CTA's scheduled train service to meet pre-pandemic levels this fall

The Chicago Transit Authority says its scheduled train service will return to pre-pandemic levels this fall.

The 20% boost in scheduled service is equal to about 1,200 more weekly rail trips than in the spring, the CTA announced Monday.

The new fall schedule also fulfills CTA President Dorval Carter’s January prediction that scheduled service would return to levels last seen before the COVID-19 pandemic sent ridership tumbling in 2020.

The CTA has been scheduling more trains as ridership gradually returns, but the agency regularly runs fewer trains than it schedules. According to CTA's performance dashboard, the agency ran 94% of trains it scheduled in September.

The issue of underperforming service led to the “ghost” bus and train phenomenon early in the pandemic, when transit trackers showed scheduled service that the CTA never fulfilled.

The CTA has blamed staffing issues for the lower-than-scheduled service levels. But the agency says it is hiring more operators to meet demand. The CTA said it is training 200 rail operators this year, more than twice as many as in 2023.

The updated fall schedule shifts some train service "to better meet current ridership patterns," according to the CTA. Since the agency is seeing more weekend riders than it did in 2019, the CTA is shifting some weekday rush trains to Saturday and Sunday.

Ridership on the CTA is still low compared with five years ago. Average weekday ridership on the CTA this summer was about 67% of what it was in 2019, according to an agency report on ridership in July.

The CTA has done a better job of running its scheduled buses compared with train service. The CTA runs about 98% of scheduled buses, according to its dashboard. The CTA said it expects its scheduled bus service to meet pre-pandemic levels this winter.