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Dowell has a point. The #35—which runs all the way from Cicero Avenue to 31st Street Beach and has seven-day service, longer hours, and shorter headways—saw an average of 5,077 rides taken per weekday in 2017.
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time sustainable transportation has been blamed for traffic jams on this portion of 31st. In 2014, years before the bus pilot, then-Chicago Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch called new protected bike lanes on this stretch “the reason why frustrated drivers often find themselves crawling in heavy traffic.”
The stop at 31st and Halsted in Bridgeport seems to be one of the busier ones. There Michelle Sykes, a retired traffic aide who lives in the nearby Bridgeport Homes CHA housing, told me the #31 has been a godsend. She has relied on a cane ever since an Uber driver ran over her foot in 2015. She takes the 31st Street bus to the Sox-35th Red Line station, where she transfers to a #35 to get to appointments at Mercy Hospital with minimal walking. “The only sad thing is that it doesn’t run on weekends,” she said. She added that if morning rush service was offered, it’s likely Bridgeport teens would use it to get to school at De La Salle Institute.
