While NITA’s forthcoming mandate includes regional rail — a prospect that can truly connect our region like never before — it’s also important to honor the humble workhorse of our public transportation network: the bus. Buses are the real backbone of our transit network — CTA’s 2025 ridership ended up being roughly a 3:2 ratio between bus trips and rail trips, and improving our bus network will be one of the most important tasks NITA will need to address very early on in the agency’s tenure, so it’s never too early to start thinking about what a better bus network should look like.
However, there’s no silver bullet to better buses, as “better buses” will mean different things in different parts of the region:
- In the densest parts of Chicago, “better buses” need to focus on improved reliability with a focus on faster speeds and more frequent service. To do this, NITA will have to work more closely with CDOT, IDOT, Cook County, and other agencies to get buses out of traffic with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) elements and to keep buses moving at frequent, balanced headways with other creative measures, above and beyond the other staffing and maintenance issues we know the CTA needs to continue focusing on. (The CTA currently has a survey out seeking public input on specific implementation strategies included in their Better Streets for Buses plan.)
- Further out in the outer neighborhoods and much of suburban Cook County, “better buses” need to focus on breaking down the silos between the CTA and Pace networks, creating a seamless, agency- and geography-agnostic integrated network of buses. Other than for quirks of history and politics, there’s no inherent reason why the bus network of Austin and Little Village should be fundamentally different than Berwyn and Cicero, and NITA’s role here will be steering processes required to, ideally, spearhead a reimagining of the “middle tier” of the bus network in an operator-agnostic manner. While well-known transit consultant Jarrett Walker has recently completed network redesign concepts for the CTA and for Pace, these studies were inherently flawed (at no fault of the consultant) since they largely looked at each agency’s system in a vacuum rather than taking a regional approach to how our network is fundamentally structured. With new boards being seated later this year, and with a clear mandate to think regionally with the oft-quoted “one network, one timetable, one ticket” mantra that shows up in the NITA legislation three times, we should once again reimagine our bus network but more holistically: on the urban fringe, routes should first be planned at the regional level and then the agencies are assigned to operate the respective routes based on the most efficient and effective ways to operate the service.
- Finally, out in the collar counties, “better buses” should focus on creating any sort of cohesive network at all. Besides the small legacy urban systems Pace inherited in Waukegan, Elgin, Aurora, Joliet, etc., there is little rhyme or reason to how many of our regional buses are structured beyond Cook County. Routes generally have little regard for regional connectivity, and Metra stations are treated as just another amenity to be served — like a doctor’s office or a grocery store — rather than a crucial transfer node in a regional network. In some cases, Pace service actively competes against parallel Metra service (e.g., Interstate 55 service vs. the Heritage Corridor) when these mainline operations should be complementary, allowing for rail riders to more seamlessly be able to use the bus when trains are not able to operate and vice versa. The collar county bus network needs a clear hierarchy of routes that can support intra-regional connections as well as core local bus services: above and beyond simply connecting suburban residents with local amenities like health care, educational opportunities, recreation, and job access, collar county buses need to also create a true network throughout Chicagoland. At a regional level, suburban buses need to proactively function as an extension and expansion of the Metra rail network to provide usable suburb-to-suburb trips without riders needing to come all the way into the urban core to change trains, just to go all the way back out again on a different line.
Given the pockets of resistance from suburban politicians during the crafting and passing of SB 2111, NITA will have to take the collar county bus network task very seriously, and will have to devote a fair amount of resources to ensure reforms do end up providing an improved experience for suburban riders, especially for collar-county suburb-to-suburb trips that are near impossible to make on transit today.
There are plenty of additional concerns that also need to be addressed with the bus network, and this is by no means an exhaustive list:
- How does our bus network maintain mobility and accessibility for all Chicagolanders, including riders who also rely on paratransit services?
- How does Pace’s Pulse network scale, both in the suburbs as well as within the city proper?
- Should the “Pulse” branding be expanded to include existing express/limited-stop CTA service?
- What is the appropriate role of on-demand and/or subsidized TNC service, if any?
It should be clear that there will not be any one-size-fits-all solution to “better buses” region-wide, but nevertheless the bus network should be the bread-and-butter of our transit network from McHenry and Midlothian to Michigan Avenue. NITA will need a robust toolbox of techniques to refer to and implement to successfully improve the bus network in every corner of Chicagoland.
Unfortunately, it’s also very easy to see how a blanket “better buses” mandate can end up splitting back down the city-vs.-suburban silos that NITA is ostensibly being created to tear down. As we enter this crucial transition period, as a region we need to make sure NITA, and the constituent service boards, are structured and populated by members who are committed to better buses throughout the region, but also with the full acknowledgment that what works in one part of the region won’t necessarily work elsewhere.
NITA’s mandate for better buses should be: one frequent and reliable network, one coordinated interagency timetable, one unified regional ticket.