While on my way to LoneStarCon 3 last week I had to change planes in Chicago, since there are no direct Toronto-San Antonio flights since that would be ridiculous. It did give me a brief chance to wander through part of O'Hare Airport between spells of cramming myself into a pressurized tube kilometers above the ground, at least. While there I encountered this skylit corridor that was oddly familiar--having had a chance to consider it, I think they may have done some filming here for Home Alone 2. Though I can't help but notice the thematic qualities of the place as well. Notice all the national flags along the arcade; also notice the American flag that takes a place of prominence at the far end, which is mirrored on the other side. Interesting.
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Parts of the 'L,' Chicago's rapid transit system, have been in service for more than a hundred years--and it shows. When it comes to structures so old, rust and grit are unavoidable. These tracks at North Franklin and West Ontario may not win any awards for cleanliness... but they are, at least, still standing, and for now that's what's important, I suppose.
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When the remnants of Hurricane Isaac crossed over Chicago on Saturday, many of the city's towers were almost entirely hidden inside thick clouds that scudded low over the ground. In this photo, taken from East Wacker Drive, the two transmission masts are the only sign of the John Hancock Center's existence.
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It's been a while since I was able to take good pictures of trains on the Chicago 'L' with a decent camera. Having just barely missed the Orange Line run I was angling for, I instead had a fair few minutes on the platform at State/Lake to watch the trains go by. Here, the camera looks west along the Loop to Clark/Lake, where an Orange Line train is taking on passengers and a Brown Line train is slowing to enter.
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The Chicago skyline is an inspiring sight when the sun sinks low to the ground, and the local tourist companies are more than aware of that fact. Therefore, when I had the chance to take in the view from the grounds of the Adler Planetarium, I was hardly the only person doing so--a whole gaggle of tourists taking a Segway tour had come by for it.
Personally, you'd have to pay *me* to get on one of these things. I mean, when you're riding around on a gyroscopically-stabilized two-wheeled conveyance while wearing a bright yellow helmet, you might as well be wearing a giant neon sign that flashes "TOURIST" over and over.
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It's easy to tell that Chicago has been an important city for a long time from the sheer amount of nineteenth-century buildings that still stand there. The Loop is full of structures that were already well-used by 1900, and while some newer buildings blend into that there are outliers; outliers like the Trump Tower, that shining silver structure up ahead, originally planned to be the tallest building in the world but eventually its builders settled on it being the second-tallest building in Chicago. This photo was taken at some point along N Wabash Avenue looking north in the autumn of 2009.
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This time last year we'd briefly stopped in Chicago, one of the last familiar places on the long road to British Columbia. I'd wanted to hop on the 'L' for old time's sake while I was there, but there wasn't enough time; the closest I came was on the Dan Ryan Expressway, when we passed by a presumably-northbound Red Line train stopped at 47th Station with eight of those good old 3200 series cars. I find it a bit odd that the nameplates are double-sided in this instance - I mean, is the average motorist really paying attention to that kind of information?
Also, pardon the dark blue at the top of the photo; it's an occupational hazard when you're taking pictures through a windshield.
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Although my second visit to Chicago wasn't nearly as long as my first, I did get the opportunity to wander about Millennium Park; a tonic after almost twelve hours on the road. It was a finer day than most of the ones that came up during my time there in 2009, and the blue skies reflected well on Cloud Gate. I'd never seen it photographed from this perspective before - all of the pictures I've seen are a lot closer to the bean - and I think it underscores that while it entirely stands apart from its surroundings in terms of design, to me it still feels like it belongs with them.
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There are some things that are undeniably products of their time: anything designed in the 1980s, for instance. On the other side of the equation there are things that not only look nothing like their contemporaries, but look so futuristic that in a hundred years people will probably still think of them as reflections of the jetpack future. Toronto City Hall is one of these things; another is the Marina City complex in downtown Chicago. Though designed in the 1950s and built in the 1960s, I think those towers have a uniquely timeless look about them.
I can't believe I didn't notice these buildings the first time I was there - the only reason I can think of was that it was raining pretty hard when I was in their neighborhood, and umbrellas greatly restrict city viewing. This photo was taken when my dad and I stopped there on our way to Vancouver. It was the carports that really did it for me. Imagine someone slams the gas on in one of those spots while the thing is on reverse... presumably there's something that would prevent them from taking a quick trip into the Chicago River.
Seriously, though. This place looks like where you'd expect George Jetson to have found his first apartment.
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I found this mailbox, painted to look like R2-D2 from Star Wars, outside the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago when I was there last October. The website it refers to, USPSjedimaster.com, seems to have been removed from the internet now, and the promotion dates back to at least March 2007. It seems to have been a contest to determine what Star Wars character would appear on a new stamp - it would seem that Yoda won.
