People will only use public subway systems like Chicago Transit Authority trains if they perceive their journey as safe to take. But how do you change the equation?
More armed security guards? Scary-looking dogs? Cops riding the rails? Cameras every few yards?
All of those ideas are complex in practice because they typically create a dystopian atmosphere that actually makes things worse. So here’s a far better idea: more frequent trains.
The ultimate model is London’s Victoria Line, now offering peak service with trains coming every two minutes. Nobody rushes for a train and risks falling because they know the next one will be along in a matter of seconds. And few choose to take an Uber instead. Too slow.
More important yet, nobody spends more than a minute or so actually on the station platforms, which are the locus of most crimes and accidents. The trains come so fast, any lingering bad guys have no time to think about doing anything to anyone before a huge rush of activity and the disappearance of everyone onto the train.
As this city’s transit advocates often note, the frequency of today’s CTA well exceeds every two minutes, throughout the system but especially on the beleaguered West Side Blue Line to Forest Park. The long waits — some scheduled, many not — are a major contributor to the perception of danger on the system, which of course creates a vicious circle. Embattled CTA chief Dorval Carter, who prefers to talk to out-of-town media rather than to us, typically says lack of funding is the reason for the long waits. Sure.
But the CTA is about to begin a $19 million upgrade to the Western Avenue Brown Line station in Lincoln Square, which it says may negatively affect service for many months: During that time, the Tribune reported the CTA as saying, weekend daytime Brown Line service will at times be cut between Kimball, at the end of the line, and Western. The CTA was scheduled to reveal more information Wednesday night. Nobody needs to go to the meeting to get the gist.
Now, new stations are all very nice, and we’re well aware that federal and other monies are often earmarked for such capital projects rather than scheduling the operation of more trains. More’s the pity. We’ll wager that most Brown Line riders would prefer to live with the older station if they got more frequent trains that get them where they want to go.
An urban transit system where trains do not come often will never be a safe system, even with all the new stations in the world. More frequent service is by far the easiest way to reform a transit system mired in crisis.
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