The O’Hare Express Train Files, Part Three: Lessons from Toronto
Toronto’s Union-Pearson Express effectively transformed how Torontonians access their airport, without breaking the bank. Can the CTA Blue Line be transformed in a similar way?
Still more bad ideas on a express transit connection to Chicago O’Hare International Airport (see also my breakdown of the CTA’s original Block 37 plan and Elon Musk’s Express Loop) remain to be discussed here. One North American city, however, figured out a cost and time effective airport express connection that Chicago ought to learn from — Toronto.
Toronto’s Union-Pearson Express, launched in 2015, connects Union Station with Toronto Pearson International Airport. Pearson is the ninth-busiest airport in North America, serving over 47 million passengers in 2017, while Toronto Union is the continent’s second-busiest rail terminal, at over 72 million. It is busier than even NYC’s Grand Central Terminal, which is known for having the train platforms in the world at 44.
Located in the heart of Toronto’s bustling Financial District and home to all seven of the city’s commuter rail lines, Canada’s main intercity rail hub, and a direct subway connection, Union Station is an ideal “Point A” for an airport express service.
But it’s not just about Points A and B. With intermediate stops at Weston and Bloor, the UP Express embraces crosstown connections, making it useful for hundreds of thousands more potential users across the city. Bloor connects with Toronto’s other primary subway line, providing crosstown rapid transit across nearly the entire city. At the same time, having only these two (soon three, when a new station at Mount Dennis will provide connection with another crosstown rail line) intermediate stops on the 14.5 mile route keeps travel time quick. Trains reach 90 mph on the 25 minute run.
The intermediate stations are also transfer points with the Kitchener Line on GO Transit commuter rail, which the UP shares track with for most of its route. And thanks to the UP Express’ all-day 15 minute headways, spontaneous transfers can conveniently be made with it throughout the day. While a steep fare ($27.50 in cash, $19 with a transit card) initially kept daily ridership around 2,000, far below the 7,000 expected, a sharp reduction to $12 and $9, respectively, spiked ridership to over 10,000. The lower cost shifted the train to a hybrid airport express/frequent commuter service, a significantly larger market.
It’s important to note that Pearson, which is nearly twice as busy as any other airport in Canada, didn’t previously have any rail service, unlike O’Hare. But in 2019, while it’s no fancy maglev or unnecessarily experimental technology, the UP Express presents a highly competitive option from the heart of the Financial District direct to Terminal 1, stopping at those crucial transfer points in between.
The keys for Toronto’s success with the UP Express are three-fold:
- The primary use of existing rail right-of-way (albeit with significant upgrades), meaning only the last two miles of track into the airport had to be built from scratch. Total capital costs were only $343 million, which is, ahem, not all that much more than the CTA spent on the dormant Block 37 station alone.
- Extensive regional connections at limited intermediate stations, as discussed in detail. Allows it to serve airport users not coming from downtown, as well as non-airport downtown commuters, and the revised pricing structure fits these markets.
- The fact that neither of the first two compromise the overall travel time. A top speed of 90 mph won’t break any records, but 25 minutes end-to-end is still fast enough to match or beat a taxi’s journey time without traffic.
Is there a similar trifecta to be found in O’Hare express planning? Seeing as O’Hare does already have a rail transit connection, let’s look at how feasible upgrading this existing line would be.
The CTA Blue Line was extended to O’Hare in 1984 and, to its credit, does already offer a highly competitive service, especially compared to American peer cities. Current travel time from Clark/Lake to O’Hare is 40–45 minutes. FiveThirtyEight’s analysis found that to be 15 minutes faster than driving on an average weekday already, making O’Hare the most competitive transit option from downtown of the US’ 40 busiest airports.
