If you want better transit in your city: forms.gle/VDADCMabA13qiTL37 EDIT #2: at 13:48, Steve is actually referring to the service cuts of 1980-83, not those in the 90s. It's a bit out of order as a result - sorry for the error :/ EDIT #1: this topic (and all of transit) is very nuanced! The goal of this video is not to put Chicago down or make definitive claims on what’s right vs wrong; it’s to explore the history of 3 proposals that didn’t happen - naturally a complicated story that requires far more than 25 mins to cover fully. You’re ofc welcome to disagree about any views shared - please just be respectful about it to others :)
I think you hit the mark here “the issue is never a lack of money, just that it’s spend very inefficiently” that speaks to overall North American public infrastructure spending scheme
@@TheFlyingMooseCA and also a lack of political will among politicians representing a populace that largely has an auto-centric view of how cities work (or should 'work').
@@donc-m4900 Huh? Some scenarios do call for transportation infrastructure to be put underground - but the situations in which that's appropriate are few and far between, because doing so is always very expensive.
I am a native Chicagoan who loves transit. I enjoyed your video. Here are my 'pipe dreams' for transit in our region: 1. Convert Metra to a fully electrified [EMUs] system that is ADA compliant with 15 to 20 minute headways (ie, regional rail). 2. Connect all Metra downtown Chicago terminals via electric rail transit. 3. Build the circular Metra rail line [with EMUs] connecting Metra lines in the suburbs 4. Extend CTA rapid transit lines so their terminals connect with Metra 5. Build a CTA Crosstown line connecting the Green, Blue, Pink. Orange and Brown lines. Too bad I don't have the trillions of dollars to do it.
You need two double decked tunnels (8 tracks total) under Canal and Clinton connecting Northwestern and Union stations, then you can run most trains like the S-bahn in Munich.
It's only a couple billion if done correctly. Btw extending red line to Far South and adding more buses in SE Chicago would be good too. Man does it suck tryna get around in that area.
FINALLY a video that breaks down how bad Chicago transit is outside of the Loop. As a native Chicagoan, it infuriates me when people who aren't from the area think that Chicago has good transit because they visited the Loop once. So much of Chicago's inequality, crime, and failure to live up to its potential is due to a lack of density/transit/TOD and it's infuriating how incompetent the CTA/government is relative to other similar US metros
Yeah. MOST Chicagaons work and live on the outside of downtown. That's where life is. And that's why for a big city, Chicago is a pretty car dependent city. The train is great for play. But not for work/everyday needs.
Chicago transit is still 80% better than most of the US outside of of course DC and NY , so most people who visit aren’t from those specific places so to them the transit is really good.
I wouldnt say transit overall is bad. Even in the hood, the main arterial buses like the 4 the 3 and the 95 are still frequent enough and they pick up the slack and connect well to the L system. Only a few places on the far south side like altgeld gardens struggle with connectivity and that's something that's being worked on. Transit is more than trains
@@ALCRAN2010 There were so many stations (in some cases every block) that the trains couldn't get up to speed. Too few stops and less people ride because it takes too long to walk to/from them, too many and fewer people ride because it takes too long to get anywhere. There is a sweet spot to find, which many transit systems still haven't.
As an Illinois resident who used to work for IDOT, I loved your video. I did think you missed out by not mentioning or exploring the movement to combine the CTA, Metra and PACE.
@@TDSP9981 Why not do what was done in Philadelphia!? When they combined all of their lines to form SEPTA : Buses , L-Subwa Lines, Trolley and Light Rail Trolleys, and Regional Electric RAILROADS!?
@@albertcarello619 You telling me Philly made a SEPTA system? Sounds like crap! Also, this is a completely original joke that I'm sure no one has made or even thought of before.
CTA buses are not just a "social" service between the train lines as you mentioned early on. Buses in Chicago are generally used to travel shorter distances or where train service isn't present, and trains help you go farther faster in the city. Most people avoid taking the bus to go across town if the train will do the same thing and get you there faster. There are quite a few vibrant neighborhoods that do not have train service but do have bus service and their economies depend on them. And many of us here know that where the train ends and the bus continues, you can keep on going if you need to. In my mind, the best way to complete the Chicago transit system is to connect O'Hare Airport to Midway Airport via a western train line on mostly existing track. This allows you to connect southwest and northwest sides of the city, and also allows everybody to get to almost any part of the city by rail. And it would spur a lot of development on the west side of the city, though there may be some unintended consequences like higher rents and higher taxes.
