Well, that was fast.
What happened to snatch the bus from the jaws of death? “Over the last couple of days we’ve had some discussions in which we’ve identified some potential new avenues of support in the community, which could consist of financial support or something to help boost ridership,” Steele said. “So instead of just shutting it down, we felt the best thing to do was to continue service in the near future.” He declined to mention which entities are involved, but CTA president Dorval Carter recently mentioned IIT and Mercy Hospital as possible white knights.
Debbie Liu of the CBCAC said she was pleased that the 31st Street bus will be running for the start of the CPS school year, but she also had some harsh words about the quickly alternating bad and good news from the CTA that has made the bus service seem more like a roller-coaster ride. “This fiasco highlights the bigger issue of a lack of coordinated transparent, community-based, long-term planning by the city and its agencies, if you can say one thing one day and another the next.”
