I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this - lowered Metra Electric Fares

[Metra Electric Rider]

There's been a proposal floating around lately to lower Metra Electric Fares to CTA levels within the City of Chicago to stem cratering ridership, particularly on the South Chicago and Blue Island branches. I'm too lazy right now to post a link, but I can see it being problematic if not applied to the other city stations on the other lines (looking at you Marion Ravenwood, Rogers Park and Beverly).

And on the lighter side, there are raccoons living in the Track 1 canopy at Van Buren, definitely not to the delight of regular commuters.

 

[MikefromCrete]

The current proposal also includes in-city stations on the Rock Island. As Metra Electric Rider points out, this will surely cause complaints from in-city station riders on the other routes. Plans like this have been batted around for a long time. It will be interesting to see if ridership increases by any significant amount.

 

[dogbert617]

Maybe this may be my opinion(and perhaps an unpopular one?), but I don't think this would be a good idea to implement. I feel it's sufficient enough, that they did adjust the fare zones so that fares for Metra stations just within Chicago a year or 2 ago, would become a little cheaper. And also, where would the slippery slope stop for those saying that fares on ____ line(or more), should be made cheaper?

Let's remember that Metra Electric ridership has been decreasing(sadly to say), for years. It was why in a way I saw it as a miracle, that Metra didn't totally cancel all Blue Island branch trains on Saturdays, vs. what was originally proposed(that all those runs would end). I give Metra credit, that they do still schedule 4 runs a day in each direction on Saturdays, for the Blue Island Metra Electric branch.

 

[neroden]

The problem is that Metra Electric is competing on price with parallel CTA buses. This is wasteful and stupid, given that they're both funded by the same state & city governments. If Metra Electric prices were brought in line with CTA prices, the parallel bus service would evaporate as everyone flocked to Metra Electric.

 

[dogbert617]

The problem is that Metra Electric is competing on price with parallel CTA buses. This is wasteful and stupid, given that they're both funded by the same state & city governments. If Metra Electric prices were brought in line with CTA prices, the parallel bus service would evaporate as everyone flocked to Metra Electric.

In a way, I see the argument you are saying. It's just one I don't agree with. In my opinion, I feel there should still be Pace bus service offered, for those who are making more intermediate and shorter trips to places along one of those local bus routes, that Metra Electric doesn't serve as closely.

Also on a different note, I do see the reasoning for those who point out that Metra fares are higher vs. CTA and Pace buses. Shouldn't there be some sort of discount offered for those who do want to use Metra Electric, but struggle to afford the fare? It's just I don't want to see government programs abused, to the point that I worry it'd hurt fares and revenue needed so that Metra Electric can remain an active train. And of course Metra is more known as a commuter rail service, vs. the fact CTA buses are known for shorter trips. I have this weird feeling, and not sure why, that there won't be as big of an increase as some may think to Metra Electric, even if the fares for ME were all lowered tomorrow. What can I say, except I have this weird feeling we'll both have to agree to disagree here.

 

[Trogdor]

The problem is that Metra Electric is competing on price with parallel CTA buses. This is wasteful and stupid, given that they're both funded by the same state & city governments. If Metra Electric prices were brought in line with CTA prices, the parallel bus service would evaporate as everyone flocked to Metra Electric.

That absolutely would not happen, for many of the same reasons the Red and Green Lines on the south side, and Red, Brown and Purple Lines on the north side have not caused parallel bus service to evaporate.

For one, the buses have far more reach than the trains do. Especially compared to the Metra Electric, which dumps you off at Randolph & Michigan, CTA buses take people across the Loop, up North Michigan Avenue, and over towards Streeterville and the hospital. If folks just had to transfer to another CTA bus once they got downtown, they might as well stay on the bus from home.

For another reason, CTA buses reach further into the neighborhoods than the trains do.

Then there’s the issue of Metra running nowhere near the frequency of CTA buses.

Now, *if* the fares were lowered (or, better yet, integrated into CTA’s fares, meaning transfers and passes are valid across each system), and the frequency was improved, then maybe the 26 bus might become redundant. Everything else, though, would run pretty much as it does.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

It's a lot more complicated than just the reach of the bus network - populations are dropping drastically and the downtown working population is also shrinking on the south side beyond the overall population. There has been some bus cannibalization in South Shore with the BRT lite Jeffery Jump. Even in Hyde Park a lot of people are so much closer to the 6 that they take it over the train so they can walk a block or two less. Obviously the 2 (another express bus) serves parts of the neighborhood farther from Metra. As it is now service to HP is every twenty minutes and even so, people prefer the slower bus (also promotion of the increased service was non-existent). Over on other forums people are saying that the parking at the rebuilt 95th St station should be TOD, ha, a large number of riders from HP are already driving to take the train downtown. My fear is that if MED becomes more CTA like the current riders will either move or start driving downtown.... (I have a lot more to say obviously)

 

[NorthShore]

Generally speaking, Metra fares become cheaper as you get further out and ride longer distances. That is to say that incremental increases per zone are smaller than the initial boarding fee for riding at all within one zone or over two.

