A program championed by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to speed up bus service has new monentum from funding provided by Chicago's new fee on ride-hailing trips.
"In recent months the city has started to follow through on that promise with the CTA and the Chicago Department of Transportation’s $20 million Bus Priority Zones program, which seeks to eliminate bus “slow zones” caused by bottlenecks along the city’s busiest corridors," reports John Greenfield.
The program will eventually pull from a suite of options for improving bus priority on Chicago streets, like "red bus-only lanes, overhead signage, special signals at intersections that give buses a head start before private vehicles get a green light, and/or pedestrian improvements like sidewalk bump-outs."
One such street design feature is already in place on the downtown Loop Link corridor, but Greenfield says modest speed improvements are the fault of lax enforcement. "[Mayor Lori] Lightfoot hopes to help pass state legislation to legalize camera enforcement of bus lanes, which already exists in New York City.
The program is funded with a portion of the revenue generated by Chicago's new ride-hailing fee, approved by the City Council last week.
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HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
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