Well guess what? Chicago metropolitan area’s transit network is not that great. Chicago uses a radial rail network, it is only useful if your commute is to the city center or directly in between your neighborhood and the city center. You guys have a massive transit network of metros (both elevated and subway) and railways (both commuter and regional) and intercity trains (Amtrak) yet all of it is effectively useless besides travel between the city center and the neighborhood you live in outside the center. The only other use it possesses is taking you to a place along the route between the center and your suburb. It’s poorly designed. There should be 2 railway lines or 2 metro lines that connect adjacent suburbs together and curve around the periphery of the Chicago metropolitan area.

Happens on British contact shoe trains too

Like those extremely banked curves just south of the loop on the orange line.

An obvious Chicago transit geek who has nicely pre-empted my comment, and indeed added more detail. As a Chicago old fart (but have not lived there since the lines became color coded) I speak in terms of Ravenswood, Douglas, Skokie Swift and the one that you forgot, Evanston (now purple), which also has a short grade level section from the former Isabella station to Linden. You are 100% correct that these go back to the legacy era and in the case of Ravenswood was actually a spur to development as the then private Northwestern owned the land around it. Also regarding the Yellow (aka Skokie) line, as I'm sure you know, Brian, and other transit fans would be interested in learning, was the high speed Skokie Valley route of the old North Shore Line, one of the last interurbans in the country. The predecessor to the CTA ran the Niles Center (as Skokie was called then) route but as you noted, was abandoned soon after the CTA was formed in 1947. I'm old enough to have ridden the North Shore many times although the L stations along the way were interestingly derelict. When the North Shore stopped in 1963, within two years the 1-stop Skokie service was started by the CTA, which is an interesting story in that it was the first case of federal $ being used for urban transit--a product of the LBJ administration's forward thinking. Also, the Evanston line has an important North Shore line link as that interurban (which actually built south from Waukegan) first entered Wilmette on street tracks before joining the L tracks at Linden. Grade crossing is of course very much a feature of commuter lines pretty much everywhere and this includes some commuter / rapid transit hybrids such as Chicago's South Shore, Illinois Central (now Metra Electric), and Long Island RR in NY which have many, many grade crossings. As to the RM series--great, great stuff! --and I especially appreciate that he is from and covers in depth my favorite country in the world--Canada!

thanks for this comment, it's what i was hoping to learn about in the video :)

The Yellow Line's grade crossings are because it is a remnant of the North Shore Line's former Skokie Valley line (built to provide an inline route that bypassed the denser coastal suburbs on Lake Michigan).

Also for the brown line almost all the grade crossings are on side streets, so they don't get as much traffic as major or arterial streets do. It's entirely possible to avoid the brown line grade crossings entirely if you're familiar with the area.

The orange line has grade crossings too... it's pretty much at grade the whole way down from Archer to the airport.

true ... although it's not a very common sight here in Germany, it still does happen as we have our fair share of idiots in traffic as well. In fact, when building new crossings, level crossings may in fact not be built in Germany any more, it has to be either a bridge or underpass instead; Old level crossings are still kept, but new ones aren't built

The transitway is still a road. Without signs, it's indistinguishable from a city street. At some intersections it can be unclear which turn is which. Railroads not only look different than streets, dedicated railways cannot be driven on with a car.

In Porto, Portugal, the bridge that the LRT uses now, used to be a car bridge. Nowadays, the LRT comes out of a tunnel that crosses some kilometres through the city center, just before entering the bridge to cross the river. A few years ago, a car entered the bridge from a level crossing on the opposite side of the river and went all the way into the tunnel. He later claimed he hadn't been to the city in quite a few years and thought it still was a car bridge, despite all the signs.

@@desanipt When you drive from memory, especially from longtime experience, you don't look at signs, because you "know" where to go. When something is changed, it's a shock. That's an interesting bi-level bridge.

yes more familiarity with the specifics of Chicago would have made the video better as opposed to the generalities presented although the arguments pro con for grade crossing were good. further one can't discuss Chicago's system with out acknowledging the el and the street car system complimented each other up until the time the street cars were yanked.

Yeah I'd be interested to hear why a lot of new metro lines use overhead power

I agree. I find the topic interesting enough for a separate video.

@@Ivandor12 It could be a safety matter. If somebody falls on the tracks of a third-rail-electrified system they might come into contact with the third rail and be electrocuted. The same applies to depots. Staff can't walk on the ground freely if they need to constantly worry about and avoid the third rail. Putting the power source out of the general reach of people reduces the possibility of otherwise avoidable injuries or fatalities.

@@bahnspotterEU That's a good point about the depots, I hadn't thought of that.

@@bahnspotterEU You can use sheathed bottom contact rails, like in the case of many German systems, and that eliminates most of the electrocution risk for workers on the ground. OHL isn't perfect either, it can be hazardous if you're carrying a