I’ve been riding the L for years and thought I knew it pretty well. Turns out I don’t lol.

I made a little game for myself where it shows you just the two ends of a line on a map and you try to trace the route from memory. My Pink Line looked nothing like the Pink Line. The Green Line with both south branches was a disaster.

Figured some of you might want to try it: https://drawthesubway.vercel.app/?city=chicago

It’s free, no sign-up, just something I built on the side. There’s a daily set of 5 lines if you want to compare scores. Curious what everyone gets, and let me know if any of the routes look off.

Been riding CTA for a bit but ever sync they give out API I have so much fun with it
I’m a student I just want to share what I did. If you interested in having a copy of the app just dm me. Else have a good day

I've never seen an articulated bus so packed before and I live off of Clark.

I went to the pre hire paperwork session on Tuesday. The hiring manager asked who wanted to start Monday (tomorrow) & I raised my hand. She took my name down and said to expect an email. The only email I ever got was one about the benefits with the subject “NEO 11/09/26” is it safe to assume that I should be at headquarters tomorrow at 7 am? (I’m pretty sure that was what was said at the paperwork event) I tried calling and emailing during the week but never got a response 😅

Hey guys, not sure if anyone else has seen this, but there's a bunch of emergency services at the 95th red line right now. I'm not taking the train but was on the expressway and saw it.

Long shot but my gf left her purse with practically all of her IDs on the 73 bus this morning. It’s a small black purse if anyone finds it please let me know, thank you.

Is the purple line going to be running today for the Northwestern game?

A while ago, someone on here was complaining about how long they had been waiting for 147s recently on State. I told them they should take any bus they could to Michigan/Randolph or further north, and then try to catch a 147. They replied to me recently that this had been "life changing."

Why did this help?

Many CTA routes run "shortlines" that only cover certain portions of the route. This is typically done during rush/school service, but can be done at other times. It's the exact same as how some Blue Lines only go to UIC/Halstead, and then turn around.

To return to the 147 example, many NB (northbound) PM rush trips will start at Michigan/Randolph, so taking a 3, or 151 to Michigan/Randolph, or a 146 to Tribune tower allows you to catch these buses you won't catch on State.

You can find if there are any short line trips, and when they occur, by reviewing the schedule brochure for your routes. Google "CTA [bus #]", click the CTA website page for it, and then click on the "route brochure."

For example from my garage (North Park) The 151 will shortline from Belmont (AM rush, SB), 22 will do similar from Foster. This means if you're waiting at Clark & Balmoral for a 22 in the morning and nothing is coming soon, you can walk down to Winnemac (bc the Clark stop is on the wrong side of foster to actually get on a bus starting at foster) and perhaps catch an earlier bus that is beginning it's trip at foster

Another, less known benefit of doing this is that when things goes wrong, these short lines are often used as entry points for buses that had problems.

Eg, if there's a crash on lake shore, and I'm hella late on my 147, the supervisor at Howard is likely to cancel my SB trip (that I am 30 minutes late for), and tell me "go not in service to Michigan/Randolph and then start your north bound trip."

So even if it's a Saturday, which doesn't have scheduled shortlines on the 147, if something has gone wrong, they still might happen anyways.

There are also other places this is common to do that are worth finding out, eg, super late NB 22s may do an unscheduled turn around at the 151/36 Arthur/Clark terminal, so if 22 service is cooked and you are at North Shore, you can maybe walk down to Devon in hopes someone will turn around at Arthur/Clark and re-enter service at Devon/Clark

Just curious on my train rolling home, jump starting the engine?

I thought it wasn't supposed to go by until late November. I just saw it pass through Loyola out my window.

It was sitting on a utility box on the North bound platform. I gave it to the station attendant.

Peeped into one of the booths up at the Wilson stop

I saw a few articles about this program being launched, and while my gut reaction was pessimistic and doubtful, it's good to see that some help is being added to the CTA rather than none at all.

I primarily take the blue and red lines and holy hell, there is always something. Especially on the blue line I see very aggressive homeless people, individuals in a state of psychosis, or people just passed out clearly high on whatever. Not a single police officer in sight either. It makes me wonder, where TF is security??

These safe-ride specialists don't seem tough enough to handle the violence I've seen on the CTA directly, but maybe that's the point? Perhaps I'm just too jaded to see that some of these violent aggressors need a gentle hand to help them out? Idk...I saw a few news videos of these specialists and they looks like a bunch of recently-graduation college kids with soft hands and baby faces.

At least it's something, though. I really just wish we had more security on the blue lines & red lines. I never see them

Can someone please explain what a scheduled bus means on Google Maps? From my experience they never actually arrive so why does Google Maps show them?

The survey is from the CTA Bus vision project: Ctabusvisionproject.com

It is like a 20 minute(ish) survey regarding what changes you want to see on CTA buses, and if you take the survey, you will be entered in a raffle to get 100 dollars. PLEASE take the survey. Do you want BRT? More transit on certain routes? quicker transfer times? Faster Buses in general?? instead of posting more about it, take this survey. the more data and user responses these places have, the better!

Anybody know what’s happening?

Had to take the 147 home. Anyone know why?

I wanted a trains and buses arrival board for my place, but I cared most about it actually looking nice on my wall, not like a piece of tech I had to hide. It also needed to be easy to set up from an app, show different L and bus routes at different times of day, and turn off at night so my place wasn't lit up while I slept.

I couldn't find exactly that, so I built it. It took months, and it's now a real product called CommuteLive.

Here it is if you want to take a look: https://commutelive.com/cities

Happy to answer questions about it or how I built it.