CTA Ridership Highest in 16 Years

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Dec 11, 2008 5:25PM

Well, at least someone is having a good week. That someone is CTA Prez Ron Huberman who was more than happy to point out that slow zones on the Blue Line are getting less by the day, improving travel times to O'Hare. Now he can take pleasure in both arch-rival Gov. Blagojevich's downfall (take that, free senior rides!) and bask in the glory of the CTA's highest ridership in 16 years. For the first time since 1992, the CTA has broken through the half-billion mark in terms of riders, on pace for 528 million total rides for the year. According to the press release, "Ridership has increased 5.5 percent system-wide, with an increase in bus ridership of 6.7 percent over 2007 and an increase of 3.8 percent on the rail system." It's good to know there are no problems at all with our public transit system and that everything is firing on all cylinders, literally and figuratively. Nope, no problems. At all.