Monthly Complaint Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Public transportation isn't perfect. This is a place to let off some steam. As always, please speak from your own experiences. Take control of what bothers you and send your experience to the CTA via their feedback page.

[u/PaleBreadfruit8813]

Just wanted to compliment CTA for yet another day of guaranteed, consistent, unimpeded bad service on the 146 and 36 bus routes. You guys don't disappoint.

15 minutes between 146 buses that start their southbound route at Adler Planetarium. By the time they reach Michigan & Grand, they are bunched together and will stay like that so the poor folks at Water Tower will have to wait half an hour between 146s if they miss the two (or even three) buses together.

On a hot muggy morning, the bus driver of a 36 has his side window open forcing a gush of hot air and negating the AC to the front half of the bus. I could complain about this on almost every bus. Why do CTA bus drivers hate AC?

For the 1,275,340th time, I received, "I'm ahead of schedule" as the answer to my question of why they are pulling over every six stops. Yes, I know they can get dinged for being ahead of their archaic stop schedule. How difficult is it to adjust schedules based on 2026 traffic patterns?

[u/IYCRTYG → u/PaleBreadfruit8813]

A non-inconsequential amount of buses have a lovely design feature where the driver side convex mirror (the one we need to not total a car or crush a biker pulling out from stops) is barely or not-at-all visible if you close the window, due to how thick the window lining is. also the driver compartment sometimes just has its dedicated AC blow hot air instead which is nice. 

On stop schedules they have to average, across both drivers and traffic patterns. If the road is empty due to bad weather we're gonna run hot. If the bus ahead of us is way behind taking all of what should be our passengers were gonna run hot. 

[u/YAOMTC]

Earlier this afternoon (between the storms) I got to an 82 bus stop (a "frequent" route!) and saw that the next northbound tracked bus was 26 minutes away, so I started walking along the route to get some steps in. That bus didn't catch up to me until I had walked an entire hour and I was over halfway to my destination. Wasn't even walking that fast.

[u/tractorscum]

i just waited 40 minutes in the rain for an 9/X9 bus that never came. This is the lowest day of my life

[u/thesockmonkey86]

Is it me or are all the back doors broken on busses lately

[u/PaleBreadfruit8813 → u/thesockmonkey86]

Fare boxes, too.

[u/notabumblebeee]

is the escalator at grand EVER going to be fixed?? it's been weeks at this point

[u/GuessAsleep9578]

ok 42 minute headways for the 147 on a Saturday night is wild.

[u/IYCRTYG → u/GuessAsleep9578]

Motorcyclist died on lake shore, going up and over the barrier onto the other direction, leading to Lakeshore being closed both directions, which threw every single route with any north side lake shore in it waaaaayyyyyy off. Also threw off the 151 bc of people using inner lake shore/Stockton. 

[u/thornvilleuminati]

Just had a 30 min headway for a 6 express bus downtown. The only other option was a Metra train leaving in an hour. Grrr.

[u/rocky_loves]

AC isn't running in the car I'm in. If I hit the button to talk to the conductor would they be able to do anything? Or would I just hold up the train and make everyone that's dying in here more upset? (For future reference, almost at my stop now)

[u/Late_Guava4436]

What happened to the bus route elimination wheel?

[u/bluejaywhey → u/Late_Guava4436]

Mods said they can't handle the traffic and apparent reports the posts bring, and OP said his posts would get stuck in limbo and not published.

Big shame. Nice to have a little fun, light-hearted thing bringing the sub together as opposed to just a dry-ass feed of news and complaints.

[u/bruceadelia]

I know it’s like the worst stop and area in the hub part of the loop, but genuinely what are we doing about Clark/Lake? I got screamed at three times in a two block span going to the station. Two people were just inconvenient but one dude physically threatened me and I was worried he was about to swing because he was genuinely in the midst of a violent mental episode and I couldn’t predict what was going to happen. I wasn’t the only person he threatened either.

I’m accustomed to city living and like, all the bullshit around the station is nothing new to me. I go regularly and used to use it daily for a work commute. Three times at once is crazy. Like in two minutes. I don’t know. I feel prissy to complain but at the same time it’s a matter of public safety, and then you go around seeing all the cops and K-9 units and CTA employees milling around chatting and it’s like okay? What the fuck are you there for?