A friend's suggestion and a recent trip to Washington, D.C., with their fast, clean, and efficient subway system prompted me to start thinking about Chicago's rapid transit, that wonderful and fascinating system that serves us so well or so wretchedly depending on where you live, where you're going, and whether you're nocturnal.
Because I'm a moderately nerdly, rapid transit has always been a special interest of mine; in fact, one of the reasons I started keeping a weblog was because of the news coming out about the supposed "Gold Line" or "Circle Line" the CTA had proposed; because I'm a masochist, I wrote my senior thesis about the history of the CTA's tortorously slow municipalization process.
It was during that research that I discovered that part of the reason for the city's redundant rail transit (e.g., all lines go back to downtown) was that each line was owned, for a period anyway, by a different holding company -- and nobody wanted a rail line that didn't run through downtown. That's why the West and Southwest Sides are so terribly served: back when they were practically or literally suburbs, it didn't make sense to connect them to each other in any way.
Too many Chicagoans live in vast stretches of underserved territory with no efficient rail travel, or they have to make a redundant trip into downtown in order to get to any other part of the city. It is a remarkable waste of time and therefore productivity to force residents of, say, McKinley Park to have to go all the way downtown to get to Canaryville; or for people who live in Logan Square to have to go downtown to get to Wrigleyville. This is a legacy of the era of privately-owned, franchised rail travel, and the city has always yearned for some resolution that wouldn't displace scores of thousands of residents or deface the cityscape.
To that end, the CTA has proposed a "Gold Line," or "Circle Line" train. (I prefer the latter name because it's an oxymoron.) Anyway, the Circle Line train would be a vague arc, connecting the North/Clybourn Red Line stop to the North/Elston Metra station, to the Division Blue Line stop, to the Ashland/Lake combined Metra and Green Line station; the train would then use the now-defunct Paulina Connector, formerly used to re-route trains, to travel down Paulina (1700 West) to the Medical Center stop on the Forest Park branch of the Blue Line, and then down to the 18th Street Blue Line stop on the 54/Cermak Branch; the station there would also be expanded to enjoin the Ashland stop on the Metra line.
Going further south, the train would have a stop at Blue Island near 21st Street. It would continue on to meet up with the Orange Line train at Ashland/Archer, and then use existing lines to link up with the Red Line at Wentworth/Chinatown, and then back up through the Loop, along the Red Line tracks back to North/Clybourn.
Whew. Pretty awesome, huh!?
The Circle Line is a magnificent idea and one that will finally drag Chicago into the modern rapid transit age. Having trainlines that service basically only the Central Business District is ridiculous and it seriously retards the economic security and viability of outlying neighborhoods. It also encourages the micro-provincial, neighborhood mentality many Chicagoans have. Don't get me wrong, I have as much neighborhood loyalty as the next guy, but it doesn't serve us well. It is a huge hassle to get to huge tracts of the city from many other parts of the city, and as a result, Chicagoans are often closed off from each other. I think we can all cogently agree that that's poopy.
Integrating the Metra lines into Chicago's larger rapid transit system is long overdue. The Metra lines are a great resource but are used primarly by suburbanites commuting to work. Currently, the only train line seriously used for intra-city transit is the South Shore Electric (a great train ride, by the way). The Regional Transit Authority (RTA) has already taken baby steps towards integrating fare-payment between the CTA and Metra trains; with the completion of the Circle Line, an RTA Card will surely be part of the bargain, and Chicagoans can finally move fluidly between all the different rail systems.
This is a great first step, but there is definitely more that can be done. Allow me to indulge my abnormal fascination for a moment:
1) Extended Service: It may require shutting down certain stations to make the trains move faster and therefore cut down on maintenance, operating, and payroll costs, but the 54/Cermak train should be 24/7 like the rest of the Blue Line; the Green Line train should also operate close to 24/7, especially as the population of the Warehouse District grows and the density of the neighborhoods west of the United Center (properly, East Garfield Park) increases. Folks in South Austin and K-Town have gone too long with wretched service. The Brown Line also needs to operate 24/7, and the Orange Line should extend its service by a few hours.
2) Integrated Express Buses: Our bus service in Chicago is pretty good, except for the irregularity of the schedules. That every major street has an East/West or North/South bus is a good way to do it. People travelling eight or nine blocks in one direction will always hop on buses for short rides. Buses are great because they're more accurate than trains -- they're bad because they're dirty, slow and add considerably to traffic congestion, and they're most convenient for unidirectional jaunts. The solution? One way to do it would be to have bus depots located in under-serviced areas and have them run express to the nearest train station. For example, somebody in North Austin or Belmont/Cragin could walk the four or five or so blocks to the nearest depot and catch an express bus to the Green or Blue Line; or somebody in Marquette Park or Wrightwood could catch an express bus to the Orange Line.
