Chicago "L"
The Chicago "L" is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority, it is the fourth-largest rapid transit system in the United States in terms of total route length, at long as of 2014, and the third-busiest rapid transit system in the United States after the New York City Subway and the Washington Metro. As of January 2024, the "L" had 1,480 rail cars operating across eight different routes on 224.1 miles of track. CTA trains make about 1,888 trips each day servicing 146 train stations. In, the system had rides, or about per weekday in.
The "L" provides 24-hour service on the Red and Blue Lines, making Chicago, New York City, and Copenhagen the only three cities in the world to offer 24-hour train service on some of their lines throughout their respective city limits. The oldest sections of the Chicago "L" started operations in 1892, making it the second-oldest rapid transit system in the Americas, after New York City's elevated lines. The "L" gained its name from "el" because large parts of the system run on elevated track. Portions of the network are in subway tunnels, at grade level, or in open cuts.
The "L" has been credited for fostering the growth of Chicago's dense city core that is one of the city's distinguishing features. And according to urban engineer Christof Speiler, the system stands out in the United States because it continued to invest in services even through the post-World-War era growth of the expressway; its general use of alleyways instead of streets throughout its history, and expressway medians after the war, better knit the system into the city, and in pioneering ways. It consists of eight rapid transit lines laid out in a spoke–hub distribution paradigm focusing transit towards the Loop.
In a 2005 poll, Chicago Tribune readers voted it one of the "seven wonders of Chicago", behind the lakefront and Wrigley Field, and ahead of Willis Tower, the Water Tower, the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry.
History
Pre-CTA era
The first "L", the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, began revenue service on June 6, 1892, when a steam locomotive pulling four wooden coaches, carrying more than a couple of dozen people, departed the 39th Street station and arrived at the Congress Street Terminal 14 minutes later, over tracks that are still in use by the Green Line. Over the next year, service was extended to 63rd Street and Stony Island Avenue, then the Transportation Building of the World's Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park.In 1893, trains began running on the Lake Street Elevated Railroad and in 1895 on the Metropolitan West Side Elevated, which had lines to Douglas Park, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square. The Metropolitan was the United States' first non-exhibition rapid transit system powered by electric traction motors, a technology whose practicality had been demonstrated in 1893 on the "intramural railway" at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Two years later the South Side "L" introduced multiple-unit control, in which the operator can control all the motorized cars in a train, not just the lead unit. Electrification and MU control remain standard features of most of the world's rapid transit systems.
A drawback of early "L" service was that none of the lines entered the central business district. Instead trains dropped passengers at stub terminals on the periphery due to a state law at the time requiring approval by neighboring property owners for tracks built over public streets, something not easily obtained downtown. This obstacle was overcome by the legendary traction magnate Charles Tyson Yerkes, who went on to play a pivotal role in the development of the London Underground, and who was immortalized by Theodore Dreiser as the ruthless schemer Frank Cowperwood in The Titan and other novels.
Yerkes, who controlled much of the city's streetcar system, obtained the necessary signatures through cash and guile—at one point he secured a franchise to build a mile-long "L" over Van Buren Street from Wabash Avenue to Halsted Street, extracting the requisite majority from the pliable owners on the western half of the route, then building tracks chiefly over the eastern half, where property owners had opposed him. Designed by noted bridge builder John Alexander Low Waddell, the elevated tracks used a multiple close-rivet system to withstand the forces of the passing trains' kinetic energy.
The Union Loop opened in 1897 and greatly increased the rapid transit system's convenience. Operation on the Yerkes-owned Northwestern Elevated, which built the North Side "L" lines, began three years later, essentially completing the elevated infrastructure in the urban core although extensions and branches continued to be constructed in outlying areas through the 1920s.
After 1911, the "L" lines came under the control of Samuel Insull, president of the Chicago Edison electric utility, whose interest stemmed initially from the fact that the trains were the city's largest consumer of electricity. Insull instituted many improvements, including free transfers and through routing, although he did not formally combine the original firms into the Chicago Rapid Transit Company until 1924. He also bought three other Chicago electrified railroads, the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad, Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad, and South Shore Line interurban lines, and ran the trains of the first two into downtown Chicago via the "L" tracks.
