Just left a panel hosted by Chi Hack Night with the data analytics team from CTA. It was a great conversation and I think the presenters did an amazing job. However, I fucking *gasped* when he said fare evasion across the entire bus system is 20% and as high as 40% on certain routes. 5% on rail. I think it’s no surprise that the overwhelming majority of this comes from the South and West side which are deeply disenfranchised and low income. I sympathize with the position this puts CTA admin in and the intent, I think, was too crowdsource or start the conversation on how to drive down that rate but to me this spoke to how absolutely vital their service is to people that likely cannot afford $20 a week to gain access to employment. I’ll post the vid in the comments if I can later but I found just the highlight stat shocking and wanted to share.
Ultimately I think everyone in that room including the CTA presenters would prefer an equitable model to address this (or god forbid free busses) but in lieu of that they’re working on addressing it. He said they’d be rolling out announcements at every bus stop potentially, which I think uh… sucks.