CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- There are calls as the new year gets underway for the CTA to become more reliable for its riders.
Fabio Gottlicher of Commuters Take Action said riders complained as the New Year was rung in that the CTA did not keep its promises on the frequency of its trains after midnight and that overall the issue of “ghost” buses and trains continues to be a problem. Ghost buses and trains are ones that appear on the CTA tracker app, but not on the actual streets or tracks.
“The labor shortage is a real challenge and it’s hard to fix but they haven’t been honest about how much service they provide and being able to update their trackers to reflect that," Gottlicher said.
He said there’s evidence and complaints that the CTA dropped the ball on New Year’s Eve, too.
“Using some of the tracking data we collect using some of the CTA’s own public data sources, we see that they weren’t running trains every 10 minutes, as they promised, but instead they were running, there were gaps of over an hour between trains at some point during the night,” said one of the organizers of a commuter rights group that formed about eight months ago.
CTA bus driver union president Keith Hill said the CTA is doing more hiring, but that more improvements are needed in 2023.
“It’s my members who are out here in the elements dealing with the people, taking a cussing out because the bus is taking too long or overcrowded,” Hill said.
He adds that crime and homelessness remain big problems for the CTA and society at large.
Hill said the transit agency and the state need to do more to deal with homeless who use buses and trains for shelter.
“Normally when they get on bus, they just get on the bus and go to sleep. They get on the train, stretch out and go to sleep. We actually use that mobile refuge for them.”
The CTA announced in October, a partnership with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services to try to better serve the homeless who seek shelter on buses and trains but Hill says he’s seen no evidence of such work.
WBBM Newsradio has contacted the CTA regarding its views on the outlook for 2023.
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