When you encounter a city such as Chicago, it is practically impossible to avoid CTA and Metra trains. From short store errands to long journeys home, the CTA is there as your personal downtown car. If you do not have enough money to put into owning a car or simply do not want to put up with trying to find parking in the congested city, the CTA is there for you. Where more people to use the CTA, the amount of gas polluting the earth would significantly decrease the pollution levels in Chicago. Since there aren't as many cars on the road, it not only decreases the carbon monoxide leaking from cars but the amount of cars on the road, which also decreases the amount of people on the road. Numerous laws state how using the CTA could benefit people in Chicago overall. These are just some of the reasons Metra and the CTA has impacted everything from population to economics and even political and environmental issues.
Throughout the history of Chicago, trains have always played a big role in its development. In the early years of Chicago's booming economy, trains would bring cattle into the slaughter yards, where they would be slain and butchered for meat and then shipped elsewhere. This region near the south side, became known as the stock yards. Another neighborhood started right beyond it, known as the back of the yards. This neighborhood grew from people who moved into the region to work in the yards.
Coming off of this fact, we see that in Chicago's early history, it had a great population boom due to its extremely prosperous economy. Many immigrants came over the years looking for political stability and personal freedoms in America along with other migrants looking for work which all were readily available to them within Chicago. These waves, including the Great Black Migration, the Baby Boom after the wars, and also the Hispanic migration increased the population within the city quite dramatically. Between 1800 and 2000, Chicago's population has grown steadily at a rate of ……….
This has made the need for Chicago's rapid transit system essential. Most of the growth of the rapid transit system in Chicago started in 1888, when street cars were used to help ease congestion of people and goods moving around the city. (Moffat, )
Eventually, the streets became too densely crowded and the solution to avoid this problem was to elevate the trains. This was seen in New York City in 1867 when they had a similar problem with overcrowding in the city. Then, in 1869, a bill was proposed to the Illinois State legislature asking for approval to build the elevated rail system within the city. However, it did not pass because the state legislatures did not feel that it was an appropriate action to be used for the overcrowding problem the city was having. (Moffat, ) Instead, this led to another new innovative transit technology called the subway. The Chicago Subway Arcade and Traction company which was started in 1894 tried to excavate its way through the politics in order to mine a 35 mile subway that would have shopping centers within the stations which was never started or completed due to problems with the city not wanting to grant a franchise. (Moffat)
By this time, there were four prominent transit companies operating trains within the city. They were the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, the Lake Street Elevated Railroad, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad, and the Northwestern Elevated Railroad. They operated lines which were basically built without permission by buying land and having help from politicians who basically looked at this as a way to make a quick large profit. (Moffat, )
Another law that led to more problems for the early transit systems in Chicago was the Cities and Villages Act. This act was put in place by the Illinois State Legislatures in 1872, and it regulated how cities would have authority to decide the use of their streets for municipal services such as police departments and fire departments. Property owners would use this in their defense, because Chicago's politicians usually favored property owners to gain support for campaigns. This in turn, shut down many ideas for new routes with street cars, buses, major railways, and even horse drawn coaches.
Finally, in 1892, the Columbian Intramural Railway began its construction. It went from the North loop to the South loop with 8 stops between to transport people and goods to and from the Colombian Exposition in 1893. The track had a length of 3 miles and was built with joint construction from the Western Dummy Company and the Thompson-Houston Electric Company (Moffat, ). The success from this train line would forever change the outlook for elevated railways throughout the city.
Another great innovation was the modern electrification of the elevated railways. This discovery was made by a former associate of Thomas Edison named Frank J. Sprague (Cudahy, 24). He invented an electrical system that is centered around multiple-unit control. Meaning that each car, that had their own electrical motors, could be operated by a single man that was in the cab of the leading car which meant no more dummy cars which were steam powered to push the passenger cars. In 1897, Sprague was able to show how it was used when he was contracted by the Lake Street “L” and it was then adopted into use by the other elevated railroad companies by 1898 (Cudahy, 25).
This than started a revolution and we began to see the construction of many elevated railway systems throughout the city. In the south side, we had the constructions of the Alley “L” and the South Side Elevated Railroad. There was the Lake Street “L” which extended to the Chicago and Oak Park Railroad by 1912 (Moffat, 111). Then, the Metropolitan West Side Railroad which consisted of the Garfield Park Branch, the Douglas Park Branch, the Humboldt Park Branch, the Logan Square Branch, and also provided customers access to the Lake Street “L” at the Lake Street stop, and provided funeral car services as well (Moffat, 127). The loop, known as the Union Loop, was constructed in 1898 by Union Elevated, which merged with the Northwestern Elevated Railroad in 1901. The loop was designed to connect all of the rail systems together downtown (Moffat, 178). Soon after merging, the Northwestern Elevated Railroad branched off of the loop northbound to Wilson Ave. in 1900 (Moffat, 192) and also adding an extension that was known as the Evanston “L” in 1914 (Moffat, 216).
