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Chicago L train

LAz

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Chicago's metro system is kinda interesting.

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And it appears that they are finally gonna work on extending a line. It is slow incremental planning, super slow, quite sad, but hey, it's something!

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2010/10/11/cta-red-line-extension-plans-moving-ahead/
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...926_1_cta-red-line-cta-officials-new-stations

red_line_ext._jpg.jpg
 
I've ridden on the Chicago 'L' and, compared to all the other American systems I've used, it isn't half bad. The trains come every 8-10 minutes, which is less frequent than Toronto, but not insufferable like, say, waiting for MARTA (awful), BART (if you need to travel on a specific line) or the LA Metro Red line. Better yet, the trains seem to take you to all the places you would really want to go, and few neighbourhoods are far away from an L station. This can't be said for Toronto, where entire quadrants of the urban city, like anything along Queen, Lake Shore in Etobicoke, St. Clair West and Leaside - not to mention many high density suburban areas in the 416 - is at least a 2 km transfer ride from a subway station.

My complaints about Chicago are that the system itself is grungy, that it's hard to travel around downtown (all trips lead downtown), and that the use of the loop itself as a shared track for all but the blue and red lines restricts how frequently you can run service on each of the individual lines.
 
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Better yet, the trains seem to take you to all the places you would really want to go, and few neighbourhoods are far away from an L station. This can't be said for Toronto, where entire quadrants of the urban city, like anything along Queen, Lake Shore in Etobicoke, St. Clair West and Leaside - not to mention many high density suburban areas in the 416 - is at least a 2 km transfer ride from a subway station.

Though the contrapuntal argument might be that there is far greater real and psychological symbiosis between modes of transit (subway, streetcar, bus) in Toronto than in Chicago...
 
^Well, yes, and invariably somebody is going to pipe up and say that Toronto has a much higher ridership than Chicago despite relying far more on surface transit and that must somehow be indicative of better service. I would prefer to sit on a half empty pink line elevated than to stand on a crammed 501 streetcar that averages 8 km/h in mixed traffic. If more Chicagoans choose to drive, who cares? That city is much easier to drive around in than Toronto. My main concern as a transit rider is that I have a choice available to me, and that that choice (grade-separated rapid transit) is actually pleasant to ride on.

Toronto has one of the most underdeveloped rapid transit systems for a city where so much of our population is transit-dependent. Cramming passengers onto overloaded bus and streetcar lines doesn't give us much to boast about except for our high farebox recovery rates which, ironically, would be something that only a person who believes that public services should be profitable would laud.
 
The thing is, would anyone here actually be willing to live next to an El line? I wouldn't. Just think of Elwood's apartment in the Blues Brothers.
 
The Chicago Transit Authority Rapid Transit System...

Everyone: I noticed this topic on the CTA Rail system and I remember it well because my Uncle was employed as a Motorman in Rail service between 1958-1986 and I was a regular Chicago visitor between 1973-1988.

I explored Chicago by way of CTA Transit and I became very interested in the Rail system and how it served Chicago...

An interesting website to look at is: www.chicago-l.org for in-depth CTA Rapid Transit history and information...
Another place is www.nycsubway.org with their extensive photo sections-just look under the "Transfer Station"
section for other US Rapid Transit systems-they have a large Chicago section outlined by lines...
They also have a Toronto section for the record also...

I remember the movie "The Blues Brothers" well as it is one of my favorite movies...the apartment alongside the L tracks with the train service is a satirical version of living in Chicago...I know and recognize many scenes and places in that movie...

The L structure has a architectural flavor completely its own and the CTA renovated and improved the Loop L after plans for a replacement Subway were dropped in the 70s era...

This system has served Chicago well over the years and it has changed with the times also..LI MIKE
 
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Though think of the El in practice as an elevated subway line (which it is--just like the elevated stretches of the NYC subway system). So to pick on it as an above-ground blight magnet negates the fundamental point that rapid transit serves these areas at all...
 
...Except that it's not a blight, and some of the city's most desirable neighbourhoods like Old Town, Armitage Avenue and Wicker Park are directly in the path of El tracks.
 
The one popular neighbourhood not served well by the L is University Park, a considerable walk from the Green Line, through some bad South Side blight before reaching it. There's many express buses there from the Loop and many there end up using the infrequent Metra Electric corridor.
 
Better yet, the trains seem to take you to all the places you would really want to go, and few neighbourhoods are far away from an L station. This can't be said for Toronto, where entire quadrants of the urban city, like anything along Queen, Lake Shore in Etobicoke, St. Clair West and Leaside - not to mention many high density suburban areas in the 416 - is at least a 2 km transfer ride from a subway station.

Well I kinda disagree with this way of looking at things. The ghettos in chicago are far more widespread. So, the result is that one would not even want to go to half the area that the system covers. What good is that then? Meanwhile the affluent places lack good mass transit, many suburbs in and around the city itself. Chicago did not absorb suburbs in the 1990s, Toronto did.


The thing is, would anyone here actually be willing to live next to an El line? I wouldn't. Just think of Elwood's apartment in the Blues Brothers.

