77 Belmont Bus

It’s cold out… The CTA needs some of those long two part busses to send down Belmont. It’s crazy how packed it can get during rush hour in the evenings and the wait time can get ridiculous (15−20mins) I would recommend checking the CTA tracking app before heading out to wait for the bus. When it gets too packed it doesn’t even stop for you.

This is one of the most disgusting busses I’ve ever had the misfortune of riding on.
Freak shows galore and unkempt scary people. Horrible.

Wow, I’m reviewing a bus route.
Well, this route kinda sucks. Takes forever to arrive, buses can be crowded as hell, and always bus bunching. And most drivers are complete scumbags, damn, did they teach these guys customer service??? If I treated customers the way these guys do, I would be fired immediately.
Also gotta love when we are ahead of schedule and stop at every green light or we have to drive 5 mph.
This route is the reason why I bike down Belmont.
2 stars cause it does get me from point A to B.

This route is the CTA at its finest. Route 77 isn’t long, it’ll roughly take 45 min to travel across the city early morning and late evening. I have had any trouble with other riders on this line, but this is public transportation. Be ready for anything. I recommend using the All Aboard iOS app for timing your rides.

It gets the job done, but seriously, what’s up with these shorter buses being so herky jerky?
At certain times, you’re better off to walk along stretches of Belmont (like near Broadway), as the traffic can get pretty clogged and you end up getting passed by people on the sidewalks.

My usual bus line. Service is fairly frequent (though on rare occasions I have had to wait longer than 20 minutes) and it’s usually in line with what the CTA bus tracker states it should be.
The people on this route are about the same as any other route. .. My pet peeve of crowding right at the front door and back door instead of spacing out throughout the bus is VERY prevalent here.
The drivers are normally very friendly as well.
The best part is that it’s 24×7. This bus route is one of the main reasons I don’t need a car.

I’ve lived in the Belmont /​Cragin neighborhood my entire life and this is the bus that connects me to wherever I need to go. You can connect to most trains with this single bus route and frankly I’m not complaining. Sure the bus is filled with old folks during mid day and the god damn high school kids have daily makeout seshs right in front of you but if you bitch enough they’ll move… or curse you out and then move. I’m a bit biased with this particular route but if you think about it, almost every bus that has that many stops is going to be like that. It’s the CTA! We all know how shitty and unreliable it is but we take it because it’s a must.
The ONLY reason this didn’t get 5 stars is because of the «Flake Lady»! I’m surprised no one has mentioned her yet. She rides this route frequently and if I had to pinpoint her stench it’d be impossible but it’s a mix of baby vomit, ass, cheetos, piss, and did I mention baby vomit? Seriously, if you take this bus often you’ve noticed her. She’s kinda round and has one dread (lock) with flakes the size of baby birds and a stylin’ moustache to go with her beard. I’ve had to get off this particular bus more times than I can count for fear of spewing everywhere.
If you’re lucky enough to avoid her, suck it up. The CTA isn’t our friend. It’s that one night stand that you run into every so often and you try to avoid it but inevitably you end up going for coffee. or so to speak.

Public school hoodrats, young mothers that can’t control their obnoxious brats and yes, tons and tons of surly old Poles.
Sadly this bus route has been my lifeline for years, as I don’t drive and it’s about 50 feet away from where I live. I take the #152 Addison when I can, but since that route stops running ridiculously early (godfuckingdammit), I rely on the ol’ #77 most of the time. THANKFULLY the traffic on Belmont dies down significantly around 8:30−9, which works out perfectly for me. If you’re going east to west, it’ll still be packed, but it’ll at least go quickly.
I guess I can’t complain *too* much, because its 24 hour service is the reason I had a social life as a teen, but still!

I don’t want you, but I need you
don’t wanna kiss you, but I need to*
Oh, ho, ho you treat me badly
I love you madly
you really got a hold on me
*No, I don’t really need to kiss the bus :)

This early morning the #77 saved my chilly bum.
Kinda.
See, I was distracting this boy: luring him in under the pretense of seeing etchings… I mean, devouring a home re-​heated meal.
Thus distracted, He locked his keys in the car. Locked, outside in the cold!
Aaaand it’s 8:45, no cabs in sight.
Behold the #77! Saving him (Because i paid his fare. I know BIG spending girl– right?). Boy is lucky I think he’s cute.
I made it to work, though late… the story was so entertaining, I was forgiven.
Bonus points for Clarence the driver who lets be bring my «precious» morning latte on board provided I bring him a hot cocoa. Done.
#77, you are faster than the Diversey and Sheffield bus lines, you seem to bypass Cubs season traffic, you take me to Kuma’s, Target, Chief O’Neils, the Red Line, DSW… all the necessities. You are stalking me. And I like it.

Equates inbetween 3 to 4 stars for me, based on past experiences. Since most of the last few reviews in the middle were 3 stars, I’ll go 4.
Doesn’t get the full 5 stars from me, b/​c of bus-​bunching problems during the day, and the fact that buses fall off schedule more than I’d like. However, I greatly appreciate the fact that it’s on Bus Tracker. The latter definitely helps, especially when buses run on infrequent intervals late at night. And in comparison to certain owl bus routes I’ve ridden late at night (i.e. #9 Ashland), this route is less flaky than some to catch during those periods.
This route would get a sincere 4 stars from me, and not a rounded 4 stars, if it wasn’t for the fact that owl service was cut off inbetween Central and Cumberland during the ’97−98 round of CTA service cuts. Still though, I’m not entirely upset, since they do have eastbound service from Cumberland till 1:45am, which 99% of the time is more than enough for me to leave from occasionally visiting NW side friends past Central. And it is a lifeline for me and many others to get to the far NW side, due to the fact that the majority of NW side parallel east-​west or north-​south buses stop anywhere (based on route and day of the week) from 8pm to 11pm, with only a few exceptions. So cheers to you, #77!

