Comments

1
you're on the slippery slope to keeping the viaduct, dan.

go, bertha: fuck those foundations up!
2
Obviously Dan didn't watch the first episode of Caprica.
3
Els aren't blight just like the viaduct isn't blight. Just like the surface line down MLK isn't blight.
4
Oh, Seattle...maybe in another 100 years.
5
Sure; great idea. Because Seattle is just like Chicago. What works there would surely work in Seattle….
6
Def. not blight because trains are beautiful but SEATTLE FAULT!
7
I've always enjoyed the "El" or Elevated train. It's aesthetically pleasing to me. Even the subway has its beauty. Ever since I was a boy growing up in Chicago's near western suburbs of Berwyn/Oak Park, I've enjoyed riding the train and its other contents. I liked the lamps at the old stations. My first real job after college was at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center or Medical Center stop. When I would go to a Cubs' (or White Sox) game, I took Rapid Transit. For Wrigley Field (the Friendly Confines) I would get off at Addison. I loved the climb up from the subway to the El from DT. The nearness of the tracks to the residences (urban proximity?) fascinated me. Supposedly, the residents don't mind the noise. Finally, the old water towers rising steeple-like across the city remind one of another urban era. A good friend of mine there told me that years ago, the City Council passed a resolution to preserve them. How cool is that?

As a fellow who proudly has never owned an automobile by choice, I am a major fan of public transit. Hooray for it.
8
@1 a couple more seafood truck crashes and we won't have to wait for bertha
9
Thanks for this Dan.

In exchange I give you: the beauty of the elevated pneumatic tube.

These days I'd suggest glass, for the view.
10
@9: Oh, my God. I love it.
11
@4 Given our local and state politics, you may be right

@5 If some of the natives and the political structures were smart, we would have adopted some of the row elevated transit of Chi town and NYC years ago and saved us the aggravation of paying a lot for getting it a long time out.

@6 By that logic, the Bay Area shouldn't have bothered with BART. We should not continue the transportation status quo just because of the possibility of faults erupting. Make plans to properly reinforce elevated rapid transit structures and get on with it.

@7 +1, also the Elevated Flushing line in NYC that goes to out to Citi Field is terrific for sightseeing Queens neighborhoods.
12
The Beatrixkwartier elevated light rail in the Netherlands is pretty spectacular.

http://inhabitat.com/beatrixkwartier-lig…
13
I wonder how many times New York wishes it had not torn down the 3rd Avenue El in 1955. Before providing a replacement. The 3rd Ave. subway is under construction and will cost billions by the time it's completed.

There's no reason that an elevated structure has to be directly above a street and blocking the sun (that was the big complaint in New York in the 40s and 50s when the last Manhattan El was torn down). The train Dan is showing you is on a fenced off berm and completely separated from traffic but not generally directly above a street.
14
I've always considered the L a thing of beauty, in line with Chicago's hearty, rough-around-the-edges, city-of-the-big-shoulders aesthetic. The cowling around the 35th-Bronzeville-IIT stop (Green Line) as pretty darned cool, and the Loop makes for a pleasing tour of the city center.
I personally enjoy standing on the subway platform as the Red Line roars in and letting the cool oily breath of the train's arrival wash over me. Sends a tingle down my spine.
15
The Chicago L, like New York's rapid transit system, and indeed every other functional legacy system in the country, was built in piecemeal by private companies, before mass car ownership, before buses had reached sufficient size, speed or reliability to be competitive. Much of the older parts of the system have quarter- or half-mile station spacing, because walking was the only way to reach them.

The right-of-way was either previously undeveloped or acquired through bribery, extortion or cronyism. The tracks, previously at-grade, were elevated because the city cracked down after too many people were killed in accidents. At every stage there were hardships and injustices, now mostly forgotten.

The L was shaped by logistical and practical considerations. It is part of Chicago's urban fabric, not because it was designed to be so, but because the city grew in around it. Cities are adaptive things.

Our present, crawling process is due in part to transit being run by public agencies, beholden to constituents who are more concerned with the city as it is than as it could be. But this model also does a better job protecting those who would be underserved or even displaced by the unchecked implementation of a private system. The biggest flaw is the lack of the kind of capital that built the old prewar systems. Instead, those funds are going to private systems serving corporate employees (I saw my first Facebook bus in Kirkland just this morning, in fact). Just imagine what we could build if a progressive tax plan redirected these funds for the public good.
16
I like what you're saying, Dan, all I have to add is this love song to Chicago trains and hipsters and the city nights....

https://mitchmead.bandcamp.com/track/the…

I listen to it every time I miss Chicago and need to feel what it feels like to ride the El again.
17
I don't quite get Dan's sarcasm over this... the only people pushing the harsh dichotomy of the monorail or the light rail are the die hard monorail or nothing-ers who can't wait to see it fail (and are seething because it hasn't.)
18
@15: Great post, thanks.
19
Very odd timing for Dan Savage to be going on this jag about this "chance" ("albeit a small chance") of this city... Sound Transit... somebody... wanting to build elevated rail when we have Sound Transit 3 sitting before us.

Kinda like if you've finally proposed to your longtime girlfriend, you're engaged, and already you're plotting out your post-marriage relationship with this chick you kinda know from work who may or may not be into you.

Oh, and I think there's a greater "chance" Mr. Savage will be dead by the time the city and the state get their ducks in a row to allow us to vote on this elevated rail proposal he dreamed up. And I say that fully expecting him to live a long life, a long and joyous life comforted by the familiar crutch of being able to bitch about how lousy the mass transit is around here. Y'know, kinda like Cubs fans being able to bitch about never winning the World Series.

Oh, and big +1 on Ms. Groover's story yesterday on how to address ST3's shortcomings. I feel a bit guilty commenting on this bit of clickbait and not that actual substantive piece.
20
The problem with Seattle is people think their opinion should matter. It doesn't. We need a dictator to displace the shit out of people and build transit as fast as possible. The public good counts more than anyone's opinion.
21
@5: OK, I'll bite. What magical properties does Chicago have and Seattle doesn't, or vice versa, that make elevated transit "blight" in one city but not the other?
22
@15: great take on this, thanks.
23
@21: The El has been there forever, and it's become a Chicago institution. There used to be a sizable anti-el contingent (the south end of the South Side -- now "Green" -- line was cut back in the late 1990s partially because Woodlawn wanted the railroad off the street) but they've mainly died or given in. In Seattle, it would be something new and unfamiliar (and the Seattle Monorail plans to tear down the existing monorail to replace it with a system that was not quite compatible and much more massive probably didn't help) that people will gripe about.
26
@23: "People complain about new stuff, until they get used to it and stop complaining" doesn't tell us anything distinct about Chicago vis a vis Seattle.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.