Chicago trains struggle to reclaim their pre-Covid passengers

The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago

Chicago’s iconic “L” trains snake through the skyscraper canyons of this Midwest capital, as much a part of the cityscape as Lake Michigan or the two baseball stadiums. But these are hard days for America’s second largest public transit system.

Public transport around the world lost riders, staff and money during the pandemic, but many have recovered more quickly than Chicago. Ridership on the rusty elevated rails of Chicago’s “L” is just over half 2019 levels; on the more upmarket Metra commuter service, weekday trains are at just 44 per cent of pre-Covid levels.

“[Transit] ridership in the Nordic countries has recovered to about 90 per cent,” says Hani Mahmassani, director of the Northwestern University Transportation Center, although many European cities haven’t reached 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Overall US ridership fell to 20 per cent in April 2020, but has recovered to more than 70 per cent today, says the American Public Transportation Association. Not in Chicago though.

The Chicago Loop Alliance, which represents the central business district, says 50 per cent of office workers are back — but that means half are not. Many now work from home or drive to work two or three days a week, Mahmassani says, noting that such habits may be hard to change.

Enough people are driving that Chicago was recently named the world’s second most congested city — after London. Yet even that isn’t forcing people on to the trains. The morning rush hour may not be as bad as before: “in many cities, people are not driving at the peak of the peaks,” says David Schrank of Texas A&M University’s Transportation Institute. He notes that “if your commute took an hour but now it takes 30-40 minutes”, driving both costs less and is less stressful. The Chicago Loop Alliance says foot traffic suggests people are coming to the office later, which eases the morning commute.

Getting people back on to the trains may be difficult. I’m a life-long rail addict, but I’ve had my own uncomfortable experiences of late. On one recent ride, I cowered in the corner as a group of young men stormed through brandishing broken bottles. A few days ago, I struggled to find a seat in cars filled with the sleeping forms of the unhoused, sheltering from the cold. Changing trains later that day, I waited half an hour for a “ghost train” — one that shows up on the station’s transit monitor, but never arrives.

Poor service is one of Chicagoans biggest complaints — the transit authority says severe staffing shortages are the reason. Grime, crime, smoking and even defecating on trains were other gripes identified in a recent survey of regular commuters by the local radio station WBEZ. Headlines about transit crime have also taken their toll.

But worsening crime may be more perception than reality: the Chicago Police Department says transit crime in 2022 was down 43 per cent over 2019 — though ridership has fallen more. “Most of those loudly concerned with crime are just mad that they have to look at homeless people and consider their suffering,” daily Chicago commuter John Wilmes told me.

And the fewer riders there are, the fewer people want to ride: “it’s a vicious cycle”, says Mahmassani. Michael Edwards, president and chief executive of the Chicago Loop Alliance, says that rather than workers, it is visitors, theatregoers, residents and college students who are now driving ridership: more than 42,000 people live in the Loop now compared with 30,000 a decade ago, and they are taking public transit. But the numbers still languish: “If the trains are half full, it’s a lot easier to sleep there or use it as a restroom,” he says. Money is also an issue: Chicago transit agencies had $3.54bn in federal help during the pandemic, but that will mostly run out by the end of 2025.

“If we fail to make [Chicago public transit] a vibrant network connecting people to economic opportunity and social experiences, we will fail as a city — or is it that we are failing as a city, so people have stopped riding buses and trains?” asks Paula Worthington of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Here’s hoping the “L” will recover from its case of “long Covid” soon. The city just isn’t the same without it.