Blue Line (CTA)

O'Hare branch

The O'Hare branch is the longest section of the Blue Line (14.6 miles (23.5 km)) and comprises both the oldest and newest segments of the entire route. The line starts at O'Hare International Airport in an underground station below the airport's main parking garage, with direct pedestrian access to Terminals 1, 2 and 3. The line emerges in the median of the O'Hare main access road (Interstate 190) just northwest of Terminal 5, about a mile (1.6 km) west of Mannheim Road.

The line runs in the median of Interstate 190 east through Rosemont. The line has a station at River Road in Rosemont, which is also the location of the northern storage yard and served as a temporary terminal from 1983 to 1984 while the O'Hare station was being completed. The tracks then tunnel beneath the Kennedy Expressway/Northwest Tollway interchange near the Des Plaines River.

The line runs in the median of the Kennedy Expressway (Interstate 90) until a point southeast of Addison Street, making stops at Cumberland, Harlem, Jefferson Park, Montrose, Irving Park and Addison. Between Montrose and Irving Park, the line tunnels beneath an express lane exit. South of Addison Street, the line descends into a subway and turns south under Kimball Avenue. The line travels under Kimball Avenue and Milwaukee Avenues through Logan Square, making stops at Belmont and Logan Square.

South of Logan Square, the line emerges above ground onto an elevated structure parallel to Milwaukee Avenue. This section of structure, built in 1895 as part of the Metropolitan Elevated's Logan Square branch, is the oldest portion of the Blue Line, and the sole section of the line on an elevated viaduct. The three stations on this section (California, Western, and Damen) are also the only three stations on the line to use side platforms instead of island platforms.

Milwaukee–Dearborn subway

At the intersection of Ashland and Milwaukee Avenues, the Blue Line descends underground, swings over to Milwaukee Avenue, and continues southeast towards downtown under Milwaukee Avenue (with stops at Division, Chicago and Grand). The line then turns east under Lake Street, crossing beneath the Chicago River, and makes a stop at Clark/Lake, where in-system transfers are provided to 'L' trains on the Loop.

East of Clark/Lake, the tracks swing south under Dearborn Street, with a continuous platform similar to the continuous platform used in the adjacent State Street subway, with stops at Washington, Monroe, and Jackson.

South of Jackson, the line turns west under Ida B. Wells Drive (with stops at LaSalle and Clinton, which is two blocks south of Union Station). The tracks then emerge from a portal near UIC-Halsted in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway (Interstate 290) and continue west.

Forest Park branch

More information Congress branch ...

Congress branch
Legend
Milwaukee-Dearborn subway I-290 Eisenhower Expressway I-90 / I-94 UIC–Halsted Racine ← Paulina Connector Douglas branch → Illinois Medical District Western California Kedzie–Homan Pulaski Kostner Belt Railway of Chicago Cicero Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal RR Central Chicago Oak Park Austin Oak Park Oak Park Forest Park Harlem Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal RR Forest Park Desplaines Yard Des Plaines River Illinois Prairie Path
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After exiting the subway, the tracks continue west in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway as the Forest Park branch, formerly called the Congress branch, successor to the Garfield Park Branch.

Immediately west of Racine, the Forest Park branch tracks diverge to permit a ramp up to the Cermak Branch elevated structure. This ramp was formerly used in revenue service from 1958 to 2008 when the Blue Line operated over the Cermak branch and the Forest Park branch.

With the replacement of Cermak branch Blue Line service with the Pink Line, the ramp is now non-revenue trackage used for the transfer of 5000 series trains that the Blue Line borrows from the Pink Line for weekday rush hour service. The Forest Park branch remains in the median of the expressway through the west side of Chicago until it reaches a portal at Lotus Avenue.

At this point the tracks pass beneath the eastbound expressway lanes and before emerging on the south side of the expressway next to the CSX Transportation (Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad) tracks. The route passes through Oak Park and into Forest Park. In the vicinity of Desplaines Avenue the tracks rise and make an S-curve north over the expressway before terminating at the Forest Park station.

Cermak branch

The Cermak branch, formerly known as the Douglas branch, was once operated as part of the Blue Line. On April 28, 2008, the CTA eliminated Blue Line service on the Cermak branch, having been replaced by the Pink Line.^[18] The Loomis ramp that connects the Congress branch to the Cermak branch remains intact for non-revenue equipment moves as the only track connection between the Blue Line and the rest of the system.

On April 26, 1998, the Douglas Branch lost its overnight (owl) and weekend service and began operating between 4 a.m. and 1 a.m. on weekdays only as a result of budget cuts that also eliminated owl service on several other lines. Congress (Forest Park) service was effectively doubled through much of the day since service frequency from O'Hare required shorter headways than what would have been left.

While the CTA claimed Douglas branch reductions were due to low ridership, community activists also pointed to badly deteriorated infrastructure and funding shortfalls, as well as a perception that the CTA was uninterested in serving the West Side. On September 10, 2001, the CTA began a historic reconstruction of the Douglas Branch to repair its aging stations and tracks.^[19] The work was officially completed on January 8, 2005, with new elevated structures, tracks, rebuilt stations, new communication networks and an upgraded power system along the route.^[20] On January 1, 2005, weekend service was restored.

