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Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright
They will eventually be able to do this on the Pink Line too given they only run 4 car trains on it. It's amazing how under utilized parts of our transit system is. Makes you wonder if choking off development along the Blue Line for now is actually a healthy planning choice, push that growth to the Pink and Green Lines.
That's the thing, someone just said wealthier people are more likely to use cars, that's just not true. The lowest ridership tends to be in the poorer/working class areas and the highest ridership is the wealthiest areas like the North Side Red and Brown or the NW side with the Blue Line. Meanwhile the transit running through the ultra dense Pilsen and Little Villages is basically untouched. That's generally the case in other cities as well. Turns out poor people are actually highly more likely to rely on cars to get to work because their jobs are more often decentrialized or roving (i.e. construction workers might work at dozens of different job sites during the year). This means a place like Lincoln Park or Wicker Park that is crammed to the gills with yuppies see high transit usage because they all work at professional level salaried jobs that are almost exclusively located downtown near transit.
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Yea, the Pink Line should be running more cars especially at rush. Hopefully that will happen when the CTA starts getting the CRRC cars in numbers and is able to exercise its options on the contract (thanks state capital bill).
Given the constraints on the Blue Line slowing development along it may not be the worst thing in order to disperse growth. I'd love to see everything from Cermak to Woodlawn pop like the NW part of the city has since the transit infrastructure down there is huge and horribly underutilized at existing service levels and virtually limitless vacant land in comparison.