BRT

This post focuses on the Chicago Mobility Collective breakout session that focused on street design to improve bus service. Streetsblog may run coverage of other breakout sessions that focused on pedestrian and bike matters in the future. The meeting took place during the same time as the ghost bike installation for youth mentor Sam Bell, 44, in River West. To highlight Chicago's traffic violence epidemic, some people Zoomed in to the meeting from the memorial using a background with a white bicycle and the words "I'm currently at the ghost bike vigil for another cyclist killed on Chicago streets." Others posted a "Vision Zero Chicago 2022 Report Card" with crash fatality stats. About 140 people attended the meeting altogether. - Ed.

Tech gurus like Elon Musk say we "electric sleds," car tunnels, autonomous vehicles, and Hyperloop tubes will save America's cities from gridlock. What we really need is more trains, buses, and bikes.

Like kids unwrapping presents, travelers in downtown Chicago had some shiny new infrastructure to try out Sunday morning. The Loop Link bus rapid transit system debuted on a day when weekday traffic wasn't an issue, although the central business district was packed with holiday shoppers. Monday will be the first big test of the system.

The long-awaited Loop Link bus rapid transit corridor, featuring dedicated bus lanes, limited stops, island stations, and other timesaving features, will begin operations this Sunday, December 20. Whether the new system is deemed to be a success or a failure by Chicagoans will be a crucial factor in whether the city moves forward with its plan for a more robust BRT system on Ashland Avenue.

The Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit project will launch without key features that distinguish BRT from conventional bus service. The busways, which the Chicago Department of Transportation will begin building later this year, will include most of BRT's concrete features, like high-level bus-boarding platforms and dedicated lanes. These features will undoubtedly speed up six Chicago Transit Authority bus routes as they traverse the Loop.

The Chicago Department of Transportation recently released a preliminary design for the Loop bus rapid transit corridor’s shelters, heavily influenced by the winner of the NEXT STOP: Designing Chicago BRT Stations contest. Construction on the downtown express bus corridor, featuring dedicated lanes on Washington, Madison, Canal, and Clinton, is slated for this spring, with service launching by the end of the year. Washington and Madison will each get four stations, according to Chris Ziemann, the city’s BRT manager.

One of the most controversial aspects of the CTA’s plan to create bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue is the prohibition of most left turns from Ashland. Since the buses will operate in dedicated lanes next to the median, any left turns by vehicles from the mixed-traffic lanes will require that the buses get a red light while the turning vehicles get a green arrow. Watering down the BRT route with too many left turns would significantly slow down the buses.

Proponents of effective public transportation made a strong showing at last night’s South Side hearing on the city’s plan for bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue. Dozens of people showed up for an Active Transportation Alliance rally beforehand at the Punch House tavern, 1227 West 18th in Pilsen. Then they marched to the open house at Benito Juarez Community Academy, 1450 West Cermak, where supporters seemed to far outnumber opponents of the plan.

Last Sunday, on a trip to New York, I rode the M15 Select Bus Service route on First Avenue in Manhattan. SBS incorporates components of bus rapid transit but it doesn't rise to the level of real BRT, according to standards laid out by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Riding the M15 from 14th Street to 67th Street, I could tell that SBS is a significant improvement over typical bus service, but I also got a sense of its limitations. This revealed a lot about Chicago's BRT plans, and the reasoning behind the proposed design for BRT on Ashland Avenue. Simply put, Ashland BRT will avoid the shortcomings of SBS.