, jajuan said:

At what times of the day are you observing this? I ask because I've been riding the 10 quite regularly since I moved and haven't really been seeing this that often. When I have seen it, it's been because a bus is late for the direction in question. I've seen buses that have almost every seat taken, typically morning southbound trips when the Obama Center is just kicking off the day, like when I rode the first 10 bus of the day this morning and late afternoon northbound as the Museum of Science and Industry is getting close to the end of the business day. But I haven't observed anything that says the 40 foot buses can't handle things.

The main heavy lifting has pretty much been the instances I mentioned. Outside of that, half the riders have been tourists who are moving between the Mag Mile and State Street and not really leaving the boundaries of downtown. Buses on LSD and Stony Island portions have typically been half to three quarters full on average due to folks going to MSI and the Obama Center late or leaving MSI early. Notice I didn't mention leaving the Obama Center, and that's because those visiting have tended to stay and frequent the free areas after the main museum portion has closed just as some of us speculated could be the case when discussing the extension of the 10. 

Normally on Sundays and going nb at 5pm on weekdays is crowded but that’s when I normally see the 10

[jajuan]

13 hours ago, Erin Mishkin Jr. said:

Normally on Sundays and going nb at 5pm on weekdays is crowded but that’s when I normally see the 10

Weekends, buses can be late a bit more often than I see occur on weekdays. And that 5pm hour for NB buses is when the flow of folks leaving MSI and heading downtown is heavier. I can say the last couple weeks there have been issues with buses across different days having to go out of service in the later part of the service day with no replacement, resulting in a one hour gap that riders have to wait between that missing bus's leader and follower. Now of course the NB 2, 6 or 28 can be alternates by using the 57th street stop on Stony, but the 10 has become quite a bit more touristy in ridership and those tourists won't deviate all that much from the trip planning instructions that tell them to use the 10. So that's made the missing buses a contributing factor to what you've seen on weekdays. The 40 foot buses at K have been quite sufficient in running the 10 outside the contributing factors of late buses, or in recent instances, buses missing from the rotation altogether. And those special event moments where C helped with extra service on the route, further mitigated any need to use artics like we've seen be the case in special event times in years prior.