Not so pretty in Pink

You’ve probably heard that the CTA’s Pink Line, which debuted last June, hasn’t gotten many props from its South Side ridership, whose Blue Line service was slashed to weekday rush hours (an 86 percent reduction in service) to make way for it.

While the Pink Line runs east and west to and from the Loop along the same tracks as the Cermak branch of the Blue Line, it circles the Loop instead of bisecting it and continuing on northwest, like the Blue Line. As a result, South Siders heading to the northwest part of the city on afternoons, evenings and weekends must take the Pink Line and transfer to the Blue Line downtown. This costs riders in the low-income area time and money, says Michael Pitula of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO).

“We have a lot of immigrants in the community, and while there are some job opportunities in the neighborhood, [the Pink Line] cuts off faster and more cost-effective service to one of the fastest-growing and best-paying job corridors—O’Hare,” says Pitula, who also points out that the new service arrangement limits access to institutions like UIC, Whitney Young, the Greyhound station and Union Station. “There is currently no night or weekend service on the [54th/Cermak branch of the] Blue Line—and when do you think people in the retail or restaurant and bar industry most need the service? The CTA needs to be more sensitive to these sectors of the city that are most disadvantaged.”

The grassroots LVEJO surveyed riders in the Cermak branch’s service area and found that 70 percent wanted Blue Line service restored to 100 runs a day up from the current 17. LVEJO is collecting petition signatures and drafted a letter to the CTA urging the city to restore Blue Line service to at least alternate with Pink Line trains. On December 12, the CTA voted to extend Pink Line service for six months; the alternate 50-50 suggestion was met with skepticism that there would not be enough cars to provide such service, because the northbound Blue Line trains wouldn’t circulate in and out of the Loop as quickly as Pink Line trains.

In the late ’90s, the CTA attempted to dismantle the 54th/Cermak branch of the Blue Line, first citing structural instability, and later low ridership—though ridership was higher than that of the Purple Line, Pitula says. Community groups, along with the help of city officials, fought to keep service intact. But there was no night and weekend service from 1998 to 2005—and weekend service was only restored in 2005, before being canceled again when the Pink Line debuted. 

The CTA counters that the Pink Line offers more frequent opportunities to travel into downtown and to the West Side, via a transfer point at Paulina to the Green Line before trains head toward the Loop. But in a 2002 press release, the CTA detailed the current Pink Line route—then referring to it as the Silver Line—and stated that the project’s purpose was to test the tracks of the Paulina Corridor, which would be part of the Circle Line. The release acknowledged that service to Whitney Young High School would be affected; since the Pink Line has been in service, there has not been additional bus service provided to students, which resulted in the school’s community organizing a campaign for better service through LVEJO.

“Our main concern is bloated spending in the downtown area for luxury development and the Olympics—instead of communities who are in need of public transit,” Pitula says.

LVEJO also supports the CTA’s Mid-City Transitway proposal, which would use existing railways to create an L-shaped corridor that would run from O’Hare south to Midway, and east along 87th Street to the lakefront.

See page 22 for more on CTA projects. For more info, visit www.lvejo.org.