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You know you've got a towering building on your hands when it's effectively impossible to fit it within a single photo while you're within walking distance. That's how it is with the Sears Willis Tower in Chicago, photographed here during one of the only instances of actual decent weather I experienced in the three days I was there. To me, it seems like one of those buildings that, like Toronto City Hall, will always look vaguely futuristic. At the top, the radio masts are just barely visible against a cloud - they might make pretty good zeppelin mooring masts, no?
Though it must get hot sometimes. After all, black's not the color you want to use if you want to decrease the planetary albedo.
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It seems to me that over the past few years, the Toronto Transit Commission has developed a particular talent for attracting complaints. It may be that these grumblings were already around, but only achieved their current prominence in the public discourse after the 1990s cuts gutted service. A great many of them are, in my opinion, completely unfounded. Say what you will about the TTC, but if you're one of those people who thinks it's the worst transit system in the world, all you're doing is exposing the depth of your ignorance and the lengths to which you'll go to attack something you don't personally like.
The impending fare increase has been generating more complaints, and even a protest in the form of today's TTC riders' strike. The question I've never seen answered by opponents of the fare increase is this: if not a hike, what are you willing to give up? I think the most important thing to have and to retain in this situation is perspective. The TTC is a major transit system, but it's not the only major transit system, and we can learn a great deal through comparison. It was true back in March, when I looked at the potential service cuts and fare increases faced by New York City's MTA, and it's still true today.
The Chicago Transit Authority, which operates that city's 'L' rapid-transit system and an extensive bus network, is right now giving a lesson in what could have been. The recession has been hammering transit agencies across North America, Chicago's included, and I think the TTC is fortunate to have come through in the state it's in. Here, the TTC has been selling the fare increase as a necessity in order to maintain and expand current levels of service. Yesterday Chicago barely avoided fare increases of its own, but at no small cost.
Chicago's rapid transit network is considerably more extensive than Toronto's, a result of much of it having been built by multiple competing private companies in the great age of transit before the automobile came and ruined everything. One thing I did notice during my analysis of the system was the relative infrequency of trains - in the Loop, at least, this is moderated by the sheer number of lines that pass through it, but further out from downtown the situation is different. In Toronto, unless something is seriously wrong the longest you'll wait for a train is 5-6 minutes - and that's on off-peak hours on a Sunday. Chicago's frequencies rarely come close to equalling that, even in rush hour.
And now the waits are going to get even longer. The Chicago Tribunereported today that fares in Chicago will remain at their current $2.25 per ride rather than increasing to $2.50 for bus fare and $3.00 for rail and express bus fare, thanks to a $166-million infusion from the Illinois state government, but at the expense of layoffs and service cuts. Nine of the CTA's express bus routes will shortly be cancelled and service frequencies will be reduced on more than two-thirds of the city's bus routes as well as 'L' trains - to the extent that outside rush hours, frequencies will be reduced to every 20-30 minutes.
This might not be so bad if you're waiting in a comfortable subway station. If you've never been to Chicago, you might not realize that the 'L' has very few of those. It's called the 'L' because the vast majority of it is elevated. In a response to my Tunnel Visions: The Chicago 'L' post last month, Chicagolander Strannik commented on what it's like to wait for a train in the winter:
About as unpleasant as you make it sound. All elevated stations are equipped with heater lamps, but there is usually not enough lamps for everyone. During the winter, you often see clumps of people huddled around heat lamps while everybody else looks on jealously. Oftentimes, the heat lamps don't even function properly. Blue Line Irving Park 'L' station is particularly notorious for heat lamps that do absolutely jack to warm the riders. Some stations do have indoor spaces where you can wait for the train to arrive (they're colloquially known as the "waiting rooms"), but they are rare.
What's more, recall that $166-million from Springfield? It doesn't come for free. It is, in fact, a loan. The Tribune's Clout St blog outlines it - the Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees the CTA as well as Metra and Pace, commuter rail and bus systems, is to pay off this loan at a rate of $15.3-million for the next two years, and $10-million a year until 2039. Even then, the CTA still has a $100-million deficit to solve.
The TTC has its problems, yes, but those problems are not structural. It's taken ten years for the system to climb back up from the lows of the 1990s, when provincial subsidies were removed and it was forced to reorganize and chop in order to survive. I still think the TTC is the better way, and I'll be riding it today.
Despite what I may have wrote yesterday in my analysis of the system, not all of the Chicago 'L' is metal and industrial - the nature of the track supports in the Loop isn't universal. Further out from downtown, differing architectural sensibilities found their way into the system. This portion of elevated track, diagonally spanning North Broadway at West Leland Avenue, entered service a hundred years ago and carries Red Line trains between Wilson and Lawrence stations. Toronto's system isn't nearly old enough to equal this sort of antique grandeur. The long history and differing design aesthetics of the 'L' system, I think, really give it a character that newer transit systems lack.
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Every once in a while, Acts of Minor Treason hops out of Toronto, lands in some other city with some other light- or heavy-rail transit system, and looks at different ways of getting around on two rails, whether it's on the ground, under it, or above it all.
