Local News

CTA Promises Cleaner Buses, No More Bunching

CHICAGO (CBS) ― The Daley administration promised Tuesday that CTA buses should be spic and span in short order. CBS 2's Mike Parker has the down and dirty details.

Ask a CTA rider about the cleanliness of Chicago buses and you'd probably hear something similar to what Melrinda Davis told CBS 2 News. "I think they should clean the floor because sometimes there's a smell of urine on the bus," Davis said.

CTA Rider Alison Chu said, "I've seen some dirty buses. I can't say that I haven't."

Those riders got no argument from Mayor Richard M. Daley on Tuesday.

"People will not get on the CTA to go to and from work if it's not clean," Daley said.

On Tuesday, the mayor and CTA President Ron Huberman announced that 50 ex-offenders have been hired as CTA apprentices to join crews assigned to clean the filth that's accumulated inside and on the outside of city buses.

One of the new hires said he's happy to be working, but is sensitive about how he's described.

Lamont Johnson said, "Ex-offender puts a label on those of us who've made mistakes and it has a negative connotation."

The CTA said that the number of buses getting the full cleanup treatment should more than double in the next few months. Riders can only hope.

Also coming on board the CTA soon should be a new Google-based GPS computer system called "Bus Tracker." It will allow roving supervisors in hybrid vehicles to keep tabs on every bus on the streets using laptop computers.

"The mayor challenged me to use technology in new ways," Huberman said. "and so we spent the last year figuring out how do we make it work better."

The CTA said Tuesday that bus bunching should eventually be eliminated and officials would provide faster responses to problems with buses.

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