Should it not be the other way around? Reduce fares for riding shorter distances system wide and encourage greater ridership. Recycle trains more often. Raise increments for traveling greater distances which requires carrying more cars, that become dead weight and more travel time, as one gets further from the central city.

 

[neroden]

That absolutely would not happen, for many of the same reasons the Red and Green Lines on the south side, and Red, Brown and Purple Lines on the north side have not caused parallel bus service to evaporate.

Ummm.... yes they have? There are no buses running along the routes of most of those lines. I see that there are buses right next to the southside Red Line, but the Red Line has very widely spaced stops and the buses are much closer together. On the other lines, the buses are parallel *many blocks away* or only parallel the L for a fraction of its length; they have different catchment areas. As well as usually having more stops.

By contrast, there are Lake Shore Drive buses practically duplicating the Metra Electric route, with no unique catchment area and with no additional stops.

Now, *if* the fares were lowered (or, better yet, integrated into CTA’s fares, meaning transfers and passes are valid across each system), and the frequency was improved, then maybe the 26 bus might become redundant. Everything else, though, would run pretty much as it does.

The 2, the 6, the 10, and the 26 are all redundant with Metra Electric, actually. Especially the #10. The #6 is duplicating the South Chicago Branch.

And yes, free transfers between CTA and Metra Electrric would be necessary to really get everyone to switch to the train. And yes, Metra Electric needs to go *back* to CTA frequencies (it used to run at CTA frequencies).

 

[Trogdor]

As one who used to commute daily on the 147 bus (whose entire route is within 2–3 blocks of the Red Line), I guess there’s no point in me arguing with an expert on Chicago transit who lives in Ithaca, NY.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

As one who used to commute daily on the 147 bus (whose entire route is within 2–3 blocks of the Red Line), I guess there’s no point in me arguing with an expert on Chicago transit who lives in Ithaca, NY.

Agreed. And I too, was a 147/red line commuter for ten years.

Let me address his spurious claims about the Hyde Park bus service. The 2 serves the west side of Hyde Park far away from the tracks, about a mile, as well of the U of C Hospitals.

The 10 is a seasonal limited hours tourist bus directly to the doors of the Museum of Science and Industry.

In addition to the express service the 6 serves for short hops that the train could not. There is also a different mind set in Chicago than NYC about walking. A lot of people take the bus for two blocks sometimes (the 55 is particularly plagued by this). I'm not as familiar with the 26 but I'd expect it to be similar.

Even with the increased service to HP and a decrease elsewhere (supposedly HP is the only area where they has been an increase in ridership - a good size chunk of that at 55-56-57th are people driving to park at the station and there is no lot, all on the street) the trains are noticeably emptier than a few years ago. I don't think it's cost and connections, but fewer people further south and fewer people working downtown from those areas (and a lot of riders come from NW Indiana due to cheaper fares and much more frequent schedule).

 

[jebr]

I don't think it's cost and connections, but fewer people further south and fewer people working downtown from those areas (and a lot of riders come from NW Indiana due to cheaper fares and much more frequent schedule).

But could part of the losses be stemmed if cost and connections were less of an issue? It seems a bit odd to me that if someone lives near I-90 their ride, on rail, costs $2.50, and comes with the same transfer and fare passes as the rest of the CTA system, but someone who lives further east along the Metra Electric line (or any of the other lines where CTA also runs) has to pay $4 - $5.25 just to get downtown, and then pay another $2.50 if they want to use CTA to get to their final destination.

While there's probably no way politically to get fare parity between Metra and Pace/CTA across the sytem (after all, Elgin has both Metra service and Pace service to the Blue Line, but I doubt we'll get $2.50 fares to Elgin!) a good first step would be to make fares within city limits, along with any suburbs near CTA rail lines equivalently fared, and implement free transfers between all three agencies (if the fare is more expensive on one, simply charge the difference.) That would allow a lot of people to choose the service that makes the best sense for their commute, not choosing a particular service because that's the cheaper option or because it includes the transfer that they'll need either way.

 

[neroden]

My grandmother lived on Dorchester in Hyde Park for 40 years, so you don't get to pretend you have greater local knowledge.