With the construction of these elevated railways, came the construction of what we know today as the State Street and the Dearborn Street subways. The first proposal for a subway, as previously stated was in 1894 and was turned down by the city. However, in 1902, an engineer named Bion J. Arnold recommended that the city should consider building a subway system. Then, in 1911, proposals were made and in 1916, Arnold, along with the construction engineers of New York City's subway system Robert Ridgeway and William Parsons made a report about how the subway would use the same rail cars as the elevated railroads the city already had (Cudahy, 46).
In 1938, the city saw the beginning of the construction of the State Street and Dearborn Street subways (Cudahy, 56). The State Street station was connected to the Northwestern Elevated Railroad lines which were now at the time owned by the Chicago Rapid Transit company. The State Street Subway was finished on February 16th, 1943 and officially commenced on February 17th, 1943 by Mayor Kelly (Cudahy, 60). The Dearborn Street subway was finally completed on February 25th, 1951 (Cudahy, 65); after the Chicago Transit Authority began in 1947 and had taken over the project (Cudahy, 64).
The Chicago Transit Authority began on October 1st, 1947. It was started because in 1943, the private transit sector began to show signs of struggle financially and could not afford the costs of maintaining and operating their systems (Cudahy, 63). Then, in April of 1945, the Illinois State Legislature passed an act allowing the City of Chicago municipality to have a metropolitan transit system. On June 4th, 1945 a meeting was held over a referendum and it was voted in act by a majority of 6 to 1 and allowed for Chicago to now have a city owned transit system (Cudahy, 64) which became known as the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
Over the years, many changes were made to the lines operated by the CTA for customer convenience. The names were changed from the name of where their route ended to just a simple color. This would be like the Northwestern Elevated line that started at Wilson Ave. that ran through the State Street subway and now runs due south to 95th/Dan Ryan which did not exist then is now what we know as the red line from Howard to 95th/Dan Ryan. There were also cut backs and extensions as well. An example of a cutback would be the line that runs to Cottage Grove now, which used to go as far as where the World's Colombian Exposition was held in 1893 in Jackson Park and an example of an extension would be the Yellow Line from Howard to Dempster in Skokie to provide access for Skokians to get to Chicago or Evanston conveniently.
Then, in 1974, hard times struck the transportation sector of Chicago. The CTA and a few of the commuter rail lines of the time were on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. The panic of losing the transportation system led to the creation of the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) that year. A referendum passed by the state legislature allowed for the RTA to be a municipal entity that would provide financial assistance to the transportation sector in Chicago. This then became the structure for how the RTA managed operations such as the CTA and other commuter train systems. The RTA became the taxing authority over the transit systems and also set up operating contracts with them as well. Because the RTA was also contracting commuter lines, they set up an executive board that consisted of five representatives from Chicago, of which one of the members was the chairman of the board, and four representatives from the suburbs to govern the decisions the RTA made over proposals involving the transit systems. (
Trouble struck the transportation sector of the city in 1983 again, when there was a lack in sales taxes and inflation rose. This caused another financial crisis for the transportation systems in the city and caused more changes within the RTA. Because of the lack of funding, the RTA imposed 100% increases on fare rates for commuter train services and 50% increases on fare rates for CTA services. This lead to the Mayor Harold Washington and Suburban Mayors Deal which made the RTA responsible for planning, oversight, and funding over the CTA, the new Metra commuter rail service which began in 1984, and the Pace Suburban Bus system. (
This new set up allowed for a revision of the executive board for the RTA. The new board now consisted of five representatives from Chicago and seven from the suburbs. Of the seven representatives from the suburbs, four were from suburban Cook County, two were from collar counties other than DuPage County, and one was from DuPage County. The chairman was voted by a super-majority vote from outside of the board. They also imposed that they would hold super-majority votes over major actions instead of doing a board vote like they previously had done. The super-majority vote on major actions however, could be vetoed by one representative from Chicago still causing bias in the voting. Bias was also created by the fact that the CTA was controlled by the current Chicago Mayor and that Metra and Pace were suburban controlled. (
In the years to follow, between 2004 and 2008, many problems occurred within the RTA and the transit systems. First, the costs of operations had gone way above inflation. This was caused by the growth of ADA Paratransit, unstable fuel prices, and the prices of claims and insurance. Second, it was hard for the RTA to make financial gains to provide funding to the transit systems because they had trouble trying to get federal funding because of their lose margins. Third, the CTA pension fund had neared bankruptcy again due to the cost of operations during these years. (
These turn of events lead to legislative action between 2007 and 2008. The state legislatures of Illinois decided to reform the RTA once again, this time better defining its roles. The new reformed RTA would have the power to audit the transportation systems, provide 10-year financial forecasts of the systems, plan more strategic ways to market and advertise the systems, handle performance measures, and also provide annual budgets with future projections. They also revised the board once again, this time expanding it more by making it five representatives from Chicago, five representatives from suburban Cook County, and five representatives from collar counties. The city however, still retained its veto over the board actions.