nat sounds of CTA
NARRATION: There’s no question that Chicago’s elevated rail system keeps the city – and suburbs – moving. But just who exactly is moving? Are they getting where they need to go, on time? Who is choosing to ride the L, and who doesn’t have the choice? Who is being served by the current system, and who isn’t? How do we make these systems better for everyone, and can we?
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I’m Allison Rauch, and this is Elevating, a new podcast series from WNUR News.
NARRATION: Episode 2: Who is the L for?
It’s undeniable that in a metropolitan city, public transportation is and should be accessible to everyone. And in some ways, Chicago’s system is.
PATRICK REARDON: This is sort of the epitome of public transportation. In a city – in a country with such huge gaps between the rich and the poor, this is a relatively affordable way to get around.
That’s Patrick Reardon, author of a book about the Loop. In it, Reardon argues that the Loop is the heart of Chicago, allowing people from all over the city to circulate downtown.
REARDON: There’s a mix of the classes on the Ls. So if you’re riding, you’re riding south on the red line, you know, you’ve got people that are are lawyers and inductors and homeless people, you know, if you’re riding from the West, you’re getting people from Oak Park, who are homeowners getting on and then working, getting on with people with people who are laborers…So it’s not perfect, you know, but it is it is a way in which the races are able to to to experience together the classes the economic classes can experience together. And it makes it possible for people to get around to two jobs.
Therefore the L seems fairly egalitarian, at least at face level. However, just because something is technically accessible to everyone doesn’t mean it caters equally to all populations. Chicago continues to be a highly segregated city, with large numbers of Black Chicagoans historically living on the South Side of the city.
BRIAN STEELE: Why is it that the sub far south side of Chicago is the only part of the city that does not have real service?
That’s Brian Steele, Vice President of Communications for the CTA. The CTA is rolling out a Red Line Extension project, designed to address long-standing inequalities in rail service access on the Far South Side. Right now, the Red Line only goes down to 95th Street. That’s around 30 blocks from the city limits.
STEELE: It’s not an exaggeration to say that the Red Line Extension will be the most transformational transit project in a half century in the city of Chicago…The Red Line Extension calls for a 5.6 mile extension from the current southern end of the Red Line, which is 95th Street, all the way down to 130th street and there will be four stations constructed as part of that. This project will address a 50 plus year gap – actually longer than that – gap in rail transit service to the far south side of Chicago, the south suburbs. Those areas have been cut off from the benefits of real public transit since the original red line opened in 1969. There have been promises made and initial planning done over the decades, nothing ever moves forward….The investment that we’re making in the stations we believe will foster development down there. commercial, residential, educational.
It’s a good sign that the CTA is now willing to invest in providing rail access to traditionally underserved populations. But as always, the bottom line will be funding.
STEELE: It is not an inexpensive project, the current price tag is $3.6 billion, which sounds like a lot of money because it is a lot of money. But the $3.6 million, certainly it’s a cost. We also view it as an investment and investment in communities and investment in people and investment in fostering opportunity and an investment in addressing a long standing inequity…We have secured a little about $2 billion of the project cost through various funding streams, local, state and federal. Later this year, the federal government is anticipated to provide us essentially the balance of this project about a billion dollars that will enable us to actually start moving forward with the process on this project. The federal government has signaled that this is the type of project that they want to support. It falls right in line with the priorities of the current presidential administration, which is talked about equity projects that will be transformational for communities and promote opportunity. So we we are very close to crossing the finish line for the Red Line Extension and hope that we will be able to make a very positive announcement at the end of this year.
Federal funding in particular is an uncomfortable aspect of the Red Line Extension project. Without it, the project likely will be impossible. And though, as Steele said, federal funding is “anticipated,” it’s not guaranteed. Not to mention, the current presidential administration might be different come November.
JOSEPH SCHWEITERMAN: The Red Line Extension is our most ambitious effort to solve it. Unfortunately, it’s just enormously expensive.
That’s Joseph Schweiterman, a professor of transportation at DePaul University. He also serves as director of DePaul’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.
SCHWEITERMAN: Just to say right, bluntly, we have to improve mobility in the far south side. It’s just that what we have today is not acceptable…I think the Red Line Extension is a really important project. But it’s critical we don’t let the cost spin out of control. Because you couldn’t build this and find that, that doesn’t meet its ridership goals, which would be a crying shame to make people wait, I’m just editorializing now, wait eight years until it’s open, so long time before you open this. And that could be delays and construction. There could be new forms of transportation that emerge like you know, a lot of people are using shared Uber trips to get hard to reach locations and car ownership’s growing up so there’s a lot of risk with the Red Line Extension is all I’m saying.
