Real CTA ridership statistics from thousands of Chicago riders and 23,000 trips in 2026. How Chicagoans commute, which routes dominate, and what the data reveals about Chicago public transit.
We built Transit Stats, a CTA tracker app, to help individual Chicago L train riders track their rides. But when you zoom out and look at the data from thousands of users, patterns start to emerge about how Chicago actually commutes.
Here’s what 23,478 tracked CTA rides tell us about public transit in Chicago.
The Big Picture: CTA Ridership Data in 2026
- Total rides: 23,478
- Miles traveled: 82,933
- Hours on the CTA: 5,847
- Average rides per user: 32.7
That last number is interesting. The average Transit Stats user has logged nearly 33 rides, which suggests these aren’t casual riders. These are daily commuters who tap their Ventra cards and rely on public transit as their primary way of getting around the city. All those miles add up to a real environmental impact. Our riders have saved over 24,656 kg of CO2 by choosing the CTA over driving.
CTA Train Riders Slightly Outnumber Bus Riders
Out of 23,478 total rides, 12,801 were on CTA trains and 10,677 were on buses. That’s a 55/45 split favoring the Chicago L train.
- CTA train rides: 12,801 (55%)
- CTA bus rides: 10,677 (45%)
This doesn’t mean more Chicagoans ride trains than buses overall. CTA system-wide ridership data actually shows bus ridership is higher. But Transit Stats users skew slightly toward train riders, likely because live GPS tracking works especially well on fixed rail routes.
The North Side Dominates CTA Ridership
Look at the busiest CTA stops and a clear geographic pattern emerges. Belmont, Fullerton, Addison, Bryn Mawr, Sheridan. The top stops are overwhelmingly on the North Side of Chicago.
The top bus routes tell the same story. The 36 Broadway, 77 Belmont, and 151 Sheridan all run through North Side neighborhoods like Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Edgewater, and Uptown.
This likely reflects the demographics of early Transit Stats adopters rather than CTA ridership overall. But it does highlight just how transit-dependent Chicago’s North Side neighborhoods really are.
Nearly 6,000 Hours on the CTA
Chicago riders on our platform have collectively spent 5,847 hours on the CTA. That’s over 243 days of nonstop riding. If one person tried to ride for that long straight, it would take them from January through most of August without stopping.
The average CTA commute time works out to about 15 minutes per trip, which lines up with typical Chicago commute patterns for short to medium distance trips within the city.
What This Data Means for Chicago Transit
Transit Stats is still a small sample compared to the CTA’s total daily ridership. But what makes this CTA ridership data unique is that it comes from individual riders tracking their personal habits over time, not from turnstile counts or fare transactions.
This gives us a rider’s-eye view of Chicago public transit. We can see not just which stops are busy, but how individual people move through the system day after day, and measure the real CO2 emissions savings every one of those rides generates.
As Transit Stats grows, this dataset will only get richer. We’re building the most detailed picture of how real Chicagoans use the CTA, one ride at a time.