In January 2005, the CTA held hearings on a proposal to reroute Douglas Branch service via the recently rebuilt Paulina Connector to the Lake Street Green Line, carrying Douglas trains to and around the elevated Loop for the first time since 1958. It was the first stage of what became the Pink Line. This would have allowed a doubling of Blue Line trains to Forest Park on the Congress Branch, since service would no longer be divided between the Forest Park and 54th/Cermak terminals. Due to community fears that the Pink Line would not be enough, however, the CTA decided to retain limited Douglas Branch Blue Line service during weekday rush hours.

On February 15, 2006, the CTA approved the separate operation of the Douglas Branch plan.^[21] All non-rush hour trains would all be routed via the Loop, Green Line and Paulina Connector. During rush hour, service was available on the new route as well as the existing route via the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway. These changes were scheduled to be implemented for a 180-day trial period beginning June 25, 2006, and after their evaluation in early 2007, the Pink Line remained in service.

Beginning April 28, 2008, the CTA began a six-month experimental ceasing of Blue Line operations on the Douglas.^[18] Despite maintaining that the service cut was an experiment, the CTA immediately covered Blue Line stations' directional signage for trains to 54th/Cermak with paint rather than temporary covering, suggesting it was a permanent discontinuation instead of a temporary one. All Douglas Branch operations are now served by the Pink Line.^[22] On December 4, 2008, CTA announced its decision to permanently discontinue Blue Line service on the Douglas branch and to make the Pink Line permanent.^[23]

Line extensions

For years, there has been discussions of extending the O'Hare terminus of the Blue Line westward to Schaumburg, but that has been changed, due to recent developments involving the planning of the Metra STAR Line and various other transportation projects.

However, in 2008, the Regional Transit Authority revealed a plan to the RTA board to expand commuter rail and bus service, which included a 13.3-mile (21.4 km) extension of the Blue Line, from its current western terminus at Forest Park to Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois. Several feeder bus services would also be implemented in this plan. The prospect of this extension was also listed in the Chicago region's 2030 master plan.^[33]

In 2013, the idea of an infill station at Nagle and Bryn Mawr Avenues was postponed. Such a station remains only idea but may come to fruition in the future because that particular stretch of the line, between Jefferson Park and Harlem, is the second longest on the 'L' system without a station, behind the gap on the Yellow Line between Oakton-Skokie and Howard, although the Yellow Line was designed this way to quickly shuttle passengers to/from the Howard station ( the Howard station serves the Red and Purple Lines).^[34]

In December 2016, Pace introduced the on-highway BRT I-90 Express service. The successor to the Blue Line Extension and the STAR Line, this service serves as an extension of the Blue Line and provides rapid service along I-90 all the way to Elgin.

Extra tracks

The surface right-of-way for the Congress Branch, including overcrossings, undergrade bridges and two short tunnels under the expressway, contains space for one extra track between Forest Park and Kenton Avenue and two extra tracks from Kenton to the tunnel portals at UIC-Halsted. It was intended that the interurban Chicago Aurora and Elgin Railroad, which had utilized the Garfield Park Elevated until 1953 to reach its Loop terminal at Wells Street, would use these extra tracks. However, the CA&E ceased passenger service on July 3, 1957, before track construction had started.^[35] The CTA also considered plans of its own to add these as express tracks (and service) over the years, as well as a rerouting of the Lake Elevated onto the Paulina Elevated (today's Pink Line) into a new quadrant of the junction with the Douglas Line at Racine, but these plans were discarded for alternative plans and today the system has an entirely separate line in the system, the Pink Line.^[36]

Stub tunnels

The dual portals of the Congress Branch at UIC-Halsted are actually quadruple. Two extra portals exist to the north of the Blue Line portals, which extend only a few dozen feet beyond the portals. These were intended to accommodate future expansion, including a new CA&E line to a new terminal.^[36] Among those plans were a loop subway system via Congress, Dearborn, Lake, and Clinton when the Milwaukee-Dearborn-Congress Subway was completed between 1951 and 1958, and a shuttle subway route under Jackson Street to Grant Park (1958, "New Horizons for Chicago Metropolitan Area", CTA).

Between 1968 and 1978, a plan in the form of another subway corridor in the Downtown area was proposed, which was to be routed from UIC-Halsted Station through the north portals, then north under Des Plaines Street to Monroe Street and east under Monroe Street to Grant Park and Millennium Park, where it was to split into two branches: one north to Walton Street serving the North Michigan Avenue area and the other southeast to McCormick Place utilizing Metra Electric right-of-way. Though these portals are still not used, the subway corridor plan under Monroe Street was never officially canceled when the Crosstown and Loop Subway projects were deferred in 1979. It remains to this day an active program.

Between Grand/Milwaukee and Clark/Lake in the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway, two more stub tunnels exist, continuing west under Lake Street while the in-service tracks turn northwest under Milwaukee Avenue. This junction (actually a stacked junction), built in the 1940s along with the subway, was intended for a never-built connection to, or subway replacement of the Lake Street Elevated.^[37] In the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, they were also proposed to be a service link between the Dearborn Subway and a high-speed subway route in Randolph Street to replace a portion of the Lake Street 'L' east of Damen Avenue (Transit Planning Study Chicago Central Area, April 1968).