A Bar Crawl to Save a Chicago Bus Route

Amid a series of route cutbacks in 2012, the #11 bus along Lincoln Avenue in Chicago’s North Side fell prey to the CTA’s axe. Nobody was too happy about it. Businesses complained about reduced foot traffic, and seniors, especially, felt the brunt of the route-slashing, saying their lifeline to the doctor, grocer, and religious services was being stripped away, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

The alderman for the district, Ameya Pawar, led a charge to resuscitate the portion of the #11 from Western to Fullerton almost as soon as it disappeared. Once the #11 advocacy group teamed up with a group pushing to restore service to the #31 route on the South Side, the resulting Crosstown Bus Coalition showed up to every CTA board meeting. At the end of last year, the CTA caved to the lobby, and reinstated both routes for six-month pilot runs this year.