The past few times I've travelled to the United States, it always felt like I was entering some strange and foreign Bizzaro World where everything was exactly the same except for extremely minor surface differences that leapt out everywhere. Chicago and Toronto have a great many things in common - they're both Great Lakes cities, they were once the Second Cities of their respective countries, and they both lack the sheer metropolitan weight of grand cities like New York or London. They're accessible.
This is especially true in terms of transit. Earlier this month I spent three rainy days in Chicago evaluating its subway-equivalent, the 'L.' I say subway-equivalent because "subway" is not the proper word in the Chicago context. The 'L' struck me as being very much like the Toronto subway system, turned inside out. Not only does a majority of Chicago's system run aboveground, it literally runs aboveground - it's called the 'L' because it's primarily an elevated rail system.
Even before my arrival in Chicago, I was curious about what I think of as "the paradox of the 'L.'" Chicago is one of the great cities of North America, with a population of 2.8 million to Toronto's 2.5 million - and had had a heavy-rail transit system in place more than fifty years before the opening of the first stretch of Toronto's subway. It operates a network that comprises nearly 171 kilometers of track, a length to which the Toronto subway and RT combined amount to barely more than a third.
To put it another way: Toronto's 32-station Yonge-University-Spadina line alone carries more passengers than the eight lines and 144 stations of the entire Chicago 'L' system combined. This hardly seems right to me. Chicago's been at it for longer than Toronto, both in operating a heavy-rail transit system and in being a metropolis. The exact answer as to why this is the case may be beyond this post, but I think an analysis of the Chicago 'L' system may be instructive in and of itself. Just because the 'L' isn't used as heavily doesn't mean that the TTC can't, or shouldn't, learn from the CTA's experience. Nor shouldn't it try to avoid the paradox of the 'L.'
A Loop-bound Purple Line train enters Sedgwick station
System
Heavy-rail service in Chicago began in 1892 with the first segment of what would become the 'L' built and run by the South Side Rapid Transit Railroad Company. As in Toronto, the early days of public transit in Chicago were dominated by private interests, but while in Toronto the railroad companies contented themselves with running streetcars, in Chicago they built their rails in the sky. Though 'L' service began with steam locomotives, it was electrified in 1898. While the Toronto Transportation Commission, forerunner of the modern TTC, was established in 1920 to put an end to wildly variant, divided fare systems within the City of Toronto, Chicago continued on with its private companies providing the public with a way to get around. Even its subways, under State Street and Dearborn Street, were begun under the aegis of private enterprise. It wasn't until 1947 that the 'L' network was unified under the control of the Chicago Transit Authority.
As I said before, the Chicago 'L' consists of eight individual lines serving a total of one hundred and forty-four stations, and while most are within Chicago's boundaries some extend into its suburbs - particulary the non-rush-hour Purple Line and the two-stop Yellow Line, or "Skokie Swift," the sole 'L' line that I did not ride during the course of my visit. The heart of the 'L' system is the central core of downtown Chicago, known as the Loop from the 'L' tracks that trace a circle above Lake Street, Wabash Avenue, Van Buren Street, and Wells Street. Seven of the eight 'L' lines extend into the Loop, bringing commuters and travellers to the heart of the city.
Unlike Toronto and Montreal, where the term "line" is interchangable with the physical infrastructure the trains travel through, the eight 'L' lines refer more to routes for individual trains, as is the case in the notoriously confusing New York City subway system. The elevated trackage in the Loop, particularly, is shared between Brown Line, Purple Line, Orange Line, Green Line, and Pink Line trains, and multiple stations north of the Loop are served by multiple lines. While this does mitigate the somewhat long headways of 'L' trains, it does require that passengers be alert and aware when they're boarding a train. This is particularly true in the Loop; while Purple Line, Pink Line, and Orange Line trains travel clockwise through it, Brown Line trains run counterclockwise, and Green Line trains can come or go from either direction. Woe to the inattentive traveller at Clark/Lake bound for Madison/Wabash, who boards a Brown Line train bound for Kimball.1
Much of the system, particularly in the built-up core of Chicago, is served by elevated rail. The State Street and Dearborn Street Subways are abbreviated underground segments that carry the Red and Blue Lines, respectively, through downtown, built to alleviate building congestion in the Loop in the 1930s. Portions of the Orange Line to Chicago Midway International Airport are at-grade along freight railroad right-of-ways, as is the "Dan Ryan" branch of the Red Line, so named because it runs in the median of the Dan Ryan Expressway, the same way Toronto's University-Spadina line runs in the median of Allen Road between Eglinton West and Wilson stations.