Continued upgrading of the Blue Line would have some inherent advantages, including that much of the necessary infrastructure already exists, that it already connects communities en route, and that it facilitates those crosstown connections a la Toronto (albeit mostly via local bus instead of a faster service like other ‘L’ lines, but that’s a topic for another day). Not to be overlooked, however, is the Blue Line’s high frequency, which it owes to being the city’s second-busiest rail line. Streetsblog Chicago noted this a few years ago:
On weekdays, trains run between Clark/Lake and O’Hare every 2 to 8 minutes during rush hours, with ten-minute headways during non-peak times. Airport express trains in other cities typically have 15-to-30-minute headways. Waiting longer to catch a premium train to or from O’Hare might nullify any advantage from the higher speed.
Still, the 40–45 minute in-vehicle transit time leaves much to be desired. For an airport transit option to compete, every second counts — and not just because the train’s time needs to beat a taxi/rideshare’s time from downtown to O’Hare. Depending on the traveler’s exact starting point, the time spent getting to and waiting for a Blue Line train will usually be longer than the time it takes to get in a taxi or hop in an Uber, which are services that come to you. To truly compete, the actual in-vehicle travel time needs to be shorter on transit to compensate for that.
Say that you find ways to make the necessary speed upgrades, and travel time is now 30–35 minutes on the Blue Line against 50–60 in an Uber. Would that win over Mr. or Ms. Price Insensitive Business Traveler? Even considering the other blocks of necessary travel time, such as getting to a Blue Line station, perhaps it could.
The challenge in making that a reality, of course, is finding cost-effective upgrades that can lower the travel time, without disadvantaging the massive existing base of northwest side Blue Line riders.
Well, while Toronto was launching the UP Express, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s appointees were cooking up other answers. In June 2016, Emanuel welcomed in a new Aviation Commissioner, Ginger Evans, to oversee O’Hare and Midway International Airport. She covered many topics in a long interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, including local community concerns near O’Hare over jet noise amid runway expansion plans. “This my area of technical expertise,” said Evans.
The same could not be said for transit planning, if her momentary foray into the O’Hare express debate was any indication. After leaving the underground O’Hare station, the Blue Line runs in the median of the I-190 and I-90 (known to locals as the Kennedy Expressway) for roughly 11 miles. Evans’ idea was to “double deck” the Blue Line, by simply throwing elevated tracks above the existing tracks.
The cost of 11 miles of new elevated right-of-way adds up quickly. The Kennedy, meanwhile, is entrenched for most of those 11 miles. It passes under 17 bridges that would necessitate the elevated tracks to rise another story higher to cross.
Then there are the remaining 6 miles to get downtown, which the Blue Line traverses by leaving the Kennedy for subway and elevated segments along Kimball Ave and Milwaukee Ave. Evans didn’t specify what would happen here.
Perhaps she’d have built express tracks underground, or continued the elevated “double-decking” over the expressway the rest of the way. However, the first 11 miles would likely have been prohibitively expensive, and that’s before you consider that an aerial concrete structure thru dense residential neighborhoods — especially the bridge overpasses — could run into a wall of community opposition. Opposition here would be two-fold — the first kind, your standard BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) strain of NIMBYs.
The second, which doesn’t come up as often among urban transit projects, would be the “what’s in it for me” question, which in this case would actually be fair to ask. The project would likely have no direct benefit to the residents of Norwood Park, Jefferson Park, and the numerous other communities along the Kennedy deep in Chicago’s northwest, yet those residents would still deal with the construction impacts and fund it with tax dollars. Evans didn’t address this either, opening the door to more skepticism. We haven’t heard much about this idea since it was first proposed, and it’s not hard to see why.
The aforementioned Streetsblog article recommended a few cosmetic upgrades to increase the Blue Line’s appeal, but the only infrastructure upgrade was the suggestion was to run trains at 70 mph instead of the current 55 mph limit, which the trains and tracks are already physically capable of.