If the Metra Electric service was what it was in the glory days of the Illinois Central, people would not be taking the redundant buses. Those extensive bus routes were largely established *after* the deterioration of the IC service, and as a replacement for it.

When the IC service was running at mass-transit frequencies with mass-transit pricing, *there wasn't enough demand to run a whole bunch of buses along the same route*.

'Course, that was also before they demolished the east end of what is now the Green Line (Jackson Park branch). There's been a history of aggressive disinvestment in the rail services on the South Side, and the buses have slowly been built up after the rail services were removed.

 

[neroden]

As one who used to commute daily on the 147 bus (whose entire route is within 2–3 blocks of the Red Line), I guess there’s no point in me arguing with an expert on Chicago transit who lives in Ithaca, NY.

Bluntly, yeah, there isn't. You don't have enough historical knowledge.

I agree that it would take a lot more than just lower prices -- it would require full fare integration and mass-transit frequencies. Do that and you'll watch the ridership on the buses expressing down Lake Shore Drive drop below sustainable levels. *It's been done before*.

In a way, it's a tragedy that Metra managed to buy the IC line rather than the CTA buying it. Essentially the opposite happened with the lines to Skokie and Evanston. Historical accidents due to what order different private railroads went bust. The closer-to-downtown routes on the private railroads which went bust *earlier* ended up with the better service in the present day.

(On the other hand, further-out services from railroads which went bust earlier died completely, whereas further-out services from railroads which went bust more recently tended to survive. A hypothetical situation where the Illinois Central ran out of money in the early 1950s might well have seen a CTA-run Metra Electric which extended no further than Riverdale.)

(This isn't the only city which had this phenomenon. Railroads with heavy passenger service which went bankrupt early ended up as rapid transit, while those which ran short on money late ended up as "commuter rail" in New York and Boston as well as Chicago. In Cleveland and Pittsburgh, you can see something similar with the passenger lines which went bust early, but there is no commuter rail.)

 

[neroden]

I'm kind of grumpy about this because government *policy choices* have been making rail service to Hyde Park worse. and driving people onto buses which cost the government more to run while providing worse service, for something like 50 years, and it's just dumb. My grandmother was fighting to restore rapid-transit levels of service and prices to the IC line, and to rebuild the Green Line to Jackson Park, when I was a *kid*.

It's getting to the point where nobody alive remembers that it *was* a rapid transit line.

 

[MisterUptempo]

I'm kind of grumpy about this because government *policy choices* have been making rail service to Hyde Park worse. and driving people onto buses which cost the government more to run while providing worse service, for something like 50 years, and it's just dumb. My grandmother was fighting to restore rapid-transit levels of service and prices to the IC line, and to rebuild the Green Line to Jackson Park, when I was a *kid*.

It's getting to the point where nobody alive remembers that it *was* a rapid transit line.

What's galling, regarding the Green Line to Jackson Park, is that section, as I recall, had just been reconstructed, and it was only after that when Brazier mobilized his church members and Finney mobilized the Woodlawn Organization, and shouts to tear everything down east of Cottage Grove started.

Now, calls to rebuild that section are increasing, and parts of 63rd that would be perfect for dense TOD alongside potentially rebuilt sections are instead saddled with single-family homes, possibly filled with NIMBYs that will protest pretty much anything that would make sense.

 

[NorthShore]

There was a short time in the 90s that two zone service on Metra cost less than CTA fares. At stations such as Jefferson Park, where one had the option of taking either Metra or the L, commuter rail ridership spiked.

In some service areas, such as the IC catchment, there has also long been some understanding of tiered service based upon cost. The commuter rail service was considered premium, and usually ridden by white collar office types, whereas blue collar workers of lesser means would take the a bus/streetcar or the L.

We also, historically, need to look at how the Dan Ryan, Congress, and Kennedy extension L lines evolved CTA to more of a feeder service system with many bus routes rather than one reliant upon walk up to the L and direct bus services to downtown that it was in previous eras, once CRT, CSL, and CMC were united rather than competitors. Most in city commuter service was long ago discontinued due to the desires for abandonment by Class 1s of their day, along with agreed upon compromises with CTA for expansion. (Allegedly CTA had, at one time, agreed not to extend the L to O'Hare as the concession for extending to Jefferson Park.) Apparently, such competition off agreements were never negotiated with the I.C.

Ravenswood, now a top station on the entire system, survived due to light industry employment at the time and North Shore residents who wanted their cleaning ladies to be able to travel to their suburbs.

