The CTA Is Expanding Bus And Green Line Service On The South And Far South Sides
By Mae Rice in News on May 12, 2016 5:59PM
Several bus routes and the Green Line will expand service on the (chronically underserved) South Side of Chicago, the Chicago Transit Authority announced Thursday.
The two branches of the Green Line—the Cottage Grove branch and Ashland/63rd branch—will run more frequently during rush hour, and several bus routes will run more frequently and extend their routes southward. The change aims to "[connect] more residents to jobs and economic opportunities," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement.
CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. said changes will benefit "tens of thousands of bus and rail riders each day."
The following six bus routes will be altered, extended, or both:
* The 95th Street bus, whose separate east and west route segments will be combined into one continuous route
* The #4 Cottage Grove bus, which will now run from 95th Street south to 115th Street now run further south from 95th Street to 115th Street
* The #71 71st Street bus, which will run more often and will no longer end its route at 73rd, but instead run all the way South to 112th and Torrence
* The #26 South Shore Express, which will now start running earlier in the day and run later into the evening
* The #34 Michigan and #119 Michigan/119th bus routes, which will both run more often during the middle of the day and the evening
Here's hoping these changes help alleviate the various types of segregation that plague Chicago.
The CTA has expanded a few bus routes in recent years after analyzing ridership data, CTA spokesman Jeff Tolman told Chicagoist. The city extended hours on the #18 route in March, and added express routes to the #9 and #49 express bus routes in December 2015. The CTA also created a new bus route, the #111A to Pullman Park, in 2013.