Jeweler Jaime Perez shivered in the cold waiting won Bus 22 near West Madison and South Dearborn streets.

Perez, 47, says he normally waits no more than 10 minutes for the bus to arrive. But for two weeks now, he says, it has sometimes taken twice as long.

"In the summer, it doesn't matter," he says. "But in the winter, it's crazy. It's so cold."

The delays began after the Chicago Transit Authority found a crack in one of the agency's 60-foot, accordion-style buses. Officials pulled 226 similar buses from service to inspect them. They expanded train service to compensate and warned of slow commutes ahead.

Almost two weeks later, officials can't say when the buses will be back on the roads.

Ninety of them, about 6 percent of the CTA's bus fleet, operate near the lakefront during rush hour.

Some riders, including office manager Jeanine Yohanna, who rides Bus 136 from downtown on workdays, say they haven't noticed a change. Yohanna, 50, says she's glad the CTA pulled the buses.

"I wouldn't want to be on the one that has something happen to it," she says.

North American Bus Industries Inc. manufactured the buses. Officials say the company delivered the prototype to the authority in Febuary 2003, and that all the buses removed from service are less than six years old.

They came with 12-year, 500,000-mile warranties.

Diane Hawkins, director of marketing at North American, did not respond to phone and e-mail requests for comment left last week.

CTA spokeswoman Sheila Gregory says the CTA chose to do business with North American because it met detailed and lengthy bid specifications and was the lowest bidder on a 2001 contract.

Stephanie Bannos, a corporate-finance consultant who works downtown, boarded one of the New Flyer buses on Friday afternoon.

She was among about 15 people waiting for Bus 156 at West Madison and North LaSalle streets. She said that's twice the number of people who boarded the bus at one time before the CTA announced the pullout.

"It takes longer for everybody to load," says Bannos, 23. "The bus driver's screaming, 'Move to the back of the bus!"

Yet the noise and inconvenience of a packed bus pale in comparison with delays on weekday mornings, she said, when she waits up to 20 minutes to take the bus from east Lakeview to downtown. That's as much as four times longer than she waited before the North American buses were shut down, she said.

"The first day they pulled them, I didn't know. I was like, what's going on?" Bannos says. "I didn't really think about it before. I would just walk out the door and figure the bus was going to be there."