Hey, a few others commented on that phrase as well so I want to clear it up: the intention was to highlight how buses don’t receive enough attention/care despite their high ridership, not to actually call it a social service - perhaps a strong way to word it but a touch of sarcasm was intended And yep, plenty of ways to improve the system - including your O’Hare Midway idea :)
@@TheFlyingMooseCA That could literally be done via the north-south leg of the Mid-City Transitway combined with the Blue Line from Montrose to O'Hare. Only reason that justifies the Mid-City being done via rail would be to make it compatible with running on the outer portions of the Blue Line's O'Hare branch, especially as the Mid-City would be dependent on bus transfers rather than walk-up traffic.
Native Chicagoan here, the L is actually pretty decent compared to every other American city. Busses fill in the gaps, sure, but a service that runs 24/7, goes straight to downtown and o’hare? It’s pretty convenient
The transit/trains in NYC are by far superior to Chicago. With over 3× as many trains and stops. If you are Brooklyn and want to go to Queens, they got multiple triangle lines that are direct shots. You don't have to take a train to Manhattan to connect to Queens. Here if you're near Midway and need to go to Rosemont, you have to take the Orange line all the way to the Loop to connect to a Blue line to get to Rosemont. A north south train along Cicero Avenue connecting the airports as well as all the train lines from South Side all the way to Yellow line would make our transit system alot better for the people
@@jasondierbeck4392 NY is a population of 9M, and Chicago is 3M so yes, it stands to reason there’d be more stations, but station and car cleanliness and are far superior
The frequency is terrible however, and the speed is just so slow for a separated-grade line. If you're on the blue line to O'Hare, you'll just see the cars zooming past you.
Awesome video. As a Chicagoan, I usually cringe when some of the non-Chicago based channels make content with constructive criticism about the city. You nailed it though. You captured what us locals want out of transit and brought a lot of new info to light. Thanks!
Really appreciate it - it's tough to capture the nuance with any story, and I'm lucky to have gotten in touch with others who know more about these proposals. Thanks for watching1
So simple to fix. Extend Ravenswood line via subway under Lawrence to Kenton & turn south to intersect with Montrose station on O'Hare line. Continue south & pop up to run elevated on old rail line a few blocks east of Cicero Avenue all the way to Midway, intersecting with Lake, Congress and Douglas lines along the way. Continue south to 63rd Street, then turn back east to run in a subway to the end of the Englewood line at Ashland. Now you have an outer loop. All you need is a transfer station with the Dan Ryan at 63rd and all lines connect with the outer loop. Won't ever happen because as a Northwestern graduate with a master's degree in transportation & former planner with CTA for 13 months of my life I'll never get back, I can tell you that people in charge of CTA have always been & will continue to be complete idiots.
It would be a tremendous boost if more than half of Chicago residents engaged in lawful productive employment and paid taxes. For too many Chicagoans the only tax they pay is the liquor tax.
@@imperialmotoring3789 It still represents a right of way in which additional trackage can be constructed, at minimal interference to what already exists.
the "train to nowhere" argument is nonsense in the context of an orbital line, because the point isn't to provide a service to the neighbors of that line, the point is to connect the existing radial lines to one another
The CTA does not have a high enough density of existing service to create a line entirely supported by transfers. The gaps between the radial lines are too large. So while the most useful aspect of the Cicero crosstown would certainly have been west side connections to the Blue, Green, Pink, Orange, and Brown(? not sure if the plan would have hit the west end of the Brown tracks) lines, those transfers alone would not be able to support the whole line as a useful project. The west side is somewhat of a transit desert (not as bad as the far south - it at least has some good busses and more L than the far south - but it’s still quite hard to get around by public transit outside the immediate vicinity of L lines) and the crosstown would have very little use if its non-transfer stations were hard to get to and use, since the biggest use cases for the line would have been getting from a radial line to a stop along the crosstown or getting from a stop along the crosstown to a radial line, and both require the crosstown to have a useful and populated route.
@@theevilmoppet that's why such a corridor (regardless of its alignement) shouldn't be its own line, but a connector between existing branches with existing stations and existing users. Hence my other comment
@@theevilmoppet that is why transit-oriented developments are a thing - densify all the land around railway stations - more housing, transit, and commercial spaces in one project. Queens in NYC was basically nothing before the railway line was built.
Fair - my goal with sharing that was to highlight how these projects aren't necessarily automatic generators of density / TOD. Not saying that the MCT was destined to be a "train to nowhere", but just that it was far from perfect
@@ianhomerpura8937 That sort of redevelop in the city would be opposed by the professional protesters aka "Local Activist Groups" any number of their victim mongering grifts. A good example is in Uptown when an old hospital parking garage was going to be demolished for an apartment building. All the usual opponents came out of the woodwork to assert that they have some sort of claim to the land and opposed any plans that didn't cater to them.
