
openstandard.mozilla.org/the-plan-to-fix-chicagos-transit-deserts
Sydni Hatley is a freshman at the Chicago High School of the Arts, located in the Humboldt Park/Ukrainian village on the city's northwest side. Each day, Hatley wakes up at 5 a.m. to get to school — as a resident of Chicago's South Shore neighborhood, her trek involves transferring to three different bus lines.
On a good day, the trip is one-and-a-half hours each way. "It's really inconsistent," the 14-year-old told The Open Standard. "Sometimes the bus is close to a half-hour late and I'll have to check [an app] to track delays." When delays occur, Hatley's commute can be close to two hours each way. "It's very frustrating. [The city] needs accurate and more consistent bus schedules."
Hatley's story is a familiar one to many of Chicago's South and West side residents living in areas with limited access to bus and train lines. Roughly 438,500 residents in the Chicago area live in these so-called "transit deserts," according to a study by Chicago-based nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), which uses census and civic data for urban research topics.