Now Isn’t *That* Ironic?

By Jocelyn Geboy in News on Jan 17, 2007 3:34PM

The CTA put out their 2006 ridership figures on Monday, showing a 0.5 percent increase from last year, and boosting figures to their highest level since 1993, according to CTA officials.

Several things in this report were unexpected to us. First, that buses account for two-thirds of total CTA ridership. We would have never guessed, frankly. A lot of buses don’t run 24 hours, and after rush hour a lot of buses don’t seem as full as any given train at 9 p.m., for instance. Not to mention for every train that comes, there are usually 8 cars with the potential for riders, whereas we often have to wait 10 or 20 minutes for a North Avenue bus that can’t possibly accommodate as many people as one train at the North/Clybourn stop.

On the flip side, train rides (195.2 million) were up 4.5 percent from 2005, versus the bus rides (298.4 million) which were down 1.6 percent. This is a little surprising, given this year’s ongoing train fiascos. It seemed like at least once a week there was a fire, a derailment, a train rail cracking, or some other weird freakout that kept people in massive delays, if not in a mild amount of danger. It would have seemed logical that people would have started to go the bus route if only to avoid the havoc that started to become the rail system (can anyone say Pink Line?).

The Trib story says that our improving economy with a better job market has fueled the ridership increases and that people have tended toward trains because traffic tends to slow down buses. It is also quick to point out that when the Red Line track work goes into effect, everyone’s pooch is going to effectively be screwed. Woof.

Belmont Tableau by smussyolay.