Been riding the CTA for ten years now and know quite a bit of its history but never had such a succinct explanation for the biggest most obvious failure of its service laid out before. Big ups!
Chicago Native as well. I'm glad, as mentioned in the video, an agreement is being met, and the redline is extending further South. Metra, CTA, and RTA lines to merge. Therefore, some of what is displayed here may finally come alive. It's desperately needed. The majority of the street before repaving still has the old rail lines and stone/brick streets, which are in prestine condition. I always wondered why a decision was made to no longer use it.
Still amazed Chicago managed to connect it directly to O'Hare. I bet there is a interesting story of defeating political corruption and ineptitude surrounding that. It just makes too much common sense for it to exist the way it does.
From 1,000 feet its a great idea, in reality the blue line needs more security to make tourists feel comfortable to take the blue line to hotels downtown.
The blue line from o bare to downtown is not dangerous. It starts getting sketchy once u pass Dowtown towards forest park. But even then its not that bad. There's a huge racial dynamic that makes people think its "dangerous". Just cuz most of the riders from Downtown to forest park are poor and black doesnt make them dangerous, just poor and black.
@@DERRTYCHYBO Tourists are not afraid of poor black people, they're afraid of tweaking drug addicts. Most poor black people are not sleeping in puddles of their own urine on the blue line at 3:00am.
@@DERRTYCHYBOYeah, I don't often take the blue line but that has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with hating O'Hare with the passion of 1,000 dying suns, love taking the orange line in from Midway as long as it's not actively snowing.
Most of the North American city rail and transit systems are a radial design and were effective at the time of conception. The designers were short-sighted about the future expansion of a system, and so most older North American cities like NYC,Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Toronto suffer from the design failure and the correction is difficult and expensive to do. The necessity for urban areas to revive the surface transit systems with light rail is a viable alternative to fill on the gaps of the transit deserts that exist after the trolley systems were abandoned and replace with buses.
@@clownpendotfart I don't understand light rail either. Just expand bus service. Bus service is much cheaper to implement, cheaper to maintain and route flexible if a change is necessary. I just see no advantage with light rail service.
Also from Detroit. The L looked like the gold standard for transit for years, so it was weird to realize it has limitations. In fact what has been even more shocking seeing all of this urbanist youtube content is that Detroit's transit issues aren't an outlier or low mark in America, it's a lot closer to average than say dead last (hello Arlington, Texas).
I want the highlight the point you made about Chicago leaving behind its industrial roots. You took the pink line to Cicero, while in between Clinton and Cicero you would have seen tech companies and condos, than after Polk you see the sad and abandoned warehouses. As a rider of the Pink line I always feel sadness thinking how all the jobs these warehouses had are now gone. All that space isn't being used! Chicago could do so much with those abandoned buildings!
I was in Chicago last week so it was nice to find this in the list of recommended videos :D. To be honest I was pleasantly surprised that I could take a train from O'Hare to downtown. So thumbs up for blue line (I don't think that's very common, at least not in the US from my few visits there).
Chicago is unusual in the US that it has multiple frequent rail-to-city center connections from a major airport (the Orange Line has served Midway since '93). DC also has 2 such connections, but the 2nd one just opened a couple years ago vs 31 years ago. Lots of mid-tier major US cities have rail connections to the airport from their city centers, it's just that many of the big boys (LA, NYC, Philly, Houston, Boston) don't have frequent rail running directly from a major airport to downtown. Seattle, SF, Portland, Dallas, Miami, Cleveland (1st one in N. America in 1968 - bet you didn't expect that one lol), St. Louis, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver, & Salt Lake City are examples in lower-tier major cities with frequent rail to an airport from downtown (another in Honolulu is 7 years away.....yes the USA is very slow at getting public rail transport built).
Really well researched! I would have thought you were a Chicagoan. Great job! You get an extra like for putting in a clip of Mark Buehrle's perfect game for the White Sox! Edit: As for the Circle Line, I don't mind it happening in small incriments (even if I won't live long enough to see it complete). Using the map on 9:38 for reference, I would say, extend the Brown Line to the Blue Line (the Jefferson Park, Montrose, or Irving Park stop), and that could create a northern part of the circle. Then, work its way down to the northern part of Green, the southern end of Blue, and to Pink. Then finish it off by ending in the Orange Line! If there is more funding, extend the southern end to the Green (since that Ashland Green Line stop is already sticking out, begging to be part of the Circle Line).