This section of elevated 'L' track above Wabash Avenue forms part of the Loop
Unlike the Toronto subway or the Montreal Metro, which are respectively anchored by Bloor-Yonge and Berri-UQAM stations, the nature of the Loop means that there is no one central station pulling in riders from across the city - although Clark/Lake in the Loop, bridging six lines and with a free transfer to the Red Line's Lake subway station, did see 5.2 million passengers in 2008. It wasn't until after I left Chicago that I learned one of the busiest 'L' stations is, in fact, 95/Dan Ryan, the southern terminus of the Red Line and the southernmost station in the system by a significant margin. This owes a lot to 95/Dan Ryan's nature as a commuter hub served by CTA and suburban Pace buses, similar to the TTC's Finch station, which in addition to TTC buses is served by York Region Transit, GO Transit, VIVA, and Brampton Transit buses. Even so, 95/Dan Ryan's 2008 passenger traffic of 4,372,074 is far outstripped by the weekday-only use of Bloor-Yonge station, which I calculated using TTC averages to be 51,797,400 passenger entries - and that's for the Yonge portion alone, as the TTC separates transfer stations between lines for the purposes of ridership calculation.
As for Clark/Lake, possibly the most complex station on the entire 'L' network, touching every line except for the Yellow? Ridership figures for August 2009 show that on an average weekday, 18,599 people entered turnstiles there. The nine stations of the Loop put together saw 70,666 entrances on the average weekday, a 6.2% drop from August 2008. I can only imagine that this is because gas was not quite as expensive this year as it was last year. There are nine stations in Toronto that have individually greater entrance numbers.
Nevertheless, the 'L' brings transit access to a sufficiently large area that it's possible to live car-free in Chicago, or spend three days wandering around there without having to step into a taxicab or rental car. Rapid transit service extends to both O'Hare International Airport, via the Blue Line, and Chicago Midway International Airport, via the Orange Line. Midway is barely more than half an hour away from the Loop, which is good considering that international travellers have to check in a minimum of two hours before departure there.
An Orange Line train waits for travellers at Midway station
As of this writing, regular CTA fares are a uniform $2.25 on the 'L' and buses, though discounted fares are available for students and people with disabilities, while members of the United States Armed Forces and senior citizens can ride for free. The issue of free rides for seniors is a rather charged one presently, as it's seen to contribute much to the CTA's current budget deficit. For my part, I got around with an unlimited-use three-day pass which I bought from a vending machine at Midway station for $14. It's best that I did, because the system as a whole seems set up to discourage the use of money over passes or fare cards. As in Toronto, there's no change given for overpaid fares, but in Toronto you can access the entire system with cash. During the course of my observations, I didn't see a single point of access into an 'L' station that would allow a passenger to pay with cash. The three-day pass I got was simple to use - I feed it into one slot on the turnstile, and retrieve it once it's ejected from another - though I really had to yank it out of the machines. They keep a firm grip, they do.
Stations
Stairs to the Green and Brown Line platform of State/Lake station
The first thing you need to know, hopefully so that you sound like less of a knownothing tourist, is that when a slash appears in an 'L' station name, it means "and." Thus, State/Lake is pronounced "State and Lake." Now then...
Being a primarily elevated rail system, it's no surprise that Chicago 'L' stations differ significantly from their Toronto or Montreal counterparts. While those two cities generally have station buildings on the surface - in Toronto, downtown is the only place where this isn't the case - this isn't always the case in Chicago. For some 'L' stations, their only real footprints are the entry staircases. Other stations, such as Wilson on the Red Line, reflect the era in which they were built with an ornate stone kiosk surmounted by tracks, while many underground stations along the State Street and Dearborn Street Subways invert this; from the surface, they're also nothing but staircases, but heading down. Of all the stations I visited on the 'L,' Logan Square on the Blue Line was the only one with an aesthetic similar to the average Toronto subway station.
To be perfectly honest, a number of the elevated stations I visited struck me as being the Theme Park Versions of a public transit system - they seemed to me like the sort of structures that wouldn't be entirely out of place in Frontierland. They had a generally old-timey feel to me, something which is specifically emphasized at Quincy station, echoing the dawn of the 20th century. Both inside and outside the Loop, many elevated station platforms are just planked wood framed in steel. They're not particularly friendly as far as inclement weather goes, either, something I had no shortage of opportunities to discover, considering that it rained every day I was in Chicago.2 While there are roofs, they don't cover the entire platform. Sometimes they don't even cover the platform around the stairs. To me, it added to the somewhat gritty and industrial feeling that permeated the 'L' - stations that aren't refined, but purely functional. Rosedale and Davisville are the Toronto stations most reminiscent of this 'L' standard, and they are both far more enclosed than any elevated station I explored.
I don't even want to imagine what it would be like waiting for an 'L' train in the winter. Very few, if any, of the elevated stations I visited had anything as luxurious as walls. This was even true of the stations along the Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line, with cars speeding along the expressway a matter of feet away from the edge of the rails. On some days it might be invigorating. Others... not so much.
A view of the platform in Clark/Division station
Chicago's underground stations, far more comfortable in inclement weather, are fascinating in themselves. The ones I visited, in the State Street Subway along the Red Line, predate the Toronto subway by barely more than a decade - the State Street Subway opened in 1943, while service began along the original Yonge subway in 1954 - yet their architecture and design aesthetic seems closer to the nineteenth century than the mid-twentieth.