Many places around the brown line are not too bad. Quite desirable. Same for the northern part of the L line. Part of the blue line that goes through wicker park


...Except that it's not a blight, and some of the city's most desirable neighbourhoods like Old Town, Armitage Avenue and Wicker Park are directly in the path of El tracks.

Those neighborhoods were not that good until recently. The former residents got flushed out through gentrification. Old Town took a good chunk of cabrini green. Wicker Park was a puertorican ghetto. Armitage was nothing special whatsoever - it also had a puertorican presence. Then a middle class displaced them, and afterwards the richest of the rich supergentrified the neighborhood.


The one popular neighbourhood not served well by the L is University Park, a considerable walk from the Green Line, through some bad South Side blight before reaching it. There's many express buses there from the Loop and many there end up using the infrequent Metra Electric corridor.

Is this hyde park? Kenwood? Both areas had l lines going to them, but they demolished them.
 
CTA and Chicago Neighborhoods and The Blues Brothers Movie...

The one popular neighbourhood not served well by the L is University Park, a considerable walk from the Green Line, through some bad South Side blight before reaching it. There's many express buses there from the Loop and many there end up using the infrequent Metra Electric corridor.

Shon: (And Everyone) The Hyde Park/University of Chicago SE Side neighborhood has always been well-served by the Metra Electric commuter rail line (formerly Illinois Central Electric) as opposed to the CTA Jackson Park Line (Green) thanks to one of the most obvious so-called "Dividing Lines" in the entire City-East 61st Street.

North of East 61st Street lies the upscale Hyde Park neighborhood and the University of Chicago campus...

South of East 61st Street lies the low-income predominately Black neighborhood of Woodlawn and adjacent Jackson Park...

Even though that "Dividing Line" sat just two long blocks N of the CTA's Jackson Park Line that once ran over East 63rd Street to Stony Island Avenue at Jackson Park
many Hyde Park residents and U of C Students knew exactly what those "boundary" limits were...

In 1982 a part of the CTA Jackson Park Line (Green) was condemned due to the poor condition of the L structure-namely a truss bridge over the IC/ME at that point...it was cut back more then a mile W to 63/King Drive eventually...

The CTA and IC Electric had a fare agreement in the 80s for lower fares approaching the then-current CTA fare...

I looked at Wikipedia which had a good write-up on both the Blues Brothers movie and the Dixie Square Mall...
That can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blues_Brothers_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Square_Mall

It answered a question about the demolished shopping mall in question: I remember being told that it was the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg (NW Suburb) and due to the proximity to Mount Prospect I thought that was right...

I had thought that Mall was used because of a re-modeling project...instead the movie makers used a mall that even then was dying...Another reason I always thought this was correct was the lack of Black people in that demolition scene...Harvey and some other Near South suburbs have had a substantial Black/Latino population since the late 70s/early 80s era...

Thoughts and observations by Long Island Mike
 
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Don't forget to include Kenwood when talking about Hyde Park, as it is like beside it and has a similar rich status.

In fact, the CTA had an entire branch going to kenwood. The mofos demolished all of it, imagine that!
 
Other Chicago observations...

LAZ and Everyone: I want to mention other things I recall about the SE side area mentioned-the racial "Dividing Line"
of East 61st Street between the Hyde Park/U of C and Woodlawn neighborhoods:

The Woodlawn neighborhood was the home turf of one of Chicago's most notorious street gangs: The Black P. Stones
(also known as the Blackstone Rangers and El Rukn over time) and this area was known as one of Chicago's toughest
neighborhoods and also one that was hostile to Whites particularly in the 70s era...My Uncle knew of their presence working for the CTA and I remember him telling me "That's Blackstone Rangers territory"...

Wikipedia has some information about this gang here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_P_Stones
and some about the influence they had in the Woodlawn neighborhood...

Again it always amazed me how stark the contrast that "Boundary Line" was and I remember well being shown around the Hyde Park neighborhood and some of my best memories include being shown the Midway Plaisance (a neat drive in the HP area)
and arguably my favorite Chicago attraction nearby: The Museum of Science and Industry. (Info: www.MSIChicago.org )

I made it a point to try to visit the M of S&I yearly and in the 80s on back it was free admission with charges for certain attractions like the U-505 German Submarine and the Coal Mine...

Another link to mention-METRA Commuter Rail information - www.metrarail.com/
Look under METRA Electric for schedule information...also the South Shore (CSS&SBRR) trains serving NW Indiana stop at the
55/56/57th Street Station serving the M of S&I and Hyde Park...For SS Rail info: www.nictd.com - the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District.

LAZ: You are right about South Side L lines like the Kenwood and Stock Yards routes-Both these South Side lines were
abandoned in 1957 by the CTA...

Memories and observations by Long Island Mike
 
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The Woodlawn neighborhood was the home turf of one of Chicago's most notorious street gangs

Are they significant in any way nowadays?

The blacks were quarantined in public housing highrise towers. These were more or less vertical ghettos, because they got no investment after opening. They lined them down state street. Most if not all of these towers were torn down. People have been displaced, so I would think that perhaps the gangs moved on as people moved on?
 

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