Belmont bus, I never have to wait too long for you.
You take me to west to Kuma’s and east to Clark. There are fun shops and restaurants all along your route. You get me to the red/​brown line much faster than the Diversey bus.
Thumbs up in my book.

Well, since this is my first time being on a bus in a long time… I would say 3 star service, because it got me home in one piece. The people hanging out at a bustop at midnight are strange and diverse, which is OK with me.
We had:
1. hookers, nasty ones at that
2. people dressed in bondage
3. Cubs fans
4. 2 very affectionate gay gentlemen
5. illegals
6. speds
7. a biker (comes with tight spandex and the ever-​obvious bulging sack)
8. elderly folks seemingly on crack
A whole melting pot of weirdness!
Whatever, I made it home.
Thanks #77!

You never know what the hell this bus is gonna do. Sometimes, it is right on time… other times, it seems to have been sucked into some timewarp convex continuum! Where did it go? Will it EVER come? Why is it raining now??? Why is the CTA messing with my head!?!
It is usually crowded going east or west and you haver your usual drunko cubs fans after a day game. So either take a nice walk down Belmont and soak in the sights or wait for the good ol #77. It’ll come… eventually.

Once you get west of Roscoe Village, it fills up with old Polskas who could give a rat’s ass about moving to the back. They’ve paid their dues back in the mother country; they can’t be bothered by accommodating others’ personal space bubbles or public transportation code of conduct.
Also, what’s with the freak out every time people need to get off at Kimball for the Blue Line? They bum rush the doors in fear that they’ll, God forbid, get stuck on the bus until the next stop, or like they’ll have to make a dangerous exit through the bottom of the bus with Keanu Reeves, only to end up in a pile of orange cones making out.
This bus sucks.

I am more of a train rather than a bus kind of guy. I have never had too much of a problem with this bus line. It will make it very convenient to get to the Belmont stop when i move back into the city in August.
I have seen the 2 – 3 consecutive buses traveling down Belmont before, I actually witness this phenomenon quite often. on this bus line. This is one little thing that irks me about the CTA and this line in particular is having to wait an unusually long time and have consecutive buses traveling back to back.
These sucka’s better have this resolved before August or they will hearing the voice of Dave S in their dreams and they wont be pleasant ones either!

I have to take this baby to and from work every day, and it comes very often (at least eastbound). However, it has a knack for showing up about 20 seconds before I get to the stop almost every time. And every time I go home, the damn thing is always waiting around the corner for me to leave so that it can inevitably make me walk. Very often, several will show up at once to add salt to your wound.
I like the fact that it’s OWL so you can catch it anytime. However, I have hitchhiked to a bar once because this damn thing took over 30 minutes to come.
I used to like this bus. I’m not sure if it’s traffic or the hordes of ugly commuters on this bus, but it’s pretty annoying these days. It’s all relative: for CTA buses, this one actually is pretty swift. Using ideal standards, the whole Chicago transit system is pretty bad, so it’s hard to say.
But to people that give this bus 1 star, try catching a bus in Detroit.

I hate the Belmont bus. It’s fully responsible for making my boyfriend miserable. Being that he works on Belmont at Cicero, and we live at Belmont and Clark, at least 20 minutes of my boyfriend’s life is wasted every single day as he waits for the slow Belmont bus make it through the traffic congestion that clogs up the street all the way to Cicero Ave.
The fact that the bus is never on time and a lot of bunching occurs on that route doesn’t help, either. Because of the Belmont bus, we have to move closer to his work and further from my school, which is downtown. Oh well.

The most unreliable bus that I’ve ever been on! It follows no schedule. It’s like waiting for your momma to pick you up after she gets off of work… it will get there whenever the hell it wants to and you should feel grateful that you got a ride.
I loathe the Belmont bus.

Though I have never really had too much of a problem with the CTA, the #77 Belmont Bus makes me cringe. A lot.
I cannot count how many times I have stood at Kimball/​Belmont and waited at least 20 minutes for a bus. Some days it has been in excess of 45. Most times I am pleasantly (hint: sarcasm) surprised to see 2 or 3 buses all coming to the stop at one time, ya know, to pick up the massive amount of people who have waited upwards of ½ hour, or who were lucky to just get off the Blue Line a minute or so earlier.
Some days I am stripped of this opportunity to wait forever for my bus to come. These are the days when the bus is supposed to be at Belmont/​Seminary at 6:05AM and instead comes WAYYY earlier. The bus driver normally sees me running to get to the stop, but 9 times out of 10 decides just to keep on driving. This begins the downward spiral of me being frustrated and having to drive to work, knowing that the next #77 bus will not come by until at least 6:23AM, making me about 15 minutes late to work.
Essentially, the Belmont bus completely screws up my morning at work. It ruins my night after work because I get home late. If it weren’t for the Belmont bus, I would be a lot happier of a person.