3) Increase Transfer Times: Due to probable budgetary constraints, this could only happen after CTA train service had been vastly expanded and improved, thus increasing ridership. Eventually, however, transfer times should be doubled from two hours to four; as it is, a ride from Rogers Park to downtown during rush hours can take nearly 40 minutes. If you factor in walking time to get to your destination and back to the train, that renders the transfer time practically moot. And charging $4 for a two-way trip is unfair and burdens lower-income residents unfairly. The CTA is not a taxing body, so they rely on bond issues and their fare revenue to cover operating expenses. The CTA should also consider eliminating the return-trip charge entirely and charge a lower, flat fare for each ride (for example, $.95 or $1 for each trip on the train, with a transfer applicable only to buses).
4) Zoned Taxi Service: This is a pipe dream, but I'm going to get more unrealistic in a minute, so bear with me. Taxis fall under the auspices of the DoT, which partially regulates fares. We would do better to do away with fare meters altogether and split the city up into zones, and have a flat fare for inter-zone travel. Let's say the city is split into 20 zones; intra-zone travel is a flat rate (say $5), but travel outside of a zone charges by border crossed: going through three zones, for example, would be the flat rate plus $1.50 per border. These are arbitrary figures, but many European cities and a few American cities use this system, and it makes taxis much more egalitarian, standardized, and integrated into the transit system. Cab companies and drivers can still turn a neat profit, and drivers will be glad at least to have informed customers with a concrete idea of what their cab will cost going into it.
5) The "P" Train: If you'd come in my house last year, you would've seen dozens of CTA maps with black marker all over them. This was because I was obsessed with the idea of a West Side Super Train to bring relief to the sorely under-serviced West, Northwest and Southwest Sides. (Here is a map of the CTA, so you can follow along.) The idea was to have the train run down Pulaski, from the Skokie Swift (where it would technically be Crawford, but whatever), take a gentle six-block variation to the end of the Brown Line, then connect back to the Blue Line along the Pulaski corridor at Irving Park; then down to the Green Line, through both branches of the Blue Line, and then through to the Orange Line, and then down to the Ashburn Estates neighborhood on the Southwest Side.
This wouldn't solve the problem of the enormous West Englewood neighborhood's lack of service, but it would bring a line very close to them. Undoubtedly, commerce would spring around these train stations, and somebody in Jefferson Park could get to Midway without making the tortorous trip all the way downtown and then back out; similarly, somebody in Chicago Lawn could make it to O'Hare much quicker. Sure, they could take buses -- but they idea here is rapid transit. It would also open up commerce options outside of the Central Business District area, and de-centralize shopping and retail outlets from the city's center and possibly bring economic renewal to areas of the West and Southwest Side.
Would it have to be a subway? A subway that long would cost into the billions of dollars, not to mention displacing tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. And an elevated line would require some tricky routing. I know. But let a guy dream.
Chicago is a world-class city, to be sure, but as long as we accept that as a truth, we have to accept that our rapid transit is in a woeful state; it is downtown-or-die, and that critically damages the ability of Chicagoans to see their whole city, move freely through it, and it keeps certain areas seriously sequestered and in some cases economically inviable. There is a delicious soul food diner called Ann's on Chicago between Central and Austin Avenues -- but right now, I would have to take two trains and two buses, totalling nearly two hours if you figure an average waiting time of 10 minutes, to get there -- not to mention walking time to and from the train and bus stops.
It is a pity that any Chicagoan should have to spend four hours getting what may be the best peach cobbler in the city.
winterfresh / August 25, 2004 8:30 AM
Like most cities in other countries, transportation is vital. Chicago, a city full of the finest europeans along with converted urban rednecks, will milk this vision if it becomes a reality. I currently live in Columbus Ohio, which sucks. There's no trains, hardly a bus system, and a street structure that curves and dead-ends everywhere. Why is this relative. Well you see what can happen when you don't adjust with growth. Example, when a person grows things tear and shift. Without mending it with new applications to grow with the body, like new cloths and shoes, and material items to make the person look normal then you got a freak. Columbus is a freak of nature. They want to be big city, no, sorry. They don't even have freaking sidewalks.