This may be partially due to the design. Though Toronto's highly reflective Vitrolite glass tiles have been removed or covered over in all stations that had them except Eglinton, the tunnel walls are frequently nothing but naked concrete. This is mitigated somewhat in side-platform stations like North/Clybourn, where the platform walls are tiled over, but in center-platform stations such as Clark/Division or Grand, it's a bit unwelcoming. Furthermore, there seemed to be a lot less lighting in the stations than their Toronto counterparts. Still - aside from the font, the appearance of the station name etched into the tiled walls really reminded me of home.
The station name at Clark/Division, formerly with ampersand!
I never encountered strong smells of any sort in the underground stations, which was thankful, but in some cases I didn't encounter much of anything. At one point, while waiting on the platform at Grand station in the early afternoon, the hairs on the back of my neck went up when I realized that aside from the other people present, there was no ambient noise of any kind. Granted, it could be a result of the renovations which were ongoing at the time of my visit, but I still found it rather disturbing. All in all, if I was looking for a place to film a Sinister Subway, I'd head to the State Street Subway.
For a more in-depth look at Chicago underground stations, I refer you to the videos of YouTube user artistmac. I've embedded one where he walks through Lake station on the Red Line - hopefully this will bring it more to life. If the surroundings seem vaguely familiar, it may be because this is the same entrance, albeit redesigned, that Larry and Balki emerged from in the opening of the 1980s sitcom Perfect Strangers. It is, thankfully, a lot brighter than I found Clark/Division to be.
Equipment
Wikipedia tells me that the CTA's trains are "streetcar-derived," and that Toronto had considered the use of similar vehicles for its own subway while it was still under construction. Rush hour would have been significantly more cramped had the TTC tilted that way. Chicago's trains, to me, occupy a strange middle ground, between the narrowness of the ICTS trains on the Scarborough RT and the comparative spaciousness of modern Toronto subway cars. My first impression of the 3200-series cars, which form the backbone of 'L' service today, was that they felt intermediate between Montreal and Toronto rolling stock - that in terms of size and seating arrangements, which on the Orange Line includes single seats, they were "almost like big streetcars." As it turns out, they are just slightly smaller than, and ultimately most individually comparable to, the CLRVs that anchor Toronto's present streetcar service. At sufficiently low speeds, they even sounded like streetcars to me.
As in Toronto and Montreal, the Chicago 'L' has an automated announcement system, and while in the former two cities it's used solely to announce next-stop information, in Chicago it's played to the hilt. The announcer, who first struck me as reminiscent of a past voice of the Walt Disney World Monorail System, frequently makes public service announcements. One of the first I heard informed me that "soliciting and gambling" are prohibited on all CTA vehicles. Barely fifteen minutes out from Midway Airport this struck me as rather odd - sure, I can understand that something like that would be against the rules, but has gambling on the 'L' been so out of control that the CTA needs to specifically speak against it?
It jumps the gun, too. Chicago trains have door chimes just like Toronto ones, although not the same tone, and they frequently went off while passengers were still alighting, let alone while people were still boarding from the platform. At least when the door-closing chimes sound after two seconds at Sheppard Line stations, at least I know they mean it. Take this video I recorded of a trip from Clark/Lake to Chicago/Franklin, during which the announcement that "Merchandise Mart is next" helpfully came while the train was actually inMerchandise Mart station.
On the whole, trains in Chicago are smaller than trains in Toronto. Though eight-car trains can be brought into service during rush hour, in my experience off-peak service included nothing more lengthy than four-car trains, and apparently the Yellow Line to Skokie gets by with two-car trains. Contrast that to Toronto, where six cars are the standard and four-car trains are used only on the Sheppard Line, which itself has higher ridership than three of the eight 'L' lines (Purple, Pink, and Yellow, if you must know).
Left: A Chicago 'L' train at Southport station. Right: A Toronto subway train departing Rosedale station, the most 'L'-like of any station in Toronto except for, you know, not being elevated
Like the Montreal Metro and the Scarborough RT, Chicago 'L' trains run with a one-person crew, with the operator also serving as the guard when the train is at a station, watching out to make sure the doors don't close on anyone. It's fortunate, too, because if the announcements are any indication, if it was left up to automatics no train would dwell at a station for longer than two seconds.
Ease of Access and Ease of Use
I used to take it for granted that I could end up on a subway platform and never have to wait more than five minutes to start heading where I was going, regardless of whether it was the middle of rush hour or ten minutes to midnight on Sunday night. My travels and my researches both have demonstrated that Toronto appears to be an outlier when it comes to headways (that is, time separation between trains). The 5-6 minute separation between trains on the Sheppard Line and Scarborough RT is the longest you'll find in the Toronto system - but in Chicago, outside of rush hours, it's rare you'll find a headway that equals that. From 7:14 AM to 1:20 PM on weekdays, the scheduled frequency of northbound Blue Line trains is 7-10 minutes, and between 10:54 AM and 1:20 PM you'll have to wait fully 10 minutes between southbound trains.
