Screaming Until We're Blue in the Face

By Matt Wood in News on Jan 30, 2007 3:06PM

Do you feel as if your trips on the Blue Line are taking longer these days? You're not alone. Today, the Sun-Times is reporting on how the Blue Line to O'Hare — the second busiest branch after the Northside Red Line — is suffering from huge rush-hour crowds, compounding the problems already caused by crumbling infrastructure.

Blue Line trains now putter through slow zones on a third of the tracks between Division and O'Hare, up significantly since this summer. Compare that to the Forest Park branch, which has no slow zones. Since the trains take longer to make their trips, fewer of them run overall, meaning riders pile up at busy stops during the rush hour. The slow zones appear to be caused by shoddy rail ties laid by contractors in the 1980's when they extended the branch to O'Hare. The ties should still be in good shape after 24 years, but apparently they didn't use enough creosote. The CTA could fix this mess by repairing the ties or expanding its fleet of trains, but they can't do either because they're broke, leaving Frank Kreusi in his usual position of lying prostrate before the state legislature, begging for more money.

Oh, and remember the impending mess this spring when the Red, Brown, and Purple will share three tracks instead of four at the big Belmont and Fullerton stops? One of the alternates suggested by the CTA was the Blue Line.