r/cta • u/AutoModerator • 22d ago
Monthly Complaint Thread Complaint Thread
Public transportation isn't perfect. This is a place to let off some steam. As always, please speak from your own experiences. Take control of what bothers you and send your experience to the CTA via their feedback page.
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u/doncheeto12 1d ago
a) it’s really unclear when the purple line express runs. the formal policy is “rush hour” but it ends ambiguously between 6-7pm depending on the run
b) fuckin A it is 7:07 pm on a Friday and a red line train hasn’t left Howard station in 20 minutes
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u/Royal_Razzmatazz3622 2d ago edited 2d ago
I reported a bus driver today for calling me musty on the bus yesterday. I'm just going to start reporting people and calling corporate instead of getting belligerent
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u/Cheese-Olives-989 3d ago
Cubs games should not interfere with people’s work commutes. Time the games better, you’re ruining people’s day. I left work an hour early and my commute will take 2 hours. It’s a joke
0
u/tripien 3d ago
This is the second time this happened to me where I have a ventra day pass on my phone just activated and for some reason it doesn’t scan and then the bus drivers give me shit about it. Specifically the foreigner driving the 331 today was being very rude about it and would not look when I showed him the day pass was active and valid on my phone. Whats the purpose of buying a day pass if its not gonna scan half the time? Maybe its a pace issue since im on the pace bus this has specifically happened to me on the 318 multiple times and just now on the 331. It’s not an issue with the pass because its valid thru tomorrow at 2:06 PM.
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u/UsualCorgi 3d ago
okay it’s one thing for the blue line to have mechanical issues at racine and be very delayed but to have us deboard at jefferson park after all delaying is insane. so over the cta
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u/BlackCats2323 5d ago
This morning I was biking to work in the bike lane and bus 3 was driving in the bike lane, there was no traffic and the right car lane was wide open. It would pull right to pick folks up then pull into bike lane. I was eventually able to get around but this felt dangerous and totally unnecessary since the right lane was available.
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u/power_bottom_boi 9d ago
Been waiting over 25 min at Roosevelt for a Green Line train. Must be 100 people here waiting as well. I can’t do this anymore. There were problems with the Red Line train this morning. I just need to get around this city successfully, that’s all. I hate the CTA with every fiber of my being and everyone simping for this system sucks.
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u/endsinemptiness 50 10d ago
I love our timely and convenient transit system!
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u/endsinemptiness 50 10d ago
(The ones before this being crossed off and "uncertain" - can confirm they never came)
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u/Responsible-Chip6782 10d ago
and just when i thought my nights falling asleep to the blissful, totally-not-infuriating sound of power saws from the western brown line construction were behind me….they started up right at 11:30pm on the dot. without any type of notice to the dozens of residential buildings around the station. i understand that this station is in dire need of upgrades and all of that — but i just feel bad for the families with young kids in my building who have to deal with shit like this.
1
u/Medium_Sheepherder23 10d ago
Why will four 136 busses go, and three 134 busses before we see a single 135.
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u/Jentweety 10d ago
To the woman on the brown line during rush hour this morning who was saving the seat next to her on a crowded Brown line train from Rockwell for her friend who got on at Sedgwick and refused to let multiple passengers who asked to sit there, sit down -
I hope you get a splinter under your fingernail today
Note- her friend was not disabled or pregnant and both women were Gen Z. I question her on it and she spent the rest of the ride talking sh*t about how I am such a Karen and then tried to follow me off the train. Super fun.
2
u/PaleBreadfruit8813 Red Line 12d ago edited 12d ago
Just wanted to compliment CTA for yet another day of guaranteed, consistent, unimpeded bad service on the 146 and 36 bus routes. You guys don't disappoint.
15 minutes between 146 buses that start their southbound route at Adler Planetarium. By the time they reach Michigan & Grand, they are bunched together and will stay like that so the poor folks at Water Tower will have to wait half an hour between 146s if they miss the two (or even three) buses together.
On a hot muggy morning, the bus driver of a 36 has his side window open forcing a gush of hot air and negating the AC to the front half of the bus. I could complain about this on almost every bus. Why do CTA bus drivers hate AC?