As for history of the era, I wish we still had Roy Benedict around to chime in. R.I.P. Roy.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Sounds like something that is currently being tried in NYC.

Giving those closer to the more expensive less frequent LIRR trains options.

Could be useful for CTA to look at.

https://www.citylab.com/transportat...lic-transit-cost-price-nyc-mta-equity/595996/

 

[John Bredin]

Sounds like something that is currently being tried in NYC.

Giving those closer to the more expensive less frequent LIRR trains options.

Could be useful for CTA to look at.

https://www.citylab.com/transportat...lic-transit-cost-price-nyc-mta-equity/595996/

That makes a lot of sense! IMHO it suggests Chicago doing this not just on the Metra Electric but wherever Metra has a decent number of in-city stations not near L lines: Milwaukee North, Milwaukee West, and Rock Island. NorthShore mentions the elimination of in-city stations, but that wasn't done quite as ruthlessly on those lines, more so on the BNSF and UP lines (which were, respectively, CB&Q and C&NW back then).

 

[Long Train Runnin']

That makes a lot of sense!

.

I agree that's why I am stunned it was an MTA program.

 

[NorthShore]

Otoh, the challenge with Metra lowering fares for in city stations is that some of those stations (such as Ravenswood) have extremely high ridership (some of the most significant on the entire system.) So, if discount fares were offered at Hermosa or Mars (which would make a lot of sense) would they also need to be discounted at, say, a busy Rock Island station in Beverley, resulting in overall lost revenue?

This is where, perhaps, the entire zone/distance system needs to be rethought. More emphasis should be placed upon pricing demand and travel between specific points of interest to incentivize ridership in underutilized pairs (especially when coupled with maximizing equipment and employee resources) while taking advantage of pricing high demand pairs and destinations which are well patronized.

 

[brianpmcdonnell17]

It's a much bigger project than anything currently in serious planning, but I think the Metra lines within city limits are severely underused for travel within the city. My idea is to implement frequent MU service fare-integrated with the CTA. Service would operate with stops every 1/2 mile to a mile and would extend throughout the city and potentially a few inner suburbs. Obviously this would be a major expense with capacity expansion, station construction, and equipment acquisition, but it would be much cheaper than entirely new rapid transit lines. The most obvious lines for such a system are the ones mentioned in the plans discussed in this thread, the Metra Electric and Rock Island. However, other lines, especially the MDW/NCS, MDN, and SWS could serve significant portions of the city far from any L lines. Others, such as the UP-N and UP-NW, operate parallel to L lines, but are far enough away and in dense enough areas that I think they could still be successful. The Heritage Corridor parallels the Orange Line to 35th/Archer, but is nowhere near the CTA rail lines SW of there, so could even operate as a shuttle with connections to the Orange Line. The remaining lines, BNSF and UPW, parallel the Pink and Green Lines respectively, so the best use of those lines may be as an Express alternative to traditional L service, especially in the case of the BNSF due to the indirect routing of the Pink Line. I don't have much experience with European systems, but my idea for Chicago seems to closely resemble the London Overground.

 

[John Bredin]

Mayor Lightfoot is against a proposal for county-subsidized improvements & lower fares on Metra Electric and Rock Island, arguing that the CTA will suffer as a result. https://www.chicagotribune.com/poli...0190918-cktmazbyt5fi7clhz5ruzegn4m-story.html That's puzzling considering she ran for mayor on a platform of equity for forgotten neighborhoods.

 

[bretton88]

Mayor Lightfoot is against a proposal for county-subsidized improvements & lower fares on Metra Electric and Rock Island, arguing that the CTA will suffer as a result. https://www.chicagotribune.com/poli...0190918-cktmazbyt5fi7clhz5ruzegn4m-story.html That's puzzling considering she ran for mayor on a platform of equity for forgotten neighborhoods.

It's puzzling until you follow the money. The CTA is controlled by the mayor's office. So even though it is a net win for the south side, the Mayor doesn't want her fiefdom affected. It's all fine to talk service improvements until someone loses a little money from the deal. I should note, this not implying corruption, it's just an old fashioned agency turf war.

 

[MikefromCrete]

This is a pretty surprising stand for Lightfoot to take, but the CTA is controlled by the city and I'm sure she doesn't want to upset the CTA revenue stream. The city is facing a massive deficit and she will want to protect all the existing revenue while trying to find new ways to keep the city afloat. This also seems a part of her feud with Cook County board president Toni Precwinkle, whom she defeated in the mayoral race. Cook County was going to reimburse Metra for any lost fares due to the project. The future of this project, which once seemed a slam dunk, is now in doubt.