Red Line (CTA) - History

History

The oldest section of the line opened on May 31, 1900 running from the Loop to the North Side intersection of Braodway and Wilson Avenue. It was constructed by the Northwestern Elevated Railroad. The route was extended to Central Street in Evanston on May 16, 1908 via leased and electrified trackage belonging to the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. In November, 1913, the North Side 'L' was through routed with the South Side 'L' lines through the Loop. The ground-level section between Leland Avenue and Howard Street was elevated on a concrete embankment structure and widened to four tracks in 1922.

The State Street Subway was completed in 1943, providing two new tracks bypassing the Loop tracks and the portion of the North and South Side 'L' lines not equipped with express tracks. By providing an express route free of the most restrictive curves on the Chicago 'L' and shorter than the old line it supplemented (thanks to use of a diagonal street, Clybourn Avenue, for one leg of the route), the subway reduced running time by as much as eleven minutes for a one-way trip. The route was placed in operation on October 17, 1943, for a portion of the through north-south trains, although other trains continued to use the 'L' both on through trips and on services circling the Loop and returning to the point of origin.

On August 1, 1949, the North-South route was revised to create a more efficient routing through the Central Business District and handle the heavy volumes of passenger traffic using it. Thus, the Howard line was combined with the Jackson Park-Englewood lines through the State Street Subway, and the other lines routed to the Loop 'L'.

The Dan Ryan Branch opened on September 28, 1969, and was originally combined with the Lake Street line to form the West-South route (Lake-Dan Ryan). It operated over the Lake Street and Wabash Avenue sides of the Union Loop. This "interim" service was created mainly for the purpose of providing through service between the west side and the south side in anticipation of the 1968 Loop Subway Project. When the controversial subway project was cancelled in 1979, the Lake-Dan Ryan service remained, and lasted for 24 years.

For much of the twentieth century, the Howard-Englewood/Jackson Park route was equally compatible in terms of passenger traffic until the late 1960s through the 1970s. However, passenger traffic volumes began to shift on the south side lines, with more riders using the newer Dan Ryan line (which runs four miles (6 km) further south) and fewer riders on the older 'L' lines. This level of ridership allowed the CTA to develop a more efficient system by combining the more heavily used rail lines together, and combining the other lines together, providing increased service capacity for the routes that need it. The Red Line was created in 1993, when the CTA adopted color-coded nomenclature for all of its 'L' routes. On February 21, 1993, a connection was opened from south of Roosevelt to Cermak-Chinatown, and the Howard branch was combined with the Dan Ryan branch creating the current Red Line, and the Lake Street branch was paired with the Englewood-Jackson Park routes to form the Green Line. A further operational benefit of this switch was that this freed up capacity in the Loop needed for the addition of Orange Line trains from Midway Airport.

The Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line underwent a rehabilitation period to improve its aging infrastructure which ended in early 2007. This work included upgrading the power and signal systems, and rehabilitating the stations with improved lighting, a cleaner appearance, and new escalators and elevators. The CTA has plans to expand Red Line service to ten car trains from the current eight-car trains.