A new report from Active Transit Alliance outlines plans to get Chicago buses back up to speed.
The Active Transit Alliance wrote a study on Chicago bus transit with input from thousands of bus riders, the CTA, CDOT, and the private sector. The news is not good for Chicago busses, which are slowing down and losing ridership. "The study notes that while more than half of CTA trips are made by bus, from 2015 to 2016 bus ridership in Chicago fell by more than 15 million rides (5.8 percent)," reports John Greenfield for Streetsblog Chigago. Meanwhile, the average speed of the bus which was almost 10 mph in 2007 decreased every year and is closer to 9 miles an hour in 2015, the last year studied.
The Active Transit Alliance also outlined ways to improve service and regain ridership, including dedicated bus lanes. Cities like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Seattle have between eight and 20 times as many miles of bus lanes; what's more, Chicago doesn't enforce its laws to keep traffic out of the lanes it has built. Other strategies to improve service include, pre-paying, all door boarding, and signal improvement.
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research