Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
...
I'm a little steamed at the callousness and hypocrisy of this move, though. As I said, it would never fly up on the North Side, and it smacks of Rahm's skewed vision of the city. ...
|
Dan Ryan branch ridership ...
as % of total Red Line: 20%
as % compared to North Side: 41%
% Dan Ryan ridership change 2010-2011: -0.0%
% North Side ridership change 2010-2011: 5.4%
Total North Side ridership Red/Brown: 47.2 million in 31 stations (includes Grand, Chicago, Division and North/Clybourn)
Total South Side ridership Red/Green: 25.5 million in in 24 stations (includes Roosevelt and Harrison)
South Side service length: 13.5 miles (length of Red from Harrison plus 63/Ashland to 63/Cottage Grove)
North Side service length: 14.5 (length of Red from Grand plus Brown from Belmont)
They're comparable in service area and number of stations. But the North Side has nearly twice as many riders. The North Red is growing. The South Red is barely holding steady despite the South Green growing.
The CTA wants to fix the problems that are causing stagnant ridership on the Red Line, and they can do it a lot faster if they just shut it down. I bet once they're done we see double-digit increases in year-over-year ridership the first two years after they're done. And I bet the Green Line keeps a good chunk of the ridership it gets from it.
And they're prioritizing this project, on a line with much lower ridership and no growth, ahead of the North modernization project, which has fast-growing ridership.
So don't spout off bullcrap that the CTA is somehow hypocritical for putting repairs on a lower-ridership, zero-growth, much more-recently constructed line ahead of a high-growth, high-ridership, much older line. If anything, prioritizing this Red Line project over the high-growth, older, more used North Red/Purple Modernization project is skewed and plainly politically motivated.
The reality is that in the end, as long as both happen, none of us have anything to complain about and the city will be better off. So there's no reason to sow discord and make petty whines about how the CTA plans to address the serious issues that have accumulated over the years.