Chicago’s ‘crush hour’ may take a new turn, but COVID-19 is not CTA or Metra’s death knell

In a very different time only a decade ago, safeguarding public health wasn’t a major consideration when the Chicago Transit Authority removed all the seats on two cars of some rush-hour L trains in order to stuff more riders, cheek by jowl, aboard its cattle cars.

After that experiment to boost passenger capacity failed to sit well with commuters, the CTA introduced new rail cars outfitted mostly with center-facing seats to accommodate the crush-loading of cars to as many as 120 people. Such close contact was well above the goal of a later “de-crowding’’ initiative aimed at reducing human freight to 70 to 75 people per car on average.

It’s unclear whether anything resembling the tin-of-sardines transit experience will ever return in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing. But I don’t know how you take the mass out of mass transit.

Amidst staggering losses currently at the farebox that may take years to recover from, it now appears that the pre-pandemic challenges to accommodate the ridership gains of years’ past were a good problem for the CTA, and Metra, to have.

Until now, transportation, and particularly mass transit, were considered part of the go-to solution to deal with just about any catastrophe. Downtown Chicago was evacuated in short order after the terrorist attacks on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Yet when the reality finally set in late this winter about the lethal threat posed by the novel coronavirus, health officials across the country issued a proclamation that previously seemed unimaginable: The public, except for essential workers including medical and safety personnel commuting to their jobs, should stay off trains and buses until further notice.

Transit ridership has plunged since Illinois’ stay-at-home order took effect on March 21. The few people still riding have posted photos on social media showing them having entire train coaches and buses almost all to themselves. Transit officials have tried, meanwhile, to reassure these diehard customers that seats, grab poles and hanging straps are being wiped down daily to minimize the spread of disease.

CTA ridership has plunged about 80 percent since Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order. Metra ridership is in an even bigger free-fall, projected to be down 97 percent in April compared with the same month a year ago, officials said.

“Commuter rail will not be the same after COVID-19,” Tom Farmer, Metra’s chief financial officer, told the Metra board during an online meeting on April 15. “We have just been crushed.’’

It’s a transit doomsday warning that far exceeds Chicago-area transit agencies’ cries for financial help in the early 2000s. A CTA budget shortfall in 2009 led the transit agency to impose service cuts in 2010 on more than 100 bus routes and seven rail lines. The drastic schedule changes prompted commuters to make new travel choices. But they eventually circled back to their preferred method of getting around this congested region. By 2012, CTA ridership reached its highest level in 22 years, adding some 13 million rides compared to 2011.

Before the ongoing public health emergency, the Chicago region’s transit agencies were already weighed down by a backlog of infrastructure improvement needs totaling billions of dollars. The formidable burdens, new and old, will not fade without concerted action at the local, state and federal levels and an openness to trying new ideas.

But instead of joining Metra’s gloomy long-term outlook for public transit, I’m reminded about a cable that Mark Twain sent from London to the press in the United States after the mistaken publication of his obituary: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’’

Jon Hilkevitch teaches journalism at DePaul University in Chicago.

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