Glad you enjoyed! Yeah the Brown extension in particular would be a huge plus and seems like some low hanging fruit - not sure if you saw Stormy's video but they made one a while back on the topic: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-190lsoXATbw.html Also I'm a Jays fan so Buehrle has a special place in my heart too 😍
I don't know anything about making videos, but I've been waiting for someone to make something talking about the 1939 world's fair and Futurama. The GMC sponsored display of a utopian city(made up of mega highways and suburbs). It was seen by 5 million people(including many politicians, lobbyist, planners, etc. and perpetrated GMC's idea of city planning as a default for the century to come. I know there's a lot more to the story, and it's a really big topic, but since learning about it in a design class a few years ago, I've been really interested in learning more!
As someone who's from Cicero knowing that the crosstown expressway section started here was wild to me. For me Cicero is a place where nothing really happens but we are jammed with history housing one of Al Capones houses and some of the tunnel systems he had here. Seeing you around Cicero just blew my mind since I never thought that anyone would want to film something here.
Some of that rail is still in use, and even what isn't wouldn't exactly be compatible with 'L' trains. Still, the ROW absolutely exists there to construct the Mid-City relatively cheaply.
@@wheeliebeast7679 YEA i mean, even if they have to adapt/add on to the rail tracks, that's immensely cheaper and easier than going through the trouble of using eminent domain/purchasing properties and build new infrastructure for new ROW. They could have a new mid-city line in a tenth of the time and money it would take if they had to build everything from scratch.
@@mygetawayart Given what ridership would likely be, my 1st choice would usually be BRT in such a scenario, but given that this is a line that would subsist off bus transfers, compatibility with the Blue Line O'Hare branch IMO would be essential so no transfers would be needed to get between the airports.
Chicagoan here, great video! Makes me realize how much history I don’t know about. Who knew trains could be so interesting. Keep up the good work! Subbed!
This was my first time viewing one of your videos. Phenomenal work overall. Depth of detail, well spoken, quality audio and video, decent graphics, and the editing is straightforward and easy to watch. As for this particular subject, I have visited Chicago many times but not lived there, so for us the experience was great. Coming from Detroit, one of the countries most under-developed cities in terms of mass transit, Chicago was always this fantasy land of What If the D had some actual trains and so on. Having watched this video sheds new light on how complex the Chicago system really is and how clear it is that Detroit from a financial standpoint could never build anything that elaborate, even with federal funding (then again, Seattle is getting a pretty robust new system from federal $, so perhaps I am overestimating what that might actually cost.). I have wished to see some form of mass transit that isnt the woeful SMART system here in metro Detroit (although it has been greatly improved) and even with the faults the Chicagoland network has its still lightyears ahead of places like Motown!
Glad you enjoyed! Yep, every system has its own challenges and complexities - hopefully Detroit is on the cusp of their own transit improvements. It's definitely on the list of cities that I want to cover more in depth
Absolutely awesome video, great presenter and thoroughly researched. You are the best RU-vidr out there and most under-recognized for now, but just wait. Love whatever you do, especially your transit videos. You have a fan and will always follow you.
I cant tell you how infuriating it is to live in this city and rely soley on public transit as a means to get around. I live by midway airport, literally at the cross section of cicero and archer, and while the orange line is extremely close to get to by car, i have to rely on the bus to even get to the train station,as the walk to said midway stop would take at least half an hour due to the infrastructure of the airport getting in the way. Meanwhile to drive there would be less than 5 minutes on a good day. And then to have to go all the way into the loop just to go up to the Northside is such a pain and i would always have to account for that extra time it takes to go downtown as well as accounting for the inevitable delays that occur. I cant even visit my friends who live in places like Humboldt park without making it a whole day activity because nobody owned a car. the transit time alone was exhausting to say the least. Plus the transit is never reliable as there is always going to be a delay of some kind, even your bus being late by 5 mins can throw off your whole commute. And thats coming from someone who has the privilege to live next door to a cta train line and bus stop that runs fairly frequently. I cant even imagine the struggle it would be to get around the city if you cant have the comfort of an el line stop near you. And dont even get me started on the inadequacy that is the pace bus system 🙃
Thank you for this video. I live in Brookfield, IL (near west suburb) and lived in the city for a few years as well. I have always wondered why there is neither a north-south expressway nor a rapid-transit beltline. Now I understand (sort of). North-south travel on the west side is aggravating via any mode. Nowadays my commute is suburb to suburb (Brookfield to Des Plaines), and I am angry and perplexed every day that the multi-billion dollar reconstruction of I-294 did not incorporate a rail component. It could have connected literally every single Metra line and facilitated suburb-to-suburb travel as well as getting people from the suburbs (and even from Indiana) to O'Hare by rail. My commute is a theoretical straight south-north, 17 miles as the crow-flies, a Metra station two blocks from home and another one 2 blocks from my destination, but if I attempted it by rail, I'd be in for 1 h 30 m - 2 h each way and have to leave so early in the morning I'd wish for death. A two-bus journey in surface street traffic would be similarly dreadful. Sigh. Thanks again for the informative content.
