I'm expanding my analysis of express buses to look at bus speed across all routes. I'm curious if some routes are meaningfully slower than others, and what characteristics can be correlated with route speed.

Also, I made an ugly map of speed on these routes (anyone have tips for how best to do this?)

Both Ashland (9, X9) and Western (49, X49) slow down a lot near the hospital district/290. What bus priority treatments would work best here?

3 days of data, 2 for express buses, here's what I've got

Express spacing works! And it works better when there's less traffic. On the other hand - our frequent stop spacing sucks, the non-express routes average like 9mph and even in like the middle of the night they're not going *that* much faster

Ok, based on the bus tracker from this morning's rush hour:

* Express stop spacing increases average speed 13% (9.6->10.8mph)

* This advantage is larger with less traffic (24% from 5-6am, 21% from 9-10am)

* No notable difference between 4, 49, 9 routes

@nikhunder.com @starlinechicago.bsky.social @mclean.bsky.social @brandonmcfadden.com

Maybe this was redundant but I made a script that is now logging CTA tracker data for express buses and their non-express equivalents. Goal is to see the effect of stop spacing. Any other ideas with this dataset?

Before I go and start recording it myself - does anyone know of a dataset of *actual* CTA bus tracking data? I know ghost bus people had a dataset but it's out of date now

The last king of Burnham. Many dead salmon floating around post run, this guy still swimming around in his final days. Crystal clear water dotted with leaves, poetic sight this morning.

How can we get the rear doors fixed on CTA buses. I'm going insane

here’s more context to the videos DHS is putting out from Chicago.

CTA detours are not well communicated and it's very frustrating when you're on a bus and not going where you expect, or when you're at your normal stop and don't get picked up and there's no signage. There is also never an updated route map, just a text description.

The rear door in Chicago buses is so bad. And it being bad causes the bus to be slower. Many people exit at the front because they don't know how the rear door operates or can't be bothered with its bullshit. The "touch to open" signage is misleading/inaccurate

I am not a finance person, but I crunched some numbers based on the @blockclubchi.bsky.social article on the Bally's minority investment scheme. If we have 10k shares being sold for a 25% ownership stake, we're looking at 40k shares in the casino.

Fat tires and flat pedals are so much better and more accessible.