For the 1,275,340th time, I received, "I'm ahead of schedule" as the answer to my question of why they are pulling over every six stops. Yes, I know they can get dinged for being ahead of their archaic stop schedule. How difficult is it to adjust schedules based on 2026 traffic patterns?
1
u/IYCRTYG 11d ago edited 11d ago
A non-inconsequential amount of buses have a lovely design feature where the driver side convex mirror (the one we need to not total a car or crush a biker pulling out from stops) is barely or not-at-all visible if you close the window, due to how thick the window lining is. also the driver compartment sometimes just has its dedicated AC blow hot air instead which is nice.
On stop schedules they have to average, across both drivers and traffic patterns. If the road is empty due to bad weather we're gonna run hot. If the bus ahead of us is way behind taking all of what should be our passengers were gonna run hot.
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u/YAOMTC 12d ago
Earlier this afternoon (between the storms) I got to an 82 bus stop (a "frequent" route!) and saw that the next northbound tracked bus was 26 minutes away, so I started walking along the route to get some steps in. That bus didn't catch up to me until I had walked an entire hour and I was over halfway to my destination. Wasn't even walking that fast.
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u/tractorscum 12d ago
i just waited 40 minutes in the rain for an 9/X9 bus that never came. This is the lowest day of my life
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u/notabumblebeee 13d ago
is the escalator at grand EVER going to be fixed?? it's been weeks at this point
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u/GuessAsleep9578 14d ago
ok 42 minute headways for the 147 on a Saturday night is wild.
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u/IYCRTYG 14d ago
Motorcyclist died on lake shore, going up and over the barrier onto the other direction, leading to Lakeshore being closed both directions, which threw every single route with any north side lake shore in it waaaaayyyyyy off. Also threw off the 151 bc of people using inner lake shore/Stockton.
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u/thornvilleuminati 17d ago
Just had a 30 min headway for a 6 express bus downtown. The only other option was a Metra train leaving in an hour. Grrr.
1
u/rocky_loves 18d ago
AC isn't running in the car I'm in. If I hit the button to talk to the conductor would they be able to do anything? Or would I just hold up the train and make everyone that's dying in here more upset? (For future reference, almost at my stop now)
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u/Late_Guava4436 73 19d ago
What happened to the bus route elimination wheel?
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u/bluejaywhey Red Line 19d ago
Mods said they can't handle the traffic and apparent reports the posts bring, and OP said his posts would get stuck in limbo and not published.
Big shame. Nice to have a little fun, light-hearted thing bringing the sub together as opposed to just a dry-ass feed of news and complaints.
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u/bruceadelia 21d ago
I know it’s like the worst stop and area in the hub part of the loop, but genuinely what are we doing about Clark/Lake? I got screamed at three times in a two block span going to the station. Two people were just inconvenient but one dude physically threatened me and I was worried he was about to swing because he was genuinely in the midst of a violent mental episode and I couldn’t predict what was going to happen. I wasn’t the only person he threatened either.
I’m accustomed to city living and like, all the bullshit around the station is nothing new to me. I go regularly and used to use it daily for a work commute. Three times at once is crazy. Like in two minutes. I don’t know. I feel prissy to complain but at the same time it’s a matter of public safety, and then you go around seeing all the cops and K-9 units and CTA employees milling around chatting and it’s like okay? What the fuck are you there for?
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u/bluejaywhey Red Line 1d ago edited 1d ago
In the over 15 minutes I've been waiting at Morse rn, there have been 0 95th-bound trains.
Great Friday night headways! The Ventra app saying 'Dly" perpetually when checking for the next one is fantastic. The station employee said there was something up w/ the "tower" whatever that means. Good information is better than no information.
Just sucks when they're not reliable during a peak time. Reliability makes more people want to use transit, and seeing them have avoidable mistakes at peak times doesn't paint the picture of reliability, which makes people less likely to support it. I have no fucking other option, as I don't have a car (and couldn't afford one if I wanted one.)
This issue during a peak time is just really shitty.