Chicago Central Area Transit Plan - History

History

Throughout its entire life, the two-mile (3 km), double track Loop Elevated in Chicago's Central Area has coexisted with strong pressures, political and civic, to do away with in favor of new downtown subways.

The Union Loop Elevated has remained, however, virtually and placidly what it has been since its early days in the late 1890s to the present. Its trackage has been reworked to accommodate changing operational modes. Stations have been added, lengthened, consolidated and eliminated in response to changing riding habits. While no major alterations have been made during its lifetime, minor changes have been made at the stations to improve passenger flow, accessibility, and weather protection. These modifications have added Monel metal and fiberglass to the basic wood and steel construction and have replaced some of the original ornamentation.

Only one station has been rebuilt within the past twenty years (at Clark/Lake) and several have been replaced with new stations (Library-State/Van Buren and Washington/Wells) in compliance with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements.

Since its October 1897 opening, the Union Loop Elevated has provided rail rapid transit service to the Chicago central business district. Its construction permitted the inter-connection of the original elevated railroads, the South Side Elevated, the Lake Street Elevated and the Metropolitan West Side Elevated, and the distribution of passengers around the downtown area. Although development of major high-rise construction went well beyond its physical limits, its presence and configuration originally defined the most prestigious locations for offices and gave the central business district of Chicago its name, the "Loop". For 108 years it has served transit riders and has seen the city grow into a major metropolitan region of more than 9,000,000 people. Noisy, awkward, and casting a shadow over the streets in which it runs above, it has become an institution.

From the earliest days when the first elevated railroad was constructed between the Central Area and the South Side in June 1892, the focus of rail rapid transit activity has been the Chicago Loop area. Each net addition to the Elevated system has added to the transportation accessibility of the Loop. The first formal transit plan in Chicago was the Burnham Plan of 1909, which described an extensive rapid transit and streetcar subway system in, and connected to, the central area. Many elements (some transposed with bus service in place of streetcars) are in operation today.

This was followed by various traction plans presented by the City from the early twentieth century through the 1930s, all of which called for a unified system of surface, elevated and subway lines in the Loop.