Glad you enjoyed and that I could shed a bit of light on this very complex question! There’s definitely energy in making some sort of orbital rapid transit happen, so hopefully things improve soon :)
If you join the Pink Line with the Purple Line and the Orange Line with the Brown Line, you could run trains _through_ the loop instead of just in and out. Bonus: each branch (Line) that feeds the loop gets twice as many trains without an increase in Loop train traffic or having to buy additional carriages.
I can get anywhere in and around the city in about 45 minutes. I can go from my neighborhood to the airport in less than thirty, which is one bus and one train away. I can go from 95th to Evanston in about 30 minutes. There are several N-S buses running on every major road, all the way out to the forest preserves. I can go from Edison Park to Oak Park in about 20 mins on just one bus.
I'm already liking this video a lot, but I HAVE to give props to the editor on this with the baseball references. "Secure funding" with the Benintendi signing had me stop the video to laugh. You are seen, my man.
Here is the short answer, Chicago is a global commerce hub. The south loop of someone mansion from a place you have never heard of, is getting another upgrade soon.
I love your channel so much, it is a great insight into these cities and the history behind their transit systems. Focusing on the funding portion is a great focus that really reveals the important mechanism behind building successful systems
This sounded like (when they say no where!) the Queens Bridge line that ended in the largest residential public housing project in the nation. If you looked at the area besides the public housing, you will see why they say "no where" It was literally a warehouse area that happened to have a housing project built there. But in later years it was connected to the Queen Blvd line, which is one of the most crowded lines in the corridor beside the Flushing Line. But Queens suffers from the lack of heavy rail, so people use whatever capacity that is available. Chicago isn't suffering from a capacity issue. Because most people are shut out of the system, because it useability. The idea to have a separate line would solve the biggest problem. But extending some of these lines into each other just might work somewhat without the cost and funding issues of a new line. I don't know the CTA very much. But it just appears that this might help a little.
Best quality I've ever seen out of a channel this small. You've earned yourself a subscriber and hopefully 100s of thousands more if there's any justice in the world.
I was born and lived in Chicago most of my life, and I have been coast to coast, and North to south, and will still take it over LA, New York and many other larger city any day!
I found this video very interesting, I have just a couple of comments: 1) Part of the reason the L got to the way it is dates back to the original 4 private companies that built most of it. Many people know about this history, but what most don't realize is that those 4 companies operated much like Metra today, with stub terminals downtown and trains in and out. In those early days many of the companies were focused on extending existing lines, bringing the city farther and farther out much like suburban expansion in the 50s and 60s. It wasn't until the city funded the construction of the "Union Loop," much like a Union Station, that all four companies could run their trains around the loop and back out. This also allowed passengers to transfer from say a North Side train to a South Side train. Unification under Insull and Chicago Rapid Transit in the 1920s made it possible to run through trains from say Howard to 63rd. 2) The streetcars and buses were run by a separate company until the creation of CTA in the 1940s. They were jointly owned by Insull after the 1920s and collaborated, but were still somewhat separate. So there was in some cases duplication in stops and areas served. In those days, the streetcars and buses were largely thought of as feeders to the L. While you could take say a streetcar or bus down Western or Cicero, the thought was that you would transfer at the closest joint L station and then get off somewhere else. What this all means is that the idea of a unified bus and rail transit system doesn't completely start in Chicago until you're already in the era when many cities are discontinuing transit in favor of cars. 3) Pretty early on the city looked at removing the downtown loop and replacing it all with subways, but I'm not sure those plans would have actually improved transit as we think of it now. The goal was more to get rid of a perceived noisy and unsightly structure downtown, and go with something perceived as modern. It wouldn't have solved how you fill the gaps betweeen the ends of the lines. 4) While you mention the Paulina connector and the improved service on the Pink line, you miss one critical need for this section of track. This track was a remnant for how the Logan Square blue line originally connected to the loop L, but hadn't been used in revenue service for decades, and so was poorly maintained. However, it was the only physical connection between the then Blue line and the rest of the system. If this track had been severed, it would have been impossible to move equipment from the Blue Line to the rest of the system, or the main shops at Skokie. Completing this part of the Circle / Pink line first restored this critical link, and improved service. This is not unlike how we ended up with the Yellow line, which practically had to be purchased after the abandonment of the North Shore in 1963 to maintain access to Skokie shops. I think you could argue these are win-win projects, where it allows them to solve a critical internal business need, but also broadly improves service. 