Seems easy enough, but this would require significant capital investment. CTA’s current “Your New Blue” capital project is modernizing stations on the branch, but another main focus is upgrading power capacity to run more trains, relieving current overcrowding. Running trains at higher speed would require even more power capacity, especially with new, power-intensive 7000-series cars entering service soon.
What about building express tracks to get around the slower locals? Had the Blue Line’s Milwaukee Ave Subway been constructed with express tracks, we probably wouldn’t even be talking about electric skates and other far-flung express ideas. Theoretically, the dense, lengthy Milwaukee Ave corridor would have been a great fit for express and local ‘L’ services.
In fact, Chicago’s 1939 Plan for Subways did include a single “express tube for rush hours” between Division and Logan Square, bypassing at least Damen, Western, and California stations. Stage One of the plan created today’s Milwaukee Ave Subway, and the express tube was part of Stage Four. The express tube never saw the light of day, and given current subway construction costs in America, call it extremely improbable that such an project would be undertaken today.
Alas, with just the original two tracks, and insufficient space to add express tracks without exorbitant eminent domain cost, we’re still no closer to decreasing that 40–45 minute travel time. What else can can be done? Anyone? Bueller?
Longtime Chicagoans might remember skip-stop service, such as a Congress “A” or Douglas “B” train (this was mostly before the lines were given colors in 1992). Once ubiquitous on the ‘L’, skip-stop hasn’t been seen on the system since 1995. Lines using this pattern designated alternating trains as an “A” or “B” train. Lower ridership stations were designated as “A” or “B” stations and only saw service from one or the other, providing faster rides across the entire line at the expense of doubled waiting times at those lower ridership stations. Higher ridership stations, such as major transfer points, remained “AB” stations and had all trains stop.
Skip-stop service remains on only two rail lines in the US, and only at rush hour. These are the J/Z trains in Brooklyn and Philadelphia’s east-west subway line, the Market-Frankford Line, although the skip-stop service only applies to the eastern half.
A concept 24 years dead in Chicago, CTA skip-stop service isn’t exactly a regular discussion point in the local political lexicon. Even many long time city residents aren’t familiar. Yet interestingly, mayoral candidate Paul Vallas reintroduced this idea last week amid debate amongst the candidates about transit solutions for the city.
Stations along the Milwaukee Ave corridor, however, have relatively balanced, high ridership across the board. All stations between Belmont and Chicago averaged between 4,200 and 7,500 weekday riders in 2017, placing them all at the 63rd percentile or above among the 145 ‘L’ stations. It would be very difficult to classify these into “high” and “low” ridership stations — skipping any of these stops would inconvenience a significant number of riders. It also wouldn’t work outside of rush hour, where the headway increases would destroy ridership.
In other words, if you’re accustomed to a train coming every 3 minutes at rush hour, and your station is made an “A” or “B” station, trains will now stop only every 6 minutes. Perhaps that’s palatable (some ‘L’ lines don’t ever see 6-minute frequency, even at rush hour), but going from an 8 to 16 minute wait on a cold Saturday afternoon would surely start to turn riders away.
Studies have shown that riders more heavily weigh time spent waiting on the platform than in-vehicle transit time in their overall satisfaction, meaning the deck is stacked against this idea from the get-go. Finally, given the explosive growth in density and ridership along this corridor in the past decade plus, it’s unlikely regular riders in Wicker Park or Logan Square are interested in anything that involves already-overcrowded trains coming less often.
So, it appears skip-stop service isn’t the answer either. The existing Blue Line right-of-way to O’Hare snakes between buildings when elevated, rumbles thru tight subway tunnels, and surfaces in a constrictive Kennedy Expressway median. Without monstrous capital expense to build more tunnels, it appears getting that travel time down to 30 minutes would cause significant permanent disruption to existing Blue Line service. The city would not consider such an option, and for good reason.
It appears the solution will have to come from elsewhere.
In Part Four, you’ll see the tremendous potential of a lightly-used Metra line to create a UP Express of Chicago’s own.
