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The Blue Line, also known as the O'Hare-Congress Line and the West-Northwest Line, is a long Chicago 'L' line which extends through the Loop from O'Hare International Airport at the far northwest end of the city, through downtown via the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway and across the West Side to its southwest end at Forest Park, with a total of 33 stations. It is the CTA's second busiest rail line, with an average of 186,796 passengers boarding each weekday in September 2012. The Blue Line and Red Line are the only two routes of the 'L' system to currently run 24 hours a day and is one of only six mass-transit rail lines in the United States to do so (the others being the PATCO Speedline, Staten Island Railway, the PATH lines, one line of Minneapolis-St. Paul's METRO and the New York City Subway). The Blue Line is also one of only two lines with more than one station with the same name, with the Green Line being the other (It has two stations at Harlem Avenue: one in the Kennedy Expressway on the Northwest side and one on the south side of the Eisenhower Expressway in Forest Park, Illinois. It also has two stations on Western Avenue: one on the O'Hare branch and one on the Congress branch). The Blue Line also has only three in-system transfers (all in the Loop), contains a combination of both the oldest and newest portions of 'L' tracks, and does not share tracks with any other 'L' line. Before the adoption of color-coded names, the Blue Line was referred to as the West-Northwest Route (which it is still sometimes referred to as today) or more commonly, the O'Hare-Congress-Douglas route for its three branches. The Congress and Douglas branches were renamed for their terminals, Forest Park and 54th/Cermak, when the current color naming system was adopted in 1993. Blue Line service on the Douglas Branch was discontinued in April 2008 and replaced with the Pink Line.〔(Chicago Transit Authority - Blue Line service )〕 The Blue Line is one of five 'L' lines that run into Chicago suburbs, with the others being the Green, Purple, Pink, and Yellow lines. The Blue and Purple Lines are the only two rail lines that run through more than one suburb, with the Purple Line running through two, but the Blue Line actually runs through three, making it the rail line that runs through the most suburbs on the 'L' system. ==History== The most vintage components of the Blue Line began as part of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad in 1895. The first section to be built by the Met extended west in the vicinity of Van Buren Street from an independent terminal at Canal and Jackson Streets to Marshfield Avenue, and then northward in the vicinity of Paulina Street to Damen and Milwaukee Avenues. Service on this section began on May 6, 1895. The structure was completed from Damen Avenue to Logan Square on May 25, 1895. The next stage in the development of the West Side 'L' came on June 19, 1895, when the Garfield Park Branch was added, extending west in the vicinity of Van Buren Street and Harrison Street from Marshfield Avenue to Cicero Avenue. An extension of service over the tracks of the Aurora, Elgin and Chicago Railroad to a new terminal at Desplaines Avenue was established on March 11, 1905. A subsequent extension to Westchester opened on October 1, 1926.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Westchester branch )〕 (Service on the Westchester extension was discontinued by the CTA on December 9, 1951.〔) Another branch line was added to the rapidly growing Metropolitan System on July 29, 1895, when trains began operating over the Humboldt Park Branch, paralleling North Avenue from Damen Avenue to a terminal at Lawndale Avenue. (The route was discontinued on May 3, 1952.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Humboldt Park branch )〕) This was followed by still another addition when the Douglas Park Branch was placed in operation as far south as 18th Street on April 28, 1896.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Douglas branch )〕 As the southwest area of the city developed, the Douglas Park Branch was extended from 18th Street to Western Avenue in September 1896; to Pulaski Road in June, 1902; to Cicero Avenue in December 1907; to Central Avenue in August, 1912; to 62nd Avenue in August, 1915, and to Oak Park Avenue in Berwyn on March 16, 1924. The Douglas Park branch was later cut back to 54th Avenue in Cicero, Illinois. The Metropolitan West Side Elevated began service onto the Loop on October 11, 1897, and a rush period stub terminal at Wells Street was added October 3, 1904. For much of the early 20th century and through the 1940s, service on the West Side Elevated lines went unchanged until the Chicago Transit Authority took control of Chicago's Rapid Transit System on October 1, 