The Met (Metropolitan West Side Elevated) started it, then entered a joint arrangment with CA&E, then pulled out, leaving CA&E to finish. CA&E ran the last recorded funeral train in July 1934. CTA took over from Met successor Chicago Rapid Transit in October 1946. Your question.
When this rapid transit line was built, it was only the second median strip operation in the United States. What is the line, when was it built and what was its original through routing?
Ignore previous 'answer' I posted here; I misread the reference.
What is more interesting, perhaps, is what was the first one, and why is it poignant? (The Judge would know!)
It depends on what you mean by rapid transit. Beacon Street, Boston, was the earliest, center-reservation streetcar line, and originally was an a surface operation, with the downtown street runng in pavement replaced by subway in four steps to a now subway and center-reservation-only operation, and Commonwealth Avenue wuuld be the second. Certainly, today, these are rapid transit as well as light rail.
Much later came the relocation of Pacific Elecdtric's Glendale - Burbank line to a center-reservation in a highway.
The first center-reservation pure streetcar line, with no rapid-transit pretensions was St. Charles in New Orleans.
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I took the question to mean a line in the median of an honest-to-goodness limited-access highway, like the ATSF relocation through Pasadena going East that is now used by the Gold Line, or the DC Metro along I-66.
That leads to specific modern answers, which I may or may not have correctly isolated.
Theoretically the extension of the IND into New Jersey over the George Washington Bridge wouldn't have qualified even if routed along Rt. 4 down the Palisades, nor I think would the Key service adjacent to the ends of the big SF bridge...
CTA's Congress Line, which replaced the Garfield Park L and opened on June 22, 1958. Through routed with the Milwaukee Avenue Subway/L (Logan Square) via the Dearborn Subway as Congress/Milwaukee (A). Douplas/Milwaukee (B) used the line for about a mile from Paulina to Halsted. Congress is now the Blue Line (extended to O'Hare airport), Douglas the Pink line, rerouted over the Lake Street L to the Loop.
RC, if that is yur second such line, which was the first?
The IC South Chicago Branch?
Pacific Electric?
But maybe Congress is the first, as pure rapid transit, and the Jefferson Park and further extension to O'Hara is the second?
Cahuenga Pass 1940-1952
First was Pacific Electric's Hollywood line in the middle of the Hollywood Freeway (now the "110", originally Arroyo Seco Parkway) on June 15, 1940. Passenger shelters were reached by walkways under the Freeway lanes. Abandoned October 1, 1950.
The Dearborn Subway was one of the two started during the 1930s by Chicago's Department of Subways and Superhighways. The Subway tunnels were completed at the same time as the State Street Subway that was opened in 1943, but Dearborn didn't open until Feb. 25, 1951 since none of the stations could be completed due to wartime shortages. The Milwaukee/Dearborn route replaced the former Logan Square route via Marshfield Avenue and the "Met" main line.
I think you may have your LA croggled. The median of the Arroyo Seco Parkway (110) -- which was the Pasadena Freeway -- is only four feet wide. The route with the PE down the median is Huntington Drive -- Route 66 after 1926, for a while -- and it isn't to my knowledge a limited-access road under the 1939 law -- in fact I think the roads on either side of the median were only made 'one-way laned' after the PE was taken out in '51. Note that neither the Pasadena Short Line nor the south local ran down the line of the Parkway, either as built or expanded.
The Hollywood freeway is the enormous cut across Cahuenga Pass, supplanting the Cahuenga Parkway (past the Hollywood Bowl) where there was a preexisting trolley line -- I believe this is highway 101, not 110. That is surely what you meant; it's surely what I meant.
I thought it was a shame this track was not preserved, just as I think it a shame one track of Lackawanna wasn't preserved at Garrett Mountain. But priorities were different then...
Glendale-Burbank could not be termed a "pure" rapid transit line, since the lilne did include some street running and sidewalks or pavement boarding requiring steps n the cars If you consider it rapid transit, the I'll claim Beacon and Commnwwealth came earlier and ended up closer to rapid transit, getting there in stages.
https://www.pacificelectric.org/pacific-electric/western-district/pacific-electric-tracks-in-the-hollywood-freeway-a-missed-opportunity/
My miss in a quick read of the article. I knew the Hollywood Freeway (the Hollywood Cahuenga Park Way) was the right line. Dates are still right.
I was thinking along the line of new construction of rapid transit, PE comes closer to the modern definition of light rail.
Agree. Then was not Congress, the replaement of the Garfield Park Elevated, the first? And Jefferson with later extension to O'Hara the second?
If that's correct, I'll get twith Che expresway name. Meanwhile, originally trains were thrugh routed with both Congress and Douglass Park via the Dearborn Subway, now only with Congress.
