Chicago: CTA Launches Loop Link Rapid Bus Service

IL: CTA Launches Loop Link Rapid Bus Service

BRIANNA GURCIULLO ON DEC 22, 2015
SOURCE: MCCLATCHY


The CTA's new express bus system carried soggy passengers Monday through a downtown filled with vacationing families and holiday shoppers.

Transportation officials hope Loop Link — which runs on Madison, Washington, Clinton and Canal streets — will at least double the average CTA bus speed of 3 mph in the corridor. With red bus-only lanes, the rapid transit service that officially launched Sunday is meant to ease traffic in the Loop and make streets safer for bicyclists and pedestrians.

Bob Mavis, a retiree who said he no longer drives, sat on the edge of one of the wooden benches Monday at a Loop Link station on Washington Street. Except in a few spots, the benches were soaked from the rain. Despite the lack of walls on the shelter, which some CTA customers had worried about, Mavis called the steel-and-glass station "fancy schmancy" and said the city was improving.

"So far, it's doing pretty good," said Latrice Brown, waiting at another station on Washington Street. Brown was happy she no longer would have to walk an extra three blocks because of construction, but she wondered how the new bus service would do in the snow. ...................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/12152190/cta-launches-loop-link-rapid-bus-service