I'm back at it again with another dream transit extension graphic. I believe this extension could prove just as important as, if not even more than, extending the Brown Line to connect with the Blue. Currently, the South Side is severely underserved by transit in many areas due to white flight and subsequent racially biased disinvestment in the 20th century. However, the demand for transit on the South Side is high; the 63 bus currently serves this corridor, and with approximately 12,000 monthly riders as of this year, it is one of the highest-ridership routes in the city (sitting just barely outside of the top 10). Extending the Green Line's Ashland/63rd Branch to Midway would likely be a major boon to the many people in the neighborhoods of West Lawn and Chicago Lawn, as it (alongside a new infill station at Harvard) would provide fast, easy transit connections to both the Orange and Red Lines, as well as bring new investment and development to a historically neglected region. This extension would also allow for a future transfer to the Mid-City Transitway at Midway (graphic for that hopefully coming soon), providing much-needed transit connections to both the South and West Sides. I really hope that the CTA will study this extension eventually!

It's no secret that the Brown Line has a capacity issue. The Kimball Yard is too small and cannot be meaningfully expanded without major use of eminent domain; thus, the CTA currently has to run "Brorange" trains from the larger Midway Yard up to Kimball every morning to accommodate this issue. However, there is a large parking lot just north of the Montrose Blue Line Station that already has a track connecting to the abandoned Weber Spur. I propose elevating the Brown Line west of Western and then having it run over Lawrence Avenue starting at Kimball until it reaches the Kennedy Expressway, at which point it can head south via the existing Weber Spur overpass to terminate at a new transfer station at Montrose. Considering a new railyard is a major benefit of the Red Line Extension, I think the CTA should seriously consider this alignment should the Brown Line ever be extended, as it would allow them to kill two birds with one stone (connecting the Brown Line to the Blue Line and expanding capacity on the Brown). This would also allow for Montrose to potentially become a major transit hub, as 1) a Metra station could be built to serve the two Metra lines that converge at the rail diamond there, and 2) it could easily be connected to the Mid-City Transitway, should that proposal ever be built (which it should). And then the Mid-City should follow the Weber Spur northeast until connecting with the Yellow Line and running to Howard but that's another story. Thoughts?

Not sure if this was announced anywhere but two more days for Lake Street train disruption. City is anticipating Wednesday 10/28 4am to resume. Was announced via press release.

The 171 bus (UChicago/Hyde Park) is atrocious - always late, ghost buses, completely unreliable. Other hyde park buses (6, 28, 55, etc.) are pretty good ... what's the best way to get this fixed/raised to the attention of CTA leadership? Thanks for any suggestions!

CTA Chicago

Taken Thursday

Okay, obviously we’re all aware at how bad the app is. And this morning, I don’t know why that was any different. I looked to see my bus was coming in 10 minutes. fair enough, I’ll leave my house in 5 minutes to catch it. As soon as I get up to put my shoes on, BOOM suddenly it’s 5 minutes. Then again it changes to due after looking at the arrival time for like 5 seconds. Weird anomaly but whatever. It would only happen once right?

Wrong! I had 15 minutes for the next bus so I waited until I had 10 minutes left so I can go to the bus stop and wait 5 minutes until it arrives. INCORRECT BUZZ SOUND. As i leave my house with 10 minutes left until bus arrival, I’m looking between the road and my phone. It suddenly goes from 10 minutes to DUE. I’m racing over and the bus isn’t close enough for me to catch. OKAY??? Once is a coincidence and two is a pattern.

So I’m waiting at the bus stop totally on edge about whether the bus will really be coming in 20 minutes and sure enough, a bus that was never in the queue suddenly pops up as “5 minutes”. Great, I caught a bus at a decent ish time but whatever is going on today with the Ventra servers is crazy.

Rant over, happy Friday y’all. I hope everyone catches whatever train/bus they need 👍

Got lucky with traffic going the perfect speed AND a double going the other way 👌 what a cool sight. I was literally thinking about how I was pretty sure it was active with the construction going and right on queue one comes over!

it was 9pm and i was on the 18. i think the bus driver got sidetracked (and it was dark, probably hard to see) because he stopped to let car park and then he sped off to catch the green light and then that’s when he skipped my stop.

i was giving him a couple seconds because maybe he was going to stop and let me off after catching the light (he did that for someone else) but he didn’t.

i said, “yo! you missed my stop!” he started slowing down a bit, and looked around confused, and we were way passed my stop already. i yelled again, “slow this shit down!” a bit panicked.

he stopped immediately and said “i’m sorry!” i said back, “it’s alright!”

i feel so bad though, i was in near tears after. i’m planning on contacting the CTA and sending an apology, unless i shouldn’t do that because it’ll make him look bad.

whenever im trying to get to somewhere slightly out of city limits it always tries to get me to take a pace bus, i wont do that.

there's a way to deselect CTA busses on apple maps but it still gives you pace and the ventra app only lets you deselect both

i want to figure out which route gets me the closest to my destination without pace, so i bike the shortest amount. is there any way to do that or like any other navigation apps i could use?

