Midway travel question

JHS
Fri, 09 Sep 2016 17:39:38 +0000

1. Fine. I am convinced that the 55 is one of, if not the, most crime-ridden bus routes in Chicago. If so, that's a pretty good testament to the CTA.

2. As I understand that map -- and I have looked at it a lot since I found it yesterday -- it's telling us that since 2001 there have been 104 police crime reports with the words "CTA bus" in them for the entire stretch of Garfield/55 between Hyde Park and the Red Line Garfield station. So an average of about 7 per year. All of the crimes for which I can find specifics occurred at bus stops, not on the bus itself, but I couldn't find all 104 entries. No one traveling from Midway to the University of Chicago spends any time at a bus stop in that portion of the route. The TV report certainly suggests that crimes have occurred on the buses themselves -- although not necessarily on the 55.

The intersection of the Red Line and the 55 bus had more incidents than elsewhere – apart from Midway itself, that’s clearly the most used stop on the bus route – but it didn’t have anywhere near all of them, and maybe not quite a majority. Meanwhile, other easy-to-find data tells me that the 55 generates about 3.6 million rides/year. Not all of them pass through the Garfield - Hyde Park corridor, but I would bet that a bunch of them do.

So: the odds on this most dangerous of bus lines in its most dangerous stretch do not seem so awful.