I never knew how good I had it here.
Nor are there any fare-paid transfers, that I could find, from trains to buses. Stations in the Loop don't have room for terminals, but there's not much attention given to that elsewhere in the system. Most boarding zones I found were simple curbside stops, and even where there's allowance at a station for buses to stop, as at Logan Square or Midway, the bus loading zone is on the far side of the turnstiles. This is a significant contrast to Toronto, where passengers can climb directly from the subway platforms to bus loading area while remaining inside the fare-paid zone. I have, however, come to the conclusion that Toronto is effectively unique in this regard; I don't know of any other transit agency that's designed its stations to enable this.
If you're lugging a bike along with you, the CTA is willing to help. Much like the TTC, it's begun installing bicycle racks on its buses, and bicycles are allowed on 'L' trains - two per car, with a sticker saying as much on each and every car - except from 7 to 9 AM and 4 to 6 PM on weekdays, mirroring Toronto's prohibition on bringing them aboard when rush hour commuters are busy cramming the cars, as well as all Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, but not July 3rd. I have no idea why this is. I've never been in the United States on July 4th, but I guess maybe there are a lot of people going back and forth the day before.
Some stations on the 'L' aren't exactly friendly to transfers. This may well be a result of the system's origins as lines established and run by competing private companies. While the consolidation of Clark/Lake station in 1992 permitted free transfers between the elevated platform and the underground Blue Line platform, in other cases stations that one might think were connected are entirely separate. The Red Line, in particular, is entirely disconnected from the rest of the system within the Loop; though the names are similar, Lake station on the Red Line and the elevated State/Lake station are entirely separate, and passengers must exit the Red Line fare-paid area and pay another fare at State/Lake in order to proceed.
The layout of some stations can also be confusing for the uninitiated, owing to the degree of interlining in the Loop. At State/Lake, access to the Green and Brown Lines is by staircases on one side of Lake Street, while the Orange, Purple, and Pink lines must be accessed from the other side. It's a system that demands forethought and knowing exactly how you want to get where you're going. What really makes it irritating is that some stations like State/Lake have no platform crossovers within the fare-paid area. This means that if you pass through the turnstiles only to find you're on the wrong platform and try to go around to the right one, since you used your card only minutes before you'll be locked out and unable to proceed.3
Sometimes, you just have to be a local. While the 'L' signage is good, it isn't perfect. There was one notable occasion when it wasn't until I reached the platform that I found signage telling me I was at Library-State/Van Buren station. I don't have the same complaint with the trains; given the degree of interlining, they have no choice but to have good signage. Rollsigns indicating the train's destination are present not just at either end of the train, as they are in Toronto and Montreal, but on both sides of the train as well, and are color-coded to indicate what line the train's running. It's fairly straightforward, too - with the exception of the Yellow Line, which forever shuttles between Howard and Skokie stations, all trains are bound either for their terminus or the Loop. There, it's just a matter of knowing whether you're on a clockwise or counterclockwise train that makes the difference.
Orange Line rollsigns are clearly visible on this train, stopped in the elevated portion of Roosevelt station
Conclusion
I haven't been able to unravel the paradox of the 'L.' It's something which is most definitely beyond the scope of a simple analysis such as this, and all I have is conjecture. Chicago's been a metropolis for a lot longer than Toronto, so it could be that it had a far greater opportunity to go all-out when the age of suburbanization started, and lost a greater share of CTA riders than did Toronto. Nevertheless, the TTC remains a system used heavily by the city's middle-class, and I never got the impression that things were different on the 'L.' It might also be that because the CTA is a far more bus-oriented system than the TTC, it's more convenient for people to take buses rather than trains from point A to point B. I suppose that, in the end, it's just a bit strange for me to see a system that appears far vaster and more comprehensive than Toronto's, but which is used less.
It'd be better for everyone if more people did ride it. I've written before about the CTA's recent "budget doomsday," and apparently it has a reputation for doing that sort of thing on a regular basis. Apparently it's come up with a new idea; right now the CTA is negotiating with Apple for 10-year advertising rights in and first naming rights to North/Clybourn station, which struck me as an Art Deco North York Centre station, in exchange for $4 million to fix it up. That's a whole argument in and of itself, but I really don't think it's the sort of recourse a public transit operator should be eager to take.
I'd appreciate feedback from any Chicagoans who might have a better handle on the situation - I'm sure there's a great deal of aspects to the system that I didn't pick upon from the limited length of my experience.
1 Not me. Fortunately. 2 I'm not bitter. Really. 3 This one actually did happen to me. Fortunately, the extraordinarily close stop spacing in the Loop meant I only had to walk two minutes to Madison/Wabash.
Despite the altogether beastly weather that characterized most of my time in Chicago, there were still enough breaks in the rain for me to at least cursorily explore its downtown. The elevated portions of Millennium Park, effectively an outdoor art gallery that has no Torontonian compare, provided an excellent vantage point for city photography. This photo looks down the urban canyon of East Washington Street, one or two blocks away from the 'L' tracks over Wabash Avenue.
