Route of all evil

Around 10:30pm on Monday, February 8, the day after the CTA cuts took effect, a middle-aged woman in a hoodie stands outside the 007 Lounge (600 N Kedzie Ave). She tells us the 52 Kedzie/California bus’s earlier cutoff time means she won’t have a ride home after late shifts at her nursing-home job. “I think it’s crap!” she spits.

The 52 bus winds from the “Little Arabia” strip at 63rd Street and Kedzie Avenue to Hot Doug’s at California Avenue and Roscoe Street. Before the CTA belt-tightening measures—cuts of nine express buses, reduced service hours on 41 bus routes, and less-frequent service on 119 buses and seven of the eight rail lines—the 52 operated from about 3:30am to 12:30am on weekdays. Now weekday service starts about a half hour later and ends as much as 40 minutes earlier, with up to a ten-minute longer wait time between buses.

A few blocks south of the 007 Lounge, by the Green Line’s Kedzie station, Harry Lucas and Jesse Galloway wait for a southbound 52 bus, the last leg of their trip home from their bricklaying class at Bronzeville’s Dawson Technical Institute. They tell us the cuts mean that if class runs late—which it occasionally does—they’ll miss their ride home. “It’s messed up,” Galloway says. “The CTA and the drivers need to stop pointing fingers and come up with a solution.”

Heading south through Lawndale and into Little Village, we stop inside George’s Hot Dogs, an old-school stand at 2612 South Kedzie Avenue. Malcolm X College student Michael Alaniz looks depressed as he waits for a burger. He usually catches the 52 home from the Pink Line’s Kedzie stop after classes, but he just missed the last southbound 52, which left 26th Street at 11:11pm. “Now I’ll have no choice but to walk 13 blocks,” he says. “It was hard enough to get to work and school by the CTA before. This just makes it harder.”

We follow the route back north to the Continental (2801 W Chicago Ave), a 4am bar in Humboldt Park. As Wire’s “Pink Flag” blasts through the stereo, doorman Jason Holshoe tells us he used to take the first 52 of the morning home after work. Now that the bus starts running a half hour later, he’ll spring for a cab rather than wait.

“We’re getting less frequent service but still paying the same fare,” Holshoe says. “It’s less bang for your buck. And why did they have to make the cuts in the dead of winter? If it was summer, at least you wouldn’t be waiting out in the cold.”

Bellying up at the California Clipper (1002 N California Ave), we alert barmaid Michelle Tomlison that the 52 has stopped running for the night. She offers a customer one for the road. “Nah, I’m already at the point where I probably shouldn’t drive,” he says. “Well,” Tomlison says with a wink, “maybe you should take the California bus.”

• More Around Town articles