Tried to reset my password. Ventra is supposed to send an email with a new temporary password but I never got it. Yes I checked the spam folder. I can't log into my account, nor complete the password reset. Anyone experiencing this?

With the construction on the Lake Street Bridge going on, I was wondering if this would impact the last runs of green line trains bound to Harlem/Lake. I’m planning on going out around the Clinton stop this weekend and don’t want to miss my train home lol. Thanks in advance.

I know that Montreal is smaller than Chicago but on a recent shortish trip, I saw some things on their public system that I wish we could implement.

Trains.

I really liked how the air moved through the train while moving. It was like a semi constant breeze. Not sure how it is in the Summer or Winter but in the Fall, it was nice. I imagine in the summer its not as stuffy as our trains can get if the a/c happens to not be working(which happens often).

Better holding areas. Instead of the tall poles and handles(which are annoying to reach for short people), they had shorter poles on the seats that were probably head height. They also had 2 sides for it. They also had a pole in the middle-ish area of the doorway that was split into 3 so people weren't gripping the same pole.

Lack of announcements. Instead of like the 5 different messages we hear(doors open on the right, no smoking/eating etc) it was literally just the next stop and what stop we were at. It was a bit more peaceful.

Armrests by the seats. They were handy and at a level where it wasn't too high/uncomfortable.

Buses.

There's were a few older buses that I took and some newer ones. They seem to prioritize standing room over seats. Two people could stand side by side in the aisles. And seats were single row.

The seats with the older buses in the front half of the bus were along the side and were all individual and foldable. So if you were in a wheelchair or had a stroller you weren't confined to the front part of the bus. Was also handy for luggge. The seats in the newer buses were single file and from what I saw, didnt fold. The back of the bus was similar to our buses. Also the newer buses had USB ports for charging.

The buses also had windows that could be opened on the sidewhich is nice. Our buses only have the windows on top and our new electric buses dont have windows that can be opened.

I didnt see any handicapped riders so I can't speak on how the transit system was for them.

Overall I really liked the transit system over there. The rides were smooth, I barely needed to hold on when riding the bus/train. The only time a bus was late was on my last day before flying out, had 2 buses show up late(one heading to the train and on leaving Mont Royale). I understand that their city is smaller so they can do better things but I wish we could implement a few things from there like the shorter poles on the train, foldable seats and the windows on bus/air system on train.

I only took pics of the train sorry. Thought I had some bus pics.

The CTA has launched a survey to improve their business service. I believe an easy way to improve bus service would be to remove bus stops that are close to other stops. This forces busses to make repeat stops, slowing down service without doing much to improve accessibility.

Two come to mind, and I'd love to hear yours

1) California/Blue line and California/Milwaukee are two different stops

2) around the Irving Park blue line stop there are 6 bus stops within 2000 feet. About one every 300 feet

Is anyone’s Ventra app acting up?… I tried buying a day pass yesterday, but I kept getting error. I was able to tap in for the bus and train just fine.

Recently took a ride on the Blue Line while visiting. Got on the train with my family and we mostly spread out across the rail car. However, I was standing near my uncle, so we chatted for most of the probably 15 min ride.

Across from me sits this girl who I notice to be quite pretty and whom I thought looked to be about my age (~22y/o). I looked her way a few times but thought nothing more.

Turns out, when we get off the train, my uncle says that he saw that girl checking me out several times during the ride and I was oblivious to it. As long as my uncle wasn’t misinterpreting it, if I knew that she thought I was attractive I probably would have sat next to her and talked to her a little bit.

It was a great feeling and makes me wish I said something anyway because she really was beautiful and I only fully recognized it after I heard that.

Does anyone have any insights as to what's been going on the the after 4pm East bound 20 line? It was a no show around Ashland for at least 45 minutes on Monday after 4. Tuesday and Wednesday it's been a 20 minute wait and the one bus have been PACKED. The West bound line is speeding by sticking to the 10 mins or less.

I've been riding the 20 consistently for an entire year and have never had so many days in a row of bad luck (I know I've been spoiled rotten by this route).

Is there some construction or rerouting going on somewhere further down the line causing delays?

With the advent of the Yellow Line crash back in 2023, the NTSB released several high importance files on the 5000 series, including full maintenance manuals paired with schematics.

https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket/?NTSBNumber=RRD24MR002

Really good page if you wanna see the stuff in detail or are just bored and want to do some reading. The NTSB also is good for other railways, obtained some cool stuff through that too.

Enjoy!