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Of the three days I spent in Chicago earlier this month, it rained every damn day. Seeing as how it's considerably more annoying to take photographs while holding an umbrella, and that excessive moisture in the air seems to drive down the quality of the photos I take, it was not very pleasant. The transition from overcast to driving rain was always rapid, too. Twenty minutes in the Adler Planetarium was enough for me to bridge the gap from "grey but okay" to driving rain.
I actually think that, in this circumstance, it actually improved this photo of the Chicago skyline from what it might have otherwise been.
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When it comes to public transit, there aren't that many cities in North America with which Toronto can treat as equals. New York City's transit system is massive, complex, and wide-ranging, only befitting the city it serves, while Los Angeles has gone from its days of Pacific Electric glory to operating what may well be the shittiest heavy-rail transit network for a city of its size on the continent. Chicago, though - Chicago is comparable.
A CTA bus northbound on Chicago's Michigan Avenue on October 3, 2009
Transit in Chicago is run by the Chicago Transit Authority, or CTA, which operates and maintains the city's bus routes and 'L' heavy-rail network. Like Toronto, it's had to deal with the rise of the suburban impulse cutting deep into the marrow of its business as passengers jump ship for automobiles. The general impression I get, though, is that when it comes to financing its operations, the CTA is on considerably shakier ground than the TTC.
Though I've not been following its situation for long, the research I've done so far and current reports in the Chicago media suggest that the CTA has historically predicted "transit doomsdays" if it wasn't able to get governmental assistance in making up its shortfalls. This year, that assistance doesn't seem forthcoming. The Chicago Tribune pulls no punches in describing it as a "CTA budget crisis," with the CTA scrambling to plug a $300 million hole that appears to constitute fully one-quarter of its 2010 budget.
It actually reminds me very much of what the TTC went through around 1995, after Mike Harris led the Progressive Conservatives into Queen's Park and cancelled provincial subsidies. The TTC is now somewhat self-sustaining for the most part, getting the majority of its operating funds from the farebox, and though I didn't live in Toronto at the time, everything I've read suggests that was a dark era for the TTC.
The problem is, I'm not sure what the CTA could do to dig itself out of the hole it's been dropped in. Many of the things that could be done to save money are already being done. My understanding is that the crew of a vehicle is the largest portion of its operating expense, and Chicago 'L' trains are run by one person, while Toronto trains have an operator and a guard. Automatic entry at 'L' stations likewise cuts down on the number of personnel necessary. Given that much of the CTA's infrastructure is aboveground, in contrast to the primarily underground nature of the Toronto subway, it seems to me that there'd be more necessity for maintenance than in Toronto - and its physical system is significantly larger, as well.
So they've gone to the farebox and to schedule manipulation. Unless money rains from the sky, or from Springfield, next February the CTA will raise its fares from an across-the-board $2.25 to $2.50 for a bus ride and $3 for a train ride, and service will likely be slashed as well. This disassociation of fares is odd, but can work the way the Chicago transit system is set up - unlike in Toronto, there appear to be no free transfers between trains and buses - although seeing that more than a million people daily ride buses in Chicago compared to 650,000 on 'L' trains, maybe the agency might be better served in the long term by an across-the-board fare hike to $2.75, the same as it currently stands in Toronto, particularly with the Canadian and American dollars rapidly approaching parity.
Another odd thing about Chicago's system that's turning out to be a deep, dark money pit is its policy of free rides for seniors, which appears to have been rammed through by disgraced ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich in 2008 for some reason - I haven't yet been able to find anything explaining why. The Tribune reports that the CTA has no plans to ask for the Illinois government to reverse this - because, really, setting out to take Grandma's free rides away might not make you the most popular organization in the city. This is compared to Toronto's $1.85 discount for senior riders, the same as students - I'm not sure if anyone other than infants can ride the system for free.
It seems to me that the CTA may be hemorrhaging money - the Tribune credits CTA President Richard Rodriguez with the statement that it costs the agency $7 to provide a ride, whereas the recent noise over Metropass fare shortfalls comes from the TTC making an average of $1.77 per trip when it expected to make $1.80. Hopefully I'm comparing wildly different things here, because if these two sets of figures are talking about the same thing, Chicago doesn't look like it's in a good place at all.
The CTA is hardly the only transit operator to be clobbered by the recession. I recall the example of St. Louis, which slashed a quarter of its bus routes back in March in spite of the number of people who relied on that city's transit system to get around. Nevertheless, I do think that Toronto is on far firmer ground than Chicago in that respect, and it may be in part because Toronto's heavy-rail infrastructure is less extensive. When the CTA was formed in 1947, it inherited an elevated rail network assembled by multiple competing transit companies over the course of fifty years in a time when personal automobile ownership was limited to the well-off, and today it serves Chicago as well as forty surrounding suburbs, twenty-four hours a day - including two 'L' lines. Toronto's subway was built in stages even during the explosion of the suburban ethos. The impression I get is that in some ways, the CTA's network is a reflection of a bygone age, and that the fixed system may be too big for the city it serves. While that will be an advantage soon enough, for now it may be making it even harder to make up the money to run the system today.
