The "L" in An "L" Train passing over the Chicago river in The first "L", the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad , began revenue service on June 6, , 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, [11] over tracks that are still in use by the Green Line.
The Metropolitan was the United States' first non-exhibition rapid transit system powered by electric traction motors , [12] a technology whose practicality had been demonstrated in on the "intramural railway" at the World Fair that had been held in Chicago.
Electrification and MU control remain standard features of most of the world's rapid transit systems. 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.
The Union Loop opened in 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 s.
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 He also bought three other Chicago electrified railroads, the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad, Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad , and South Shore 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 , 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. The subways bypassed a number of tight curves and circuitous routings on the original elevated lines Milwaukee trains, for example, originated on Chicago's northwest side but entered the Loop at the southwest corner , speeding service for many riders.
CTA assumes control[ edit ] A train on the "L" in as photographed by Stanley Kubrick for Look Magazine By the s, 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.
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.
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". 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.
By the s, the service was used throughout the system. Also, the Congress and Douglas branches of what later became the Blue Line were designated as "A" and "B" respectively, as were the Englewood "A" and Jackson Park "B" branches of what later became the Green Line, so 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.
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 , the CTA began to eliminate skip-stop service when it switched the southern branches of the Red and Green Lines to all stops.
After this point, Green Line trains on the entire line stopped at all stations, and Red Line trains stopped at all stations south of Harrison. The removal of skip-stop service resulted in some increases in travel times, and greatly increased ridership at former "A" and "B" stations.
New lines were built in expressway medians, a technique implemented in Chicago and followed by other cities worldwide. The Dan Ryan line, built in the median of the Dan Ryan Expressway, opened on September 28, , [18] followed by an extension of the Milwaukee elevated into the Kennedy Expressway in Growing ridership has not been uniformly distributed.
Use of North Side lines is heavy and continues to grow, while that of West Side and South Side lines tend to remain stable.
On the other hand, weekday ridership on the South Side portion of the Green Line, which closed for two years for reconstruction from January to May , was 50, in but only 13, in For example, ridership at the linked Roosevelt stops on the Green, Orange, and Red Lines, [note 3] which serve the burgeoning South Loop neighborhood, has tripled since , with an average of 8, boardings per weekday.
Patronage at the Cermak- Chinatown stop on the Red Line 4, weekday boardings is at the highest level since the station opened in The Chicago Central Area Plan proposed construction of a Green Line station at Cermak , midway between Chinatown and the McCormick Place convention center, in expectation of continued density growth in the vicinity.
This station opened in Service[ edit ] Currently, with two exceptions, all lines operate at all times except late nights. List of Chicago "L" stations view of the Chicago "L" in the Loop Chicago Transit Authority control tower 18 guides elevated north and southbound Purple and Brown lines intersecting with east and westbound Pink and Green lines and the looping Orange line above the Wells and Lake street intersection in the loop. Since "L" lines have been officially identified by color, [33] although older route names survive to some extent in CTA publications and popular usage to distinguish branches of longer lines.
Extension plans to th are currently being considered. Rail cars are stored at the Howard Yard on the north end of the line and at the 98th Yard at the south end. The route from O'Hare to Forest Park is The number of stations is Until the northern section of the Blue Line terminated at Logan Square , during that time it was called the Milwaukee route after Milwaukee Avenue which ran parallel to it; in that year service was extended to Jefferson Park via the Kennedy Expressway median, and in to O'Hare.
The Blue Line is the second-busiest, with , weekday boardings. In , the Brown Line had an average weekday ridership of , The East 63rd branch formerly extended to Jackson Park , but the portion of the line east of Cottage Grove, which ran above 63rd Street, was demolished in the s and due to structural problems and then not rebuilt due to community demands.
The average number of weekday boardings in was 68, Average weekday ridership in was 58, The local service operates from the Linden terminal in Wilmette through Evanston to the Howard terminal on the north side of Chicago where it connects with the Red and Yellow lines. The weekday rush hour express service continues from Howard to the Loop, running nonstop on the four-track line used by the Red Line to Wilson station , then serving Belmont station , followed by all Brown Line stops to the Loop.
Its average weekday ridership in was 31, In service on the portion of the line west of 54th Avenue was closed and over the next decade the stations were demolished and the tracks were also demolished. The street level right-of-way is used to this day as a miles-long parking lot, locally known as the ""L" Strip". The Yellow Line is the only "L" route that does not provide direct service to the Loop.
The Yellow Line previously operated as a nonstop shuttle, until the downtown Skokie station Oakton—Skokie opened on April 30, Its average weekday ridership in was 6, passenger boardings. The Loop's eight stations average 72, weekday boardings.
The Green Line is the Loop's only through service; the other four lines circle the Loop and return to their starting points. The Loop forms a rectangle roughly 0. The loop crossing at Lake and Wells has been described in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's busiest railroad crossing.
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