I always thought it was Congress first, Dan Ryan (with the cracks and the funky ties) second, and the Kennedy median third (1970)
Sequence as I remember:
1. Congress Expressway
2. Congress RT soon after.
3. Dan Ryan Expressway
4. Kennedy Expressway
5. Kennedy RT to Jefferson Park
6. Dan Ryan RT
7. RT extenjion to O'Hara
Before Kennedy RT, Dearborn St. Subway trains ussed the remains of the NW 'l' structure to Logan Sq.
The Hollywood line was the inspiration for the Congress Line in Chicago, and is widely considered the first median rapid transit line. Even though the line operated with interurban-type or PCC equipment, it did use PE's Subway terminal in downtown LA.
In Chicago Congress opened in 1958, Dan Ryan in 1969, Kennedy in 1970. The Congress Expressway was renamed after Dwight Eisenhower in the 1960s, and is Chicago's only Republican expressway.
The subway between Logan Square and the Kennedy Expressway has some of the tightest clearances on the "L", enough so that some 4000-series cars in work service had poles, pole boards and ventilators remove to avoid hitting the roof.
rcdryeThe Hollywood line was the inspiration for the Congress Line in Chicago, and is widely considered the first median rapid transit line.
https://www.pacificelectric.org/pacific-electric/northern-district/along-huntington-drive/
As noted I believe the two separate roads on opposite sides of the median were not made 'one way' until after the PE had stopped operating there.
The Cahuenga Line was the first to have the hallmarks of a line in the median of a high-speed limited-access highway, including access via tunnels... sometimes very long tunnels... under the traffic lanes. It is the construction, rather than the type of train operating through it, that defines it as the 'first' in my opinion, which makes Congress (and its share in the replacement of the Garfield Park El) the 'second' of that kind.
Since I seem to have overstepped my limits, I'll let the members decide who gets the next question.
CSSHEGEWISCHSince I seem to have overstepped my limits...
Congress was the second. Hollywood is considered by many traction authorities (more authoritative than me, anyway) to be the first.
When the Congress Expressway was renamed, the line remained Congress-Milwaukee.
Dan Ryan didn't replace anything. It parallelled the existing South Side (Englewood/Jackson Park) as far south as 63rd St., then entered new territory to 95th.
I wasn't implying replacement of an older line. The Dan Ryan line was the answer I was looking for, with its original through routing with the Lake Street line.
The Dan Ryan was re-routed to connect with the North Side Main Line (Howard) in 1993, in the process becoming the "Red Line". Lake Street and the South Side "L" were shut down for a full-scale rebuild, after which the two of them were paired as the "Green Line".
My Dad often used the Congress Line from Des Plaines (Forest Park) to Racine, reversing up the ramp on a Douglas train to Polk St, a better station for him during his residency there than the actual Medical Center station on Damen.
i undeerstand you had the Dan Ryan in mind, but I am certain that Kennedy to Jefferson Park opened earlier, while the 2000s were still in use. By the time the Dan Ryan op3ened, the oldest CTA revenue "L" cars were the original 6000s.
I rode the Dan Ryan and Kennedy lines within the first month of their operation. Dan Ryan opened first, on Sept 28, 1969 - fifty one years ago yesterday. One of the consequences of the change was that the Loop went from having both tracks go counterclockwise to having the outer track go clockwise. Lake-Dan Ryan trains ran on the Lake and Wabash legs. If you wanted to go to the Wells or Van Buren legs, you took the Loop Shuttle, which just went around and around...The Loop Shuttle lasted until the opening of the Orange Line made it redundant.
The Kennedy extension to Jefferson Park opened Feb 1, 1970.
Lake-Dan Ryan was assigned all 180 2000 series cars (40 had previously been assigned to Congress-Milwaukee). A little over half of the brand new 2200 series were assigned to Lake-Dan Ryan, the remainder to West-Northwest (Congress/Douglas Milwaukee) with the balance of car assignments on West-Northwest still filled by 6000 series PCC cars. 6000s assigned to West-Northwest were fitted with window grills - a first for Chicago - since the Logan Square tunnels had very tight clearances. Some 4000 series cars assigned to work service had their roof ventilators and pole boards removed to fit in the tunnels. The 5-50 series cars formerly in West-Northwest service were move to Ravenswood or Evanston service.
1 stand corrected, and you should ask the next question, in my opinion. Memory does occasionally play tricks, and I was livihg in the Chicago area at the time, 1967-1970. Of couse neither really replaced anything, the elevated to Logan Sq. replaced by a subway (Milwaukee Avenur?) as far as Logan Sq. and to the portal in the expressway beyond, and the Dan Ryan RT entirely new territory for RT, with no removal of "L" structure.
The Blue Line is still on an elevated structure between about Division and Ashland and just before Logan Square.
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