Keep this in mind, Torontonians, when the TTC makes noise about how it's "losing money" off of Metropass users. The TTC is vital and is embarking on plans for expansion. In Chicago, evey year the CTA seems to forecast armageddon.
Chicago Midway International Airport, the city's second international airport behind O'Hare and the one I flew into and out of earlier this month, was named such in 1949 in honor of the American victory at the Battle of Midway. Midway was one of those "unlikely victories," highly dependent on unusual and time-sensitive circumstances like the distracted Japanese fighter cover, the dive-bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown discovering the Japanese carrier force at just the right time, and so on.One of those dive-bombers, an SBD Dauntless, now hangs from the roof at Chicago Midway International Airport on the way Concourse A. It's the centerpiece of a memorial to the battle, the only one I can ever recall seeing.
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Toronto's Lawrence Avenue has given its name to two TTC subway stations, Lawrence and Lawrence West, the latter of which was also used as a very painful character name pun in Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe. Chicago, as it turns out, also has a Lawrence Avenue, which gave its name to Lawrence 'L' station a full fifty years before the one in Toronto was built. Interestingly enough, one stop south of it is Wilson station, another name which is duplicated in Toronto's system.
Lawrence station was the farthest north I travelled in Chicago. Though rebuilt in 1995, it still retains much of the turn-of-the-century wood and naked steel construction that seems to be common across the 'L' system. What I didn't notice until now, though, is that the Lawrence platform appears to lack the platform-edge safety strips that are universal in Toronto and common in Chicago, as well.
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I'm not going to make any bones about this, today. Evil is common in the world, and it's frequently done by people who honestly believe they're doing good. I see it again and again. The most brazen and galling example of it that's crossed my awareness recently took place in Oak Brook, Illinois, a quiet and wealthy suburb of Chicago. The Daily Herald - "Suburban Chicago's Information Source" - recently covered a conflict between the supporters and opponents of the Oak Brook Public Library.
The face of the anti-library faction appears to be Constantine "Connie" Xinos, who from all appearances could not be any more of an asshole if he tried. "I wanted that kid to lose sleep that night," he was quoted as saying with a grin as he responded to his vitriolic rebuttal to an 11-year-old girl who spoke about how she missed having on-staff librarians to help her.
Oak Brook, according to Xinos, should "stop indulging people in their hobbies ... their little, personal, private wants," and that if people opposed the layoffs of the Oak Brook Public Library staff, they should raise the money themselves. Considering that the median household income in Oak Brook is $146,537, that might not necessarily be a difficult prospect, but that's not the goddamn point. The point is how this is a blatant undermining of the foundation of modern society.
Xinos, according to the article, launched an unsuccessful lawsuit to prevent the construction of the library - and why? Because it costs public money to run. While he's quoted as saying his philosophy is "conservative," his reference to the necessary role of government being "to catch bad guys, put out fires, fix the streets and make sure buildings are sturdy" is more than enough to pin him as a libertarian.
Libertarianism is a philosophy that's particularly strong in the United States, a philosophy which seeks to maximize personal liberty and states that government should have as little responsibility as possible, and that most services other than national defense should be the balliwick of the free market. There's a long libertarian strain in sf; Vernor Vinge has written a few, including "The Ungoverned," a short story in the same universe as Marooned in Realtime, where law enforcement is privatized and individuals can own arsenals usually reserved for militaries. The only issue is that there's very little middle ground in libertarianism, from what I can see - most of its supporters seem to be rabid supporters.
That's fine, in its way, but I draw the line at the health of society. Actively seeking to shut down a library system is not reflective of an interest in the health of society. Libertarianism exists today because our ancestors created a system through which the average person could, at no cost to themselves, learn and educate and enrich themselves. The 19th century industrialist Andrew Carnegie's most enduring legacy may well be the system of Carnegie libraries, 2,509 libraries built around the world and financed by him, built specifically so that people living in poverty could improve themselves, the way Carnegie himself had gone from poverty to plutocracy.
It may be that attitudes have shifted in the intervening years. A hundred years ago, there was a general appreciation of education in culture, because people knew that it was the road out of poverty - an education made the difference between unskilled ditchdigging labor, say, and far more lucrative professional employment. It's taken far more for granted today, I think, enabling people like Xinos to call for the piecemeal destruction of that enlightening infrastructure while standing atop the pedestal it built.
I don't care what your justification is. If you're actively seeking to shut down a library, not because of budget shortfalls or other sad exigencies but because you just can't sleep at night knowing that people are enlightening themselves on your dime, as far as I concerned you are a villain and an enemy of modern civilization.
