Why is RSA encryption significantly faster than decryption?
Yes.  RSA encryption is faster than RSA decryption, assuming you choose the public exponent properly (e.g., you use $e=3$).

This is because raising something to the 3rd power (which is what you do during encryption) is much faster than raising something to the $d$th power, where $d$ is a 2048-bit number (as you do during decryption, assuming a 2048-bit modulus).

The Chinese Remainder Theorem can be used to speed up decryption, but only by a factor of up to $4\times$, which is not large enough to change the bottom-line conclusion.

You can test this for yourself by running openssl speed rsa2048 to test the speed of encryption and decryption using 2048-bit RSA.  On my machine, encryption is roughly $35\times$ faster than decryption.  Don't take this number too seriously -- the exact speedup factor will depend upon a number of factors -- but it demonstrates the bottom line, which is that in RSA, encryption is faster than decryption.