The CTA: What Might Have Been
The Chicago Transit Authority's funding problems prompted me to dig through my "Paper Skyline" files for this gem: the 1968 Chicago Central Area Planning study, which advocated pulling down the Loop el and replacing it with a vast new subway network. The proposal included an east-west shuttle subway that would have begun below Morgan Street at the University of Illinois-Chicago, run north to Monroe, then beneath Monroe to the lakefront, where it would meet a lakeside subway shuttle that would run between McCormick Place and Oak Street; and a new subway operating in a loop pattern beneath Franklin, Van Buren, Wabash and Randolph. The plan included high-quality physical connections between the new system and the existing trains coming into downtown.
Here is a subway kiosk of the downtown subway system that would have replaced the Loop el. (Look at the cars parked on the left...Chrysler 300s, 40 years before the fact?). In the top image, a glass wall on the left brings in sunlight and provides views of a sunken landscaped plaza. The image below shows one of the underground stations on the Monroe Street shuttle line.
The $1.4 billion system was slated for completion in 1975. The city needed the federal government to cover about $1 billion, but the Urban Mass Transit Administration was willing to put up only $500 million. Cash starved from the get-go, the project died before it could begin.
Since this effort's demise, Chicago has never again dreamed this boldly--and was never again this visionary--about public transportation. Looking at it now, it's clear the project would have represented more than additional infrastructure for the CTA. This new system would have given the city's downtown a first-class rail system and provided the nucleus to revolutionize how we plan and fund public transportation in this region.
Comments
so cool! it's like a movie set. a pity it never came to fruition. and even though computer renderings these days are superslick, there's something raw and vibrant about pen/pencil and paper.
Posted by: amy | June 21, 2007 09:43 PM
hey amy!
I agree. I like the old school renderings. Sometime in the next month or so, I'm going to post images from an unbuilt highrise campus from the 1960s. The renderings look like charcoal-on-paper and are as elegant as you'll ever see..
Posted by: UrbanObserver | June 21, 2007 10:27 PM
The issue is that public transit has been starved in the United States because the oil and gas industry, and auto industry holds our politicians by the stones. Think of the lives we could have saved and wars we could have avoided if Americans could tell the Oilboys to shove it.
Posted by: Vera | June 25, 2007 09:47 PM
Urban Observer thanks for the post. My father was the last Executive Director of the CUTD in the late 70s. As a kid I remember being "mad" at him because I loved the El and didn't want to see it torn down. I remember him explaining that it really was the best for the city. Too bad they couldn't get it done. I thought this was a forgotten piece of Chicago development history, thanks for bringing it back up! My dad worked really diligently and hard on the project, hated to see it come to naught.
Posted by: Bill K. | June 27, 2007 02:15 PM
Bill K. Thanks for stopping by. When I found the document a year or so ago, I fully expected it to be laughable now...only because 1960s plans often are. But this is truly visionary, thanks to your fathers efforts, and represents a true loss for the city.
Posted by: UrbanObserver | June 28, 2007 10:05 AM