CHICAGO — A group of City Council members led by two North Side aldermen are asking the city’s transit agency to consider adding rapid bus service to Western Avenue, Chicago’s longest continuous street.
Alds. Matt Martin (47th) and Andre Vasquez’s (40th) offices have been advocating for the addition of a rapid transit bus route along Western Avenue within their wards this year.
Rapid transit routes create lanes specifically for CTA buses to speed up service and ease congestion that happens when cars and buses jockey for space on city’s streets, according to the Regional Transit Authority.
On Wednesday, Martin, Vasquez and 15 other alderpeople signed onto a letter asking Mayor Brandon Johnson, CTA President Dorval Carter and Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom Carney to create a study on how a Western Avenue Bus Rapid Transit route would work.
The study would be the first step toward enacting bus rapid transit on Western Avenue, Vasquez said. Every alderperson whose ward borders the street has signed the letter, except for Beverly Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th).
In the letter, the group argues that adding rapid bus transit to Western Avenue would “help improve access to housing, jobs, and education for thousands of Chicagoans.” That claim is based on studies and recommendations already published by Johnson’s transition committee and transit organizations.
“As the longest continuous street in the city, Western Avenue is uniquely situated to create an equitable transit-oriented corridor, thanks to its rapidly rising bus ridership, its connection with a variety of mass transit lines, and Chicago’s explicit focus on increasing its residential density and affordability,” the letter said.
The Western bus route serves about 22,000 commuters daily and is one of the top five most-used bus routes in the city, intersecting with five different CTA train stops and four different Metra stops, according to the letter.
“We’re not going to see [Bus Rapid Transit] on Western this year, but we really want to push the city, CDOT and CTA to apply for federal funding because the feds are funding bus rapid transit,” Josh Mark, Martin’s chief of staff, said during an April community meeting. “They just announced funding for [Bus Rapid Transit] in Indianapolis and Madison. We’re falling behind. We shouldn’t be falling behind.”
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The push for the rapid bus program comes more than a decade after CTA and the city’s transportation department proposed adding bus rapid transit lanes to Ashland Avenue between Irving Park Road and 95th Street. That plan never materialized, in part due to opposition from neighbors and businesses along the route.
Vasquez said he believes the Western plan will have more success because the “culture around how people think about public transit” has changed.
“Talking about Ashland is one thing, but people across the city know that Western Avenue is Western Avenue,” he said. “So I think it is an opportunity to see how we can improve public transportation and further connect our city.”
On the campaign trail, Johnson pitched expanding rapid bus transit routes across Chicago’s “key corridors.”
“True [bus rapid transit] systems include bus stations that allow riders to pay before they board and enable multiple riders to board simultaneously, just like CTA stations. We need to invest in infrastructure that will make buses more accessible and efficient,” Johnson’s campaign website said.
A CTA spokesperson said they could not immediately comment on the proposal as the agency had not received the letter. The Mayor’s Office and the Department of Transportation were not immediately available for comment.
The results of a 2022 study of the northernmost five miles of the Western Avenue corridor found that more than 30,000 vehicles use it every day as it intersects with major east-west thoroughfares at Peterson Road, Irving Park Road, Addison Street and Devon Avenue.
The Western Avenue bus route is a major transportation artery along a dense commercial corridor with affordable housing and “faces significant traffic congestion, especially during rush hour,” according to the letter.
“A major impact of this has been slowing trust operations — over the last 20 years, average bus speeds have slowed by 9 percent on the CTA,” the letter said.
By improving bus reliability and speed, more commuters will want to use the service, thus reducing the number of cars on Western Avenue, improving air quality and helping reduce wear and tear on city streets, according to the letter.
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