Schweiterman hits at an important point. To improve transportation accessibility in the far south side of Chicago, it will likely take more than just four more Red Line stops.
SCHWEITERMAN: It’s going to take a multi pronged approach to help disadvantaged populations, there’s no one solution. For example, many are working in warehouses in the south suburbs. Now, you know, Amazon’s gonna have all these warehouses and people coming from poor neighborhoods, marginalized neighborhoods, and they have to get there and that’s really tough on transit the way it’s set up today. So like Pace Suburban Bus if you Google that they have different sharing programs so you can take Metra or Pace and a little van will pick you up and take you to the warehouse and that’s part of their new strategy to get people these big warehouses. That’s got to be part of the mix. We also know that people who have shifts that get out at say midnight may not feel comfortable being on the L we just have to be realistic about whether a woman traveling alone at one in the morning will be comfortable taking the hours remaining creative options for those populations to so.
Joseph Schofer, emeritus professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University, also discussed these other potential approaches.
JOSEPH SCHOFER: It’s huge, that’s a primary. That’s the real argument for the Red Line Extension. I mean, from a, from a transit, transportation service point of view, if you took the same amount of money, and you allocated it to some other kind of service, a bus, a really good bus service, very dense coverage and frequent service, you probably you could get more and better transportation. But there’s the equity issue….we’re the low income minority population in the city. And we’re the only part that doesn’t really doesn’t have rails or service. So you really, equity is the is the main reason. And it’s very, it’s, it’s very expensive. And, and the the sad part is, if you look at the population density maps down there, what you’ll see is there’s a huge amount of open land. So, does it make sense to provide that kind of service to open land, you know and the counter argument is, well, maybe if they have better transit service, that that land will be developed. And people have better better living circumstances. What you’d hope, and I’m not really deeply familiar with the city policy, is that the policy is not just to build the Red Line Extension, but it’s to build the community Red Line Extension being a part of it.
Aside from making service more accessible to traditionally underserved communities, there’s the issue of improving quality of service for all. Schofer noted the benefits of reliable transportation.
JOSEPH SCHOFER: Transit plays – transportation in general, plays a huge economic and social role in society to do really well with transportation, if you give people really good service, you’re going to see the results in terms of employment in terms of education…last 3040 years, we’ve looked at public transit market in two clumps, there’s the captive riders who don’t have a choice. So I don’t have a car or I can’t drive, I’m too young, I’m too old. And, and so I ride back mass transit. And there’s the choice riders. And we always talk about the choice riders in the policy process, because on environmental grounds, you know, so if I can get you out of your car and onto the train, it’s better for the for the environment, but but you’re not a captive rider. So I can only get you onto the train, if I give you better service, so if I give you some advantage, I don’t have to do that for the captive riders. And so there is an unpleasant tendency to give the captive riders sort of the minimum reasonable service as opposed to a better quality service that you might want to give to a choice riders.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was largely these captive riders who remained on the L. Now that ridership numbers are creeping back up, there’s disgruntlement about wait times, lack of trains, safety, cleanliness – you name it. Schweiterman broadly outlined the current situation.
SCHWEITERMAN: The CTA knows that the situation we have today is not tenable that we have to be mindful of the problems of the homeless and, and the terrible housing shortage we have, while also allowing essential workers to feel they can have a pleasant predictable writing experience, we have to reconcile how we’re going to do that. And that’s a really, really hard problem…people that rely on the L deserve a higher quality riding experience. And that’s it’s really a shame a lot of people are being scared away by transit right now. I think it’s getting better. You know, the more people are on the trains, the better CTA is crowded you feel like you’ve got a support system around you more eyes on the car, and we’re seeing traffic gradually build up and so that’s been a good thing.
Next episode, we’ll talk more about these specific problems, as well as some problems on the operational side.
SCHWEITERMAN: Do we try to build back up to pre pandemic and not cause anybody to face service reductions or that we rethink the system?
SCHOFER: Why can’t we have high speed rail in the United States? And the answer is you’re not willing to pay for it.
STEELE: We will not compromise safety for the sake of expediency as it relates to hiring.
Thanks for listening to Elevating. For WNUR News, I’m Allison Rauch.
Theme: Fight to the End
