Last year almost 174 million people passed through the turnstiles, the most since 1967. Ridership on the trains has boomed in recent years. They’re the kind of problems most transit systems would be happy to have-the challenges of growth. The rail system’s last set of problems is more difficult. The CTA board has already approved preliminary plans to extend the Red Line to 130th Street, a project Rahm Emanuel endorsed during his campaign. Here, too, the solution is conceptually simple: build more tracks. The second problem is that the el doesn’t provide convenient service to large parts of the city, including some neighborhoods where residents desperately need better access to jobs. The CTA has a lot of practice, having completed major rehabs of the Green, Pink, and Brown lines over the past couple decades, plus numerous smaller repair projects. The first, evident to all who board the Red or Purple lines at any but the handful of renovated stops north of Addison, is general decrepitude-crumbling concrete, foul smells, leaking roofs.Ĭonceptually if not financially, this is easy to fix. The el at the moment has three sets of problems. The trip is an hour and 20 minutes.Ĭan the CTA realistically make the commute easier for all these people? We think so. To get to her job on the near north side, she rides a bus 4½ miles to the Red Line terminal at 95th, then takes the train north. On the worst days Cesar has to let a train or two pass before he can find room.ĭee, who lives on the far south side, near 133rd and Indiana, has a more basic problem: the el doesn’t go anywhere near her. Now, in the morning rush, the cars are usually packed when they arrive, and many more people are trying to wedge themselves in-4,500 board here on a typical weekday versus 1,600 in 1986. The once-desolate neighborhood has perked up since he began catching the train here 25 years ago, but back then at least he could get on easily. Meanwhile, Cesar is trying to board the Red Line in the subway at North and Clybourn. In fact the only reason the Purple Line stops in the city at all is to pick up the overflow from the Red and Brown lines. She knows it’ll arrive in the Loop sooner than she will, but if she’d transferred at Belmont, she’d have spent the last four miles of her commute smashed against a door. Stopped at Armitage, Bea looks up to see the Red Line trundle past on its way into the subway. Metra trains make it from Wilmette to the Ogilvie Transportation Center in 34. The trip from Linden to Adams and Wabash officially takes 52 minutes. (On the Red Line, it’s every three to seven.) Once the Purple Line Express gets to Belmont, it makes every stop from there to the Loop. During rush hour the trains depart every eight to 15 minutes. At a time when ridership on the north side has risen sharply, the number of people boarding at Linden has fallen by almost two-thirds-from 2,900 on an average workday in 1982 to about 1,000 now. Crowding is never an issue at Linden or at the seven stops in Evanston. Bea indeed has a seat, which isn’t surprising, since she boarded at Linden, the first stop. We turn now to Bea, a Wilmette resident who rides the Purple Line. Why the special treatment for suburbanites? he wonders. The ride from Howard to Roosevelt takes 42 minutes according to the published schedule, and sometimes considerably longer.Īs Aaron bumps southward on the Red Line, he glumly watches a Purple Line Express cruise past. The other problem is how long the trip takes, partly because the Red Line’s many stations are as little as two blocks apart, and the train stops at all of them. Although there’s still breathing room at Granville, rush-hour trains are often packed by the time they reach Belmont, and they stay that way into the Loop. The first is the sheer number of people Red Line trains carry-close to a quarter million riders on an average workday. He doesn’t look forward to it for two reasons. Let’s consider the situation of four riders, based on an analysis I originally did with my boss, Cecil Adams, for a Straight Dope Chicago column last summer.Īaron lives in Edgewater and boards the Red Line at Granville. But we’ll let Rahm worry about that.Īssuming we do get the money, how should we spend it? Here’s where things get knotty. At the moment, all three are strapped, so this part of the job has its challenging aspects. State and local government must also pitch in. The bulk of the money for RPM will come from the federal government, which provides most funding for mass transit capital improvement projects. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & Recreation.Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.
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