Douglas Branch Blue Line Service Being Eliminated (Forest Park: home, live)

[Drover]

CTA trimming the Blue Line -- chicagotribune.com

Thankfully the CTA intends to run more O'Hare/Forest Park trains during rush hour to make up the difference in lost volume. The article doesn't say whether they'd do the same for the Pink Line.

Now if they'd only get back to running the Brown and Purple lines in opposite directions around the Loop. I never understood why they reversed the Brown Line around the Loop instead of the Orange Line. Efficiency of switching maybe?

[Lookout Kid]

I guess the Pink Line will have to take a larger load. The Douglas branch stations are some of the nicest on the Blue Line, so I'm glad that they will still be used by the Pink Line. As far as I can tell, there won't be any station eliminations... Can anyone confirm this?

[scarletneon]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I guess the Pink Line will have to take a larger load. The Douglas branch stations are some of the nicest on the Blue Line, so I'm glad that they will still be used by the Pink Line. As far as I can tell, there won't be any station eliminations... Can anyone confirm this?

I'm pretty sure it's just taking away the blue line trains.

[oakparkdude]

No change in Pink Line service. In fact, due to increased passenger load on the west side, both Green and Blue (Forest Park branch) lines will have more frequent trains.

[Chicago60614]

They only had a couple of trains that went on that route, and yes, the Pink Line trains will keep moving through that branch.

The usage of those blue line trains on the Pink Line branch was by far the lowest in the entire system. Something like 10 people utilized each car during rush hour - on the entire length of the route.....that's such a waste of resources.

[Drover]

Well I bet they'd have had more than 10 people per car during rush hour if they'd run the Douglas Blue Line more often than once every half an hour. If you're trying to get home and you live along the Douglas line, which platform are you going to head for? One that has a train going your way every 7 minutes, or one that has a train going your way every half an hour? One wonders if they didn't deliberately sabotage the Douglas Blue Line runs.

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

Originally Posted by Drover

Well I bet they'd have had more than 10 people per car during rush hour if they'd run the Douglas Blue Line more often than once every half an hour. If you're trying to get home and you live along the Douglas line, which platform are you going to head for? One that has a train going your way every 7 minutes, or one that has a train going your way every half an hour? One wonders if they didn't deliberately sabotage the Douglas Blue Line runs.

I think it's fair to say that there was something akin to sabotage involved. The move doesn't adversely affect many people, and the Pink Line is one step towards the circle line and other projects.

I'm oddly pleased to see the CTA actually cutting costs in a way that doesn't neccesarily mean fewer routes or less frequent trains.

[Drover]

I fail to see how this cuts costs at all if they're simply adding additional runs on the Forest Park line to make up the difference.

People who live along the Pink Line made clear their displeasure with the reconfiguration. Ask them if they'd rather see their line go through the subway or up on the loop, they'll tell you they want it on the subway line. Seems to me like the fix has been in all along.

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

Originally Posted by Drover

I fail to see how this cuts costs at all if they're simply adding additional runs on the Forest Park line to make up the difference.

People who live along the Pink Line made clear their displeasure with the reconfiguration. Ask them if they'd rather see their line go through the subway or up on the loop, they'll tell you they want it on the subway line. Seems to me like the fix has been in all along.

Yeah, I see your point.

I want to assume that there is logic involved, but that's often not the case with deals like this...

[Drover]

After giving it some more thought, I think I figured out what the CTA's motivation is: a substantial imbalance of ridership on the Douglas branch and the O'Hare branch. Pink Line trains run at 4 cars most of the day whereas the Blue Line runs 8. So they were wasting capacity on the Douglas Branch in order to provide adequate capacity on the O'Hare branch. So creating the Pink Line that only goes to downtown and back is a way of addressing that capacity-requirement imbalance. It also allows them to create more frequent runs on both branches without tying their frequency to each other and wasting even more capacity.