This period of relative prosperity ended when Insull's empire collapsed in 1932, but later in the decade the city, with the help of the federal government, accumulated sufficient funds to begin construction of two subway lines to supplement and, some hoped, permit eventual replacement of the Loop elevated; as early as the 1920s some city leaders wanted to replace the "ugly" elevated tracks. These plans advanced in the 1970s under mayors Richard J. Daley and Michael Bilandic until a public outcry against tearing down the popular "L" began, led by Chicago Tribune columnist Paul Gapp and architect Harry Weese. Instead, then new Mayor Jane Byrne protected the elevated lines and directed their rehabilitation.
The State Street subway opened on October 17, 1943. The Dearborn Subway, on which work had been suspended during World War II, opened on February 25, 1951. The subways were constructed with a secondary purpose of serving as bomb shelters, as evidenced by the close spacing of the support columns. The subways bypassed a number of tight curves and circuitous routings on the original elevated lines, speeding service for many riders.
CTA assumes control
By the 1940s, the financial condition of the "L", and of Chicago mass transit in general, had become too precarious to permit continued operation without subsidies, and the necessary steps were taken to enable a public takeover. In 1947, the Chicago Transit Authority acquired the assets of the Chicago Rapid Transit Company and the Chicago Surface Lines, operator of the city's streetcars. Over the next few years CTA modernized the "L", replacing wooden cars with new steel ones and closing lightly used branch lines and stations, many of which had been spaced only a quarter-mile apart.Rail service to O'Hare International Airport first opened in 1984 and to Midway International Airport in 1993. That same year, the CTA renamed all of its rail lines; they are now identified by color. The CTA introduced fare cards for the first time in 1997.
File:20090503 under Chicago L on Franklin Street.jpg|right|thumb|The Brown and Purple Chicago "L" lines run above vehicular traffic on Franklin Street in the Near North Side community area.
Skip-stop service
Later, after assuming control of the "L", the CTA introduced A/B skip-stop service. Under this service, trains were designated as either "A" or "B" trains, and stations were alternately designated as "A" stations or "B" stations, with heavily used stations designated as both – "AB". "A" trains would stop only at "A" and "AB" stations, and "B" trains would stop only at "B" and "AB" stations.Station signage carried the station's skip-stop letter and was also color-coded by skip-stop type; "A" stations had red signage, "B" stations had green signage, and "AB" stations had blue signage. The system was designed to speed up lines by having trains skip stations while still allowing for frequent service at the heavily used "AB" stations.
A/B skip-stop service debuted on the Lake Street Elevated in 1948, and the service proved effective as travel times were cut by a third. By the 1950s, the service was used throughout the system. All lines used the A/B skip-stop service between the 1950s and the 1990s with the exception of the Evanston and Skokie lines, which were suburban-only lines and did not justify skip-stop service.
On the lines with branches, skip-stop service sent all "A" trains to one branch and "B" trains to another branch. On what became the Blue Line, "A" trains were routed on the Congress branch while "B" trains were sent to the Douglas branch.
On the North-South Line, "A" trains went to the Englewood branch and "B" trains went to the Jackson Park branch. In both cases, individual stops were not skipped beyond the points where those branches diverged. As time went by, the time periods which employed skip-stop service gradually decreased, as the waits at "A" and "B" stations became increasingly longer during non-peak service.
By the 1990s, use of the A/B skip-stop system was only used during rush hour service. Another problem was that trains skipping stations to save time still could not pass the train that was directly ahead, so skipping stations was not advantageous in all regards. In 1993, the CTA began to eliminate skip-stop service when it switched the southern branches of the West-South and North-South Lines to improve rider efficiency, creating the current Red and Green Lines. From this point, Green Line trains made all stops along the entire route, while Red Line trains stopped at all stations south of Harrison. The elimination of A/B skip-stop service continued with the opening of the all-stop Orange Line and the conversion of the Brown Line to all-stop service.
In April 1995, the last of the A/B skip-stop system was eliminated with the conversion of the O'Hare branch of the Blue Line and the Howard branch of the Red Line to all-stop service. The removal of skip-stop service resulted in some increases in travel times, and greatly increased ridership at former "A" and "B" stations due to increased train frequencies. Station signage highlighting the former skip-stop patterns would remain into the 2000s, when it was gradually replaced across the system.