5) The idea of BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) or even dedicated bus lanes is not a bad idea, but whether it's for cost or other reasons even this concept seems to have poor execution in Chicago. I remember when they put in all that infrastructure downtown on the East-West streets, with platforms and all sorts of things. They announced, we doubled the speed of buses. The quiet part, the average speed was 3mph. So, the average speed went from 3mph to 6mph with millions of dollars in improvements. Not to mention, they still stop at the same stoplights and have to deal with other traffic in places. Some of the other 'dedicated' bus lines comingle with bike lanes, turn lanes, loading lanes. The buses still have to weave in and out of traffic. It's no wonder people prefer rail construction, at least then you know you have a dedicated right of way. 6) The last question I want to raise, you mention equity of service, but there are also questions about quality and level of service, especially with the buses. One thing that I rarely hear discussed is what the goal of CTA is. Is it to run the most efficient transit possible? Run the quickest service? Serve the most people? Because especially with budget cuts, it often seems like the goal of CTA is simply to exist, and operate some minimum level of service that will help as many people as possible. In other words, if your trip takes 2 hours and you have to transfer 3 or 4 times, at least it's better than walking or paying some other form of transport that might get you there quicker but would be more expensive. This is something that I think really needs to be addressed when we consider solving these issues, because one thing that is clear is that CTA is not really considered a priority. And how do you get to the point of convincing large portions of residents that it should be, or that certain improvements will actually be used? What is the actual potential ridership for something like a train from Midway to O'Hare, or even the crosstown line that was proposed? One issue that often thwarts current CTA and Metra ridership is that even when you get to a nearby station, how do you get to where you are ultimately going?
Native Southsider here!!! 100% agree! I work in west loop and the only public transportation is a train to lasalle/union + 2/3 buses or Ls. Such a lack of public transportation just steps outside the loop. Having a public route connecting Southside directly to Westside/northwest side (without 3+ transfers) would also help so many!
For most of my time on Chicago transit I've taken the train, but I've recently started taking an express bus that happens to run close to my home and day job. When the trains run when they're supposed to at the speed they can, they're great. But Covid did a number that CTA seems unable to come back from. Infrequent trains during rush hour, ghost buses (often several in a row) make me really hate using transit. (And driving is just as awful... shiver.) I'd be much happier if CTA would just get back to pre-pandemic service, even if that's not as good as it was 10 years earlier.
fun fact the L isn’t called the L because of the “loop” it’s called the L because it is elevated! cheers mate great video, love to see the history of this beautiful city! 😊
Native Southsider here!! I work in west loop and the only public transportation is a train to lasalle/union + 2/3 buses or Ls. Lots of gaps in public transportation just steps away from the loop. Having a public route connecting Southside directly to Westside/northwest side (without 3+ transfers) would also be helpful for many!
WE WANT THE WESTERN ELEVATED LINE!! It would be an L above Western. we NEED to connect the north, west, and south sides west of the loop. I'm not saying it would be easy but at least you don't need to worry about eminent domain-ing people's properties/housing and businesses.
Funny, you answered a LOT of my questions in the first two minutes of this video. I've traveled almost yearly to Chicago, and it would baffle me how neglected certain areas of the city were overtly disconnected from the rest of the city. Like, when the red line ends - it limits economic opportunities/accessibility significantly. It blows my mind how clear this is after watching this video. Great job
YES. THANK YOU. I’m not gonna say which line I live on the end of but it sucks to take to anywhere pretty much - even the loop. This is also an amazing video essay! I was born and raised here and I didn’t know most of this history this is so interesting and well done!
Circle line could have been helpful when I tried to get from the Frank Lloyd Wright studio to the Midway airport. With all of the traffic, I nearly missed my flight and cost me $90 for Uber.
Shoutout to Austin Busch for mentioning the Citizens Action Program (CAP)...growing up on the SW Side, it was organized largely by Fr. Leonard Dubi, who was an associate pastor at our parish church (St. Daniel the Prophet).
As a native, every construction project will forever be super expensive. The higher ups like to give the contracts to their cousins and uncles. Nothing gets done on time and it ends up more expensive than it should be.
If Chicago had more express Buses it would fix alot of this. Only Ashland, Western and Michigan have a few express ones. It should be way easier to cross long distances during peak hours. NYC buses also are connected wireless with the traffic 🚥 lights so they can Green light all day which express bus definitely needs. This is way cheaper than building a whole new train line. Just raises frequency of express, get wireless traffic light communication and add express to Irving park and Halsted as well from 8am-8pm
If you compare to other cities in America, Chicago is pretty advanced. Doesn’t mean it can’t be better. But how many cities can you name in America except NYC that has a better transit system then Chicago? At the very least, most of Chicago is fairly bikeable & walkable. In addition, the bus system is fairly reliable. You can bike fairly anywhere in Chicago. This video from its origin seemed to paint Chicago in a bad light. Why don’t you go and rate Houston’s Public transit or Los Angeles?
