CTA buses on some routes will soon be set to run at least every 10 minutes during the day, as the agency rolls out a plan to create a network of more frequent buses.
By the end of the year, 20 key routes are slated for the service boost, out of 127 bus lines. The change will go into effect on the first eight routes March 23, including on buses that run on 79th Street, 47th Street, Cicero Avenue and a portion of Michigan Avenue on the Far South Side.
After years in which the CTA struggled to provide frequent, reliable service, the plan is an attempt to not just return to pre-pandemic standards, but in some ways exceed them. It will be the first major service change to take effect under the tenure of new acting President Nora Leerhsen, CTA’s former chief of staff who now faces the task of helping to rebuild trust in the agency after pandemic-era challenges.
“Riders want service that is reliable, frequent, safe, clean,” Leerhsen said. “So this is a huge step in our commitment to showing them that and following through.”
Service, safety and conditions on buses and trains have been big concerns of riders in recent years. Facing staffing shortages during the pandemic, the CTA first cut bus schedules to try to boost reliability, then began adding back service. Officials said scheduled bus service returned to pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2024, though they have acknowledged that returning service doesn’t mean every route and schedule will look the same as it did in 2019.
But an analysis from the Tribune and the University of Chicago Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation found some Chicago neighborhoods were slower than others to get back planned service — and many of the neighborhoods that fared the worst had particularly high unemployment rates and low household incomes.
The analysis also found that even in about a dozen neighborhoods where service was restored or improved, buses were often still scheduled in November 2024 to come every 15 minutes or longer. At that point, the usefulness of the city’s grid-shaped bus network drops off because the time it takes to transfer between buses becomes too long, a consultant told the CTA board last year.
Lowering wait times between buses to 10 minutes on key routes is a step in the right direction, but more will be needed to keep buses running frequently, said P.S. Sriraj, director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Buses are prone to getting stuck in traffic, which can put them behind schedule or cause several to become bunched together along a route. Measures like dedicated bus lanes and giving buses priority at traffic signals are important to help make service more appealing to riders, he said — efforts similar to the Pace suburban bus agency’s Pulse lines, which use limited stops, traffic light technology and other amenities to create rapid transit bus routes.
“If service improvements are being made, the headways (wait times) are a place to start,” Sriraj said. “But by themselves, they may not necessarily get the level of ridership impact that the other mechanisms (will).”
The service boost is a first step, and the CTA expects to add more measures, CTA Chief Innovation Officer Molly Poppe said. Many of the routes that are part of the program also line up with areas the CTA and city have identified as priorities for new or expanded bus-related improvements, like bus lanes, priority at traffic signals and improvements for pedestrians, she said.
“Making that frequency investment is important as the initial step,” Poppe said. “And as we move forward we’re going to continue to overlay these longer term investments that do take coordination with (the Chicago Department of Transportation).”
The routes identified for more frequent service were chosen because they have the potential to have strong benefits throughout the city, Leerhsen said. The first eight routes, largely on the South and West sides, bring people into downtown and job centers, she said.
The CTA also considered routes that would connect people to health care and schools and would benefit residents in parts of the city where they often have to travel longer distances to reach amenities, Poppe said.
“This is a key turning point in the experience of the ridership for these routes,” Leerhsen said.
Leerhsen said the service improvements help highlight what CTA could do with more funding. The agency, along with the region’s other transit agencies, is facing a looming financial crisis once federal COVID-19 relief funding runs out in 2026 and has been pushing for more public money. Leerhsen said the bus plan makes the case that if the public wants more from CTA, lawmakers have to be willing to provide more funding.
Under the new plan, the selected routes will see more frequent service between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on weekends. The biggest changes in service will be midday, evenings and weekends, times that are critical to meeting the needs of people who don’t work traditional 9-to-5 jobs and who are dependent on transit, Poppe said.
The new, shorter wait times will bring service levels to their highest point on these routes since 2010, when the CTA cut schedules as it faced a funding shortfall, according to the agency.
The first routes to see service improvements will be: J14 Jeffery Jump, 34 South Michigan, 47 47th Street, 54 Cicero, 60 Blue Island/26th, 63 63rd Street, 79 79th Street and 95 95th Street.
On the South Michigan route, the service change will lower the time between buses from every eight to 16 minutes to every six to 10 minutes, Poppe said. The Cicero bus will see a 30% increase in service on Sundays. Weekend service on the Blue Island route will increase by more than 45%.
Four routes will have service boosted in early summer, including the 4 Cottage Grove and 66 Chicago buses. Four more routes are set to be boosted in fall and four in winter, including 77 Belmont, 20 Madison, 9 Ashland, 72 North and 12 Roosevelt.
About 35% of the CTA service area’s population lives within half a mile of the first eight routes that will have service boosted this spring, and once changes take effect on all 20 routes, about 70% of the population will live within half a mile of a key route, according to CTA officials.
CTA is continuing to study its bus routes, agency officials said, and will next collect input from residents on considerations like transit frequency, the hours of operation, routes and access to service.
