By Jennifer Vigil
TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Date of Publication: November 12, 1998
Source: Chicago Tribune

After more than a year of severe cuts that affected thousands of riders, the Chicago Transit Authority responded with upbeat news for commuters Thursday--announcing Brown Line trains soon will run until midnight and service will be improved on about a dozen bus routes.

"This is not about restoration of services, but rebuilding services for customers. . . . to better match service to our needs and riding patterns," said CTA president Frank Kruesi.

New services include an express bus along Western Avenue, extra buses along overburdened South Side routes and extended evening and weekend hours for a number of other lines. The bus changes take place Dec. 14 and the new Brown Line schedule will begin Dec. 21.

The new Western bus route is a pilot project dubbed the X49 Express. The line runs from Berwyn Avenue on the north to 95th Street at Evergreen Plaza on the south, with connections to the Blue, Brown and Orange Lines.

The X49, to be serviced by 13 buses at a cost of $124,000 a month, will come up for review in six months, when officials will evaluate whether to keep it, drop it, or alter it, said CTA spokeswoman Maria Toscano.

The additions, however, do not restore any of the service lost during three rounds of cuts that ended last spring, and some riders are still displeased.

"We applaud their efforts to enhance services, but we also feel they should restore some of the services they took," said Rev. Ronald Schupp of Citizens Taking Action, a consumer-advocacy group. "We feel the CTA is on the right track, but they also need to restore some of what they took away."

Beginning in October 1997 and continuing through April, the CTA dropped 10 bus routes, eliminated stops on more than 80 others and sharply curtailed night-owl service on buses and trains. Officials estimate the cuts will save the CTA $25 million a year.

The service additions are expected to cost about $1 million, and Kruesi said many of the expanded services will benefit communities hard hit by the previous cuts. With $5 million in the agency's 1999 budget earmarked for more service, further additions are likely.

Kruesi has said the cuts last year were on routes with low ridership. The additions, he said, are being made in places with high ridership, such as the Brown Line.

On Dec. 21, weekday service on the Brown Line will continue until midnight, two hours later than the current schedule, allowing better connections to the Green, Orange and Blue Lines.

The changes that take effect Dec. 14 are:

• On the South Side, buses will make three extra westbound trips mornings and afternoons along the No. 79 route on 79th Street and two additional eastbound trips in the afternoon.
• Riders will be able to board No. 71 buses on 71st Street 10 minutes earlier on weekdays. Eastbound buses will leave the Red Line station at 69th Street at 4:26 a.m., and westbound buses will depart from the 73rd Street and Exchange Avenue stop at 4:44 a.m.
• No. 100 Jeffery Manor buses will move in both directions through Jeffery Manor, on 95th Street, Yates and 100th Street to Torrence. CTA officials say the old route is similar to the No. 6 Jeffery and No. 14 South Lake Shore Express lines, which will remain the same.
• On the No. 111 Pullman/111th/115th route, buses leaving the Red Line terminal at 95th after 6 p.m. weekdays will end their trips at 111th and Vincennes Avenue.
• During the afternoon rush, all No. 62 Archer buses will run to Archer and Harlem.
• On the West Side, buses will be added to the No. 66 Chicago route during the morning and afternoon rushes.
• The first northbound bus on the No. 85 Central line will depart Harrison/Central at 4:20 a.m., 12 minutes ahead of the current schedule, and a second trip will be added at 4:40.
• Weekend service will be expanded on the No. 21 Cermak and No. 74 Fullerton routes.
• On Saturdays, there will be seven extra round trips on the Cermak line. Cermak buses will hit stops at 12-minute intervals in the mornings, according to CTA estimates, and at 15-minute intervals from 6 to 8 p.m.
• Fullerton buses will continue service to the Brickyard Mall, at Narragansett and Wrightwood Avenues, until 9:10 p.m., almost four hours later than the current schedule.
• The 129 NorthWestern/Franklin bus route also will be renamed and altered to provide more stops in the burgeoning South Loop residential area. The Pershing Road stops will be dropped.

The CTA board gave final approval to the agency's $1.02 billion budget and saw the first hints of Kruesi's plan to renumber the city's buses according to the Chicago grid.

Officials also released details of their proposed renumbering plan for bus routes. Further meetings will be held on the proposal next month.

Under the plan, Madison Street buses will be designated No. 1, and State Street buses would be labeled No. 100. Street numbers would correlate to their place on the grid.

Routes that can't be easily matched to the grid would receive their own numbers. Express buses would be the 800 series, and diagonal streets and odd routes would be called the 900 series.