Couple things here: 1. BRT is cheap to build but expensive to operate. One train driver can run an 8, 10, 12 car metro train (or sometimes zero drivers with fully automated trains) with each of those train cars having the capacity of two or more buses. So, assuming ridership is high, you end up paying up to 24 times as much because you need up to 24 bus drivers to replace one bus driver, and those salaries are your largest operation expense. So BRT only really makes sense where ridership is relatively low. 2. Lot of US laws and practices (ADA requirements, Buy America requirements, pro-union requirements, minority and female owned contractor requirements, strong safety requirements for both the construction and design of the equipment, strong environmental laws, requirements for community input (and increased costs meeting all of the community suggestions), high land acquisition costs, high labor costs, high material costs and a litigious society that files dozens of lawsuits against any new project) increase costs versus what it costs overseas to build things. Incompetence and corruption are too frequently problems as well.
One unmentioned factor that may have doomed the Circle Line - the Paulina Connector was originally much longer, and extended 1.5 miles further north along Paulina Street, roughly to the point where the Blue Line comes up from the Milwaukee Ave subway to the elevated structure between Division and Damen stations. Like the section between the Green Line and the Eisenhower/I-290, this was removed from revenue service in the 1950s, but unlike that section eventually revived for the Pink Line, the northernmost section was demolished in the 1960s.
@@wheeliebeast7679 It was a mistake to tear out the Northern most part of the Paulina Connector leading up to where the Blue Line at about Damen Avenue connected to what was the Logan Square L. It should have been left in place for emergency re-routeing and would have been part of what could have been the "CIRCLE LINE".
@@albertcarello619 Mostly agree, but the connection to what is now the Blue Line was much closer to Division station (not called Ashland as I originally typed in my OG comment) - and not just good for emergency rerouting, but also equipment transfers. Plus, if the old Humboldt Park 'L' had been preserved too (which met the now-Blue Line just the other side of Damen, and paralleled North Ave 2+ miles to the west to near Pulaski), it could have been combined with the northern Connector to produce a say "Aqua Line" routed into the Loop via the Congress branch of the Blue. The only remaining section of the northern Connector still physically present are its bridge over the tracks just south of Kinzie Street, and in another sense various seemingly out-of-place low-rise commercial buildings that said 'L' went over from Division south to Lake Street.
“We need 500 economic impact studies on this construction, it has to be equitable for all people to use, and we need to pay the workers above living wage, BUT we need the project done for a 1/4 of the cost” - big liberal cities
11:33 I feel like this point wasn't stressed strongly enough when Detroit started constructing their recent streetcar (QLine). A vox article called "The real reason behind the demise of America's streetcars" pointed out that streetcars did increasingly get stuck in traffic. The article was published well after Detroit's QLine had started construction but before it opened in 2017. People saw the decline of cities and the decreased ridership in transit seemed to match with the 1950s when Detroit and many other cities replaced their streetcars with buses. But the reality is the increasing popularity of cars would have made it difficult for any transit vehicle to do well while competing with car traffic. This is why I now believe it's far more important to have a transit only lane, than whether you use a bus or a streetcar.
@@TheFlyingMooseCA I just hope there's a way to convince MDoT of the need for transit priority on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit. And maybe better signage on transit should be considered commonplace. Would you put up a sign on the interstate that simply said "Exit" or "Interchange" without specifying which number or destination it leads to? Yet a lot of bus stops simply have a sign that says "Bus Stop" with the transit agency logo. Or how about having a car bridge/ramp with no guardrail, wall or any barrier to prevent you from flying off? Nobody would accept that. Yet it's not uncommon to see a painted bike lane on a high speed highway that just has the lane marking painted on, but without any buffer or barrier to prevent a car from ramming through it. Anything but a car is considered a luxury, an afterthought or bonus of some kind while a car is treated as a necessity.
