A Chicago watchdog group released a study this month showing that about 60 percent of Chicago Transit Authority buses arrive off schedule.
Volunteers and interns for The Campaign for Better Transit monitored 14 CTA bus routes during June and July. Of the total lines studied, eight are “key” routes — lines which run more than 16 hours per day — and six are support routes. Overall the monitored routes represented about 15 percent of CTA’s bus lines.
The study found wide variations in service reliability and wait times but said each line failed to perform consistently on time. The No. 50 Damen bus ranked at the bottom, with only 13 percent of buses on the route arriving within two minutes before or after their scheduled arrival times. The No. 47 bus along 47th Street was the most-reliable line, with a 45 percent on-time-arrival rate.
One of the major problems the study found was excessive “bus bunching,” where multiple buses on a route arrive at the same time, leaving large gaps in service.
“That’s the major sin,” said Jim Soens, a consultant for the watchdog group.
The No. 66 Chicago Avenue bus, which does not run through Evanston, was the least-regular route, with buses arriving bunched 30 percent of the time.
CTA officials disputed some of the report’s conclusions, noting that the authors used a stricter standard to measure “on-time” arrivals than the CTA or most transit systems nationwide.
CTA considers a bus on time if it arrives between one minute before and five minutes after its scheduled arrival. By that standard, the CTA’s data showed its buses to be on schedule more than 90 percent of the time in 2003, said spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler.
Ziegler also said the issue of bus bunching is not unique to Chicago or the CTA and that the agency is working to identify and address the problem’s root causes.
The study did contain some good news for riders. It found that on average, riders on the most heavily used routes wait only 10 to 15 minutes. But the report also found that more extreme wait times were common.
“If you ride the buses, chances are that every day that you go to catch your bus, it could arrive anywhere from 10 minutes early to 40 minutes late based on our observations,” the study stated.
Several riders expressed frustration with CTA bus service.
“They’re off schedule and they are not responsible,” Glenview resident Brian Barichello said.
Some riders said they have had mixed experiences. Chicago resident Ken Peiser rides CTA’s No. 74 Fullerton Avenue bus daily.
“It used to be regular,” Peiser said. “Now it’s harder to predict.”
Even so he estimated his bus arrives on schedule about 70 percent of the time. But he said other buses are less reliable.
“The Halsted bus is terrible,” Peiser said. “I’ve waited as long as half an hour.”
Despite the publicity raised by the recent study — which has been featured on local television and in newspapers — the study’s authors are unsure the CTA will make major improvements.
“They haven’t in the past,” Soens said. “They’ll just wait for things to blow over and that will be it.”
Soens said the group hopes the publicity will yield more results. Organizers plan to pressure the CTA by holding meetings with residents as well as encouraging riders to testify before the Chicago Transit Board, which voted to open its meetings to public comment in December.
Though the CTA does not plan to make any changes specifically in response to the study, Ziegler said the agency is always looking for ways to improve service.
“We think our numbers are pretty good,” Ziegler said, “but we’re never satisfied with that.”
