Those sitting in Chicago’s rush-hour traffic Wednesday night may have witnessed a strange phenomenon – a single MBTA bus meandering along with the rest of the vehicles.

One Reddit user couldn’t help but snap a quick photo, suggesting that perhaps the bus is “a little lost.”

But that bus is bound for the Boston area, even if its journey is much longer than the typical circuitous bus route. It happens to be one of 194 new buses that the MBTA is having made by New Flyer in Crookston, Minn., according to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.

“The people of Chicago only get to look at our terrific new buses,” Pesaturo wrote in an email to Boston.com. “The people of Boston get to use them!”


The new buses are a diesel-electric hybrid and began to make their way to Boston this past June, according to slides from an MBTA Fiscal Management Control Board meeting in October 2018. The buses will continue to be delivered through this coming September.

While the slides say the buses should be “nearly identical” to the current buses, they will be better for the environment since they will use less fuel and not emit as much greenhouse gas. The new buses will replace 193 diesel buses that joined the MBTA fleet in 2004.