1947, initiating a series of massive service cuts and station closings (that would last until the 1980s). On February 25, 1951, the CTA opened the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway, connecting the Milwaukee Avenue elevated route (formerly Logan Square) with the Loop on a fast, efficient and more direct routing through the heart of the city. With opening of the Dearborn Subway, the old elevated alignment between Evergreen and Marshfield Avenues was therefore closed and used only for moving out-of-service rail cars. The north section of this connection between Evergreen Avenue and Lake Street was subsequently demolished in 1960s, leaving the Lake Street Branch-to-Douglas Branch section or the "Paulina Connector" still in existence. The Garfield Park elevated was replaced by the Congress line on June 22, 1958, pioneering the world's first use of rail rapid transit and a multi-lane automobile expressway in the same grade-separated right-of-way. (Pacific Electric Railway "Red Car" tracks ran in the median of the Cahuenga Parkway in Los Angeles from 1944 until its expansion into the Hollywood Freeway in 1952, but the Pacific Electric service was an interurban streetcar rather than true rapid transit.) The new line connected with the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway at the Chicago River and extended westward to Des Plaines Avenue in Forest Park. Loomis Ramp, built at this same time, permitted Douglas trains to operate through the subway as well combining the Logan Square, Garfield Park (now Congress) and Douglas routes into the second through service in Chicago, the West-Northwest route. A five-mile (8 km) extension of the route via the short subway connection and the Kennedy Expressway median from Logan Square to Jefferson Park opened on February 1, 1970. It was also built by the City of Chicago using federal money. From Logan Square, trains veer off of the old elevated structure and enter the subway under Milwaukee and Kedzie Avenues to a portal just south of Addison Street, then continue northwest in the median of the Kennedy Expressway to the temporary terminal at Jefferson Park. In March 1980, construction began on the O'Hare Airport extension of the Kennedy route between Jefferson Park and the airport. The first section between Jefferson Park and Rosemont was placed in service on February 27, 1983, and the final section to O'Hare on September 3, 1984. On February 21, 1993, the Chicago Transit Authority adopted a color-coded naming system to the rapid transit system, and the West-Northwest route (OHare-Congress/Douglas) became the Blue Line. 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 funding shortages requiring CTA to cut services. 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. Reasons for the Douglas Branch service reduction were due to its low ridership, badly deteriorated infrastructure and funding problems, while many residents in the communities it runs through had claimed that it was just another attempt by the CTA to eliminate transit service on the West Side. On September 10, 2001, the CTA began a historic reconstruction of the Douglas Branch to repair its aging stations and tracks. The work was officially completed on January 8, 2005 with new elevated structures, tracks, stations, new communication networks and an upgraded power system along the route. On January 1, 2005, weekend service was restored. In January 2005, the CTA held hearings on its proposal to reroute much of the Douglas Branch service via the recently rebuilt Paulina Connector to the Lake Street Green Line, carrying Douglas trains to and around the elevated Chicago Loop (clockwise) for the first time since Douglas trains began using the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway in downtown Chicago in 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. 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 〔 Despite maintaining that the service cut was an experiment, the CTA covered Blue Line stations' directional signage for trains to 54th/Cermak with paint rather than temporary covering, indicating they were considering actually ceasing Douglas Blue Line service. All Douglas Branch operations are now served by the Pink Line.〔 〕 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.〔http://www.transitchicago.com/news/ctaandpress.wu?action=displayarticledetail&articleid=110385%20〕 On October 15, 2015, the CTA announced that they now have full 4G wireless service on the Blue Line in between the Logan Square and Belmont stations. In the future this will mean that the CTA will be the largest subway system with 4G coverage in subway tunnels and stations, this is targeted for the end of 2015. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Blue Line (CTA)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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