The Better Streets for Buses Network

The Better Streets for Buses Network is comprised of seventeen corridors across the City, shown on the map below (and available for download). The network was developed based on feedback about which specific corridors to include, as well as the following overarching themes that we heard throughout the public engagement process:

• Improve bus service, streetscape infrastructure, and the pedestrian environment in areas that have experienced a history of underinvestment, and where populations continue to experience impacts of racial and economic inequity.
• Ensure the network serves populations that are most dependent on transit, and connects them to opportunity.
• Ensure the network serves areas that do not have nearby rail transit options.
• Consider data on ridership, bus speeds, and mode share, as well as feasibility of implementation in terms of roadway geometry.
• Design a network with a sufficient number of corridors to provide overall geographic completeness and connectivity, but not with so many corridors that it inhibits focused implementation of meaningful improvements

The seventeen Better Streets for Buses corridors include about 185 miles of Chicago streets, which constitutes ~8% of all City streets and ~26% of the City streets that serve CTA bus routes. The network encompasses many of the system’s highest-ridership routes, and every corridor has some segments that experience delays or could benefit from improvements to bus stop areas and pedestrian connections. The selected corridors align with those included in the City’s 2022 Connected Communities Ordinance, and many of them overlap with other projects and priorities for CTA, CDOT, Pace and Metra.

Better Streets for Buses Corridors

The table below lists the seventeen Better Streets for Buses corridors along with their geographic extents and the main bus routes that serve them. Additional bus routes serve shorter segments of many of these corridors as well, and in some cases these additional routes informed the selection of geographic extents. The Michigan and DuSable Lake Shore Drive corridors each include two segments, because they both travel through the downtown area. A more detailed list of all the specific street segments included in the network is available; more information about each corridor, including facts about ridership, frequency, and the communities and destinations they serve, can be found in Chapter 4 of the Better Streets for Buses Plan.

What does it mean if a corridor is in the Better Streets for Buses Network?

If a corridor is part of the Better Streets for Buses Network, it means that CTA and CDOT will prioritize it for analysis and implementation of bus priority street treatments. CTA and CDOT will pursue future changes to the street’s infrastructure to improve bus performance and the bus rider experience while considering the needs of vulnerable roadway users, including people walking and biking. However, no specific designs are proposed as part of the Better Streets for Buses Plan. Each corridor varies along its length, and may include different roadway widths, land uses, community contexts, and network functions for various users that need to be assessed in more detail. Further decisions on where to prioritize implementation first and what street treatments to utilize will be informed by public and stakeholder feedback, as well as data analyses and assessments of feasibility.

What does it mean if a corridor is NOT in the Better Streets for Buses Network?

If a corridor is not part of the Better Streets for Buses Network, improvements to bus-related infrastructure may still be made as part of other projects and to address critical needs. In particular, CDOT and CTA will continue to strive to make changes to ensure full accessibility and pedestrian safety around all bus stops across the entire bus system, and will prioritize these types of projects based on need. However, corridors that are not part of the Better Streets for Buses Network are not anticipated to be the focus for projects that include more robust treatments to improve bus roadway operations, such as long continuous segments of bus-only lanes.

Examples of the types of improvements that have recently been made or are coming soon to streets that are not in the Better Streets for Buses Network include: bus stop bump outs that were incorporated into a project along 87th Street that will enhance both pedestrian safety and bus boarding; queue jump lanes on Clark Street to be installed as part of other streetscape improvements; and bus boarding islands along Milwaukee Avenue and Laramie Avenue that reduce potential conflicts and delays for bicyclists, buses, and bus riders alike.

Bus Priority in Downtown

The revised Better Streets for Buses Network does not identify corridors within the downtown area, defined here as the area bounded by Chicago Avenue, Halsted, Roosevelt, and Lake Michigan. This is not because bus priority improvements in downtown should not or will not be considered; on the contrary, there are so many streets in this area that carry high volumes of bus riders impacted by congestion delays, that almost any corridor could warrant some degree of bus priority infrastructure. Furthermore, the density of downtown necessitates a robust network of public transit options that provide competitive alternatives to driving, in order to keep traffic congestion and demand for parking at bay.

CTA and CDOT will continue to identify opportunities to improve bus service on key bus corridors downtown, with more specific determinations as to where and how to implement bus priority elements coordinated with various overlapping visioning and planning exercises upcoming or underway. These include corridor-specific studies being conducted by third parties like the Urban Land Institute, as well as the broader Central Area Plan update being led by the Chicago Department of Planning and Development. At a later point, the Better Streets for Buses Network may be revised to include a downtown network.

This approach is meant to fully recognize how interwoven bus service is with the full ecosystem of modes, traffic patterns, and land uses in the downtown area. Because of the intensity of development and variety of activities downtown—office, residential, retail, tourism, and more—downtown sees some of the highest bus ridership in the City, as well as some of the highest frequencies of bus service. But for these same reasons, bus service downtown also faces some of the most congested streets and intersections, most competition for the curbside, and most significant and chronic delays from special events. Bus priority projects that involve major changes to roadways downtown need to be considered in the context of this additional complexity.