There was a proposal back in the 50s or 60s to dismantle the loop and build an underground subway. I think it would have been much better for downtown transit but would mean losing the elevated railway which Chicago is famous for
Yep, there have been plenty of proposals (since the Loop was built honestly) to tunnel/detangle it somehow. It's just part of the landscape now, for better or worse :)
why would they build the circle line as a new service increasing saturation downtown, instead of having the brown line continue south, take over the west englewood branch, go north along the CSX corridor until Western, turn west on W Lake St, and end at harlem/lake? thus connecting far more peripheral neighborhoods while increasing service on the already established green line stations, and reducing the load on the loop. Well i guess my random ideas cost 20 billion dollars
@@maoschanz4665the circle line wouldn’t increase train congestion in the loop for two key reasons: 1 - the loop is at capacity already. It is very hard to add more trains to a traffic jam. Any demand for additional circle line trains in the loop would be filled by cutting service from other lines. 2 - more importantly, there would be no demand for additional circle line trains in the loop because the circle line plan didn’t touch the loop. The four main sections of the plan were: the shared Pink Line alignment, just west of the loop; the connector from Pink to Orange, southwest of the loop; the subway up to the Red Line, northwest of the loop; and the shared Red line portion, which is a subway through downtown until it connects with the Orange and Green lines, where the circle line would then use the Orange tracks. None of those sections are the loop. Some, especially the transfer from Red track to Orange track, are extremely close, but if (as the video says) the planned connection to the Red line was at North/Clybourn, there would actually be no point at which the circle line spends a significant amount of time sharing track with more than one line.
@@theevilmoppet yes i realized it was the red line afterwards, i edited while you were answering, but this circle line plan would still be increasing the number of trains downtown (this tunnel can get saturated too i guess) while not addressing the current saturation of the loop. My point is that building the circle line doesn't connect peripheral neighborhoods well enough as they said in the end of the video, but more importantly it doesn't fix anything regarding the loop, despite what the title implies. Not building a full circle, but extending existing lines in weird ways, would get less trains on the loop while providing a service better than what they planned
It's even worse out in the suburbs. I live in Willow Springs and work in Oak Brook. What would be a 22-minute trip by car takes over 2 hours by bus. I have to use a combination of Pace and CTA bus and train connections to get there depending on what day and time I'm scheduled, but I typically have to take 4 busses each way (or 2 busses and 2 trains). Whenever possible I'll take the 390 at Archer and Nolton either to Bridgeview or Chicago, but because service on that route is so limited I'll often have to walk 40 minutes down 87th to catch the 379 on 88th. I agree that Chicago's transit infrastructure needs a major update, but we need to see some of that outside the city as well
Living in the suburbs of Chicago sucks when it comes to Rapid Transit. For years I dreamed of a light rail loop that connected the Metra trains together. Either at the end of lines or 3/4 the way to the end. Since the radial pattern makes the problem worse the further you live from Chicago.
I like the BRT idea because it accomplishes most of the requirements for Light rail: dedicated right of way, fare collection at the station, platforms, signal priority... So if the system is successful and they want to upgrade it all they need to do is lay the tracks and wires (assuming they don't already have electric trolley busses)
As a native Chicagoan, love this video! This video is sooooo good! Love this! I had just thought about something for a crosstown line. I know a Cicero BRT and Ashland BRT have been considered, however what if there was a Subway built from as far south as 95th and Cicero (not too far from a Metra stop) going through MDW, the town of Cicero, and connect to the Blue line. Any native Chicagoans leave you opinions! Even if you’re not a Chicagoan leave an opinion! I am by no means qualified to propose ideas for mass transit in a city but that’s an idea that I had🤷🏽♂️
I love this idea and always wanted this. In fact, I would like it to keep on going north after connecting to blue line and connect with the Yellow line. This would not only connect the airports, and multiple train lines on the opposite end of the Loop, but would also make easier traveling between South Side neighborhoods and suburbs, to the North Side neighborhoods and suburbs, while connecting the West Side along the way
I've taken public transit for most of my life. The biggest headache has been getting from the north to the south, or back. You have to go into the city, and then out. Then you are constrained by time because you need to get back home and this makes things complicated. Most lines stop running before it gets to late. I have long thought that tunneling and making a underground train connection from Milwaukee to Kankakee would be a great idea. Go directly under 290 and 355. Make exits at every existing public transit line from Chicago out to the far burbs and then at every major east-west road. Most importantly, these trains need to run 24/7 and the existing metra and bus lines need to run 24/7 as well. The congestion on the major expressways is horrible. Morning/evening commutes suck. Doing anything outside of your community on the weekend, or later in the evening is near impossible without a car. Imagine getting on a train in Barrington and being in Joliet in 50 minutes while sitting on a train car reading a book? Doing the line underground should be cheap (I mean... couldn't Musky do it with his tunnel ... thing?) and it shouldn't disrupt existing communities. The economic boom that would result would probably be able to bring in the sort of funding that would pay for this in a short time?
I’ve never watched you before, and I’m loving the video so far. (had to pause it right quick to make this statement) As someone that lives in the area, the CTA buses run red lights everyday, I wish I saved the recording of the three CTA buses that ran a already “red” light on Michigan Ave yesterday in broad daylight with a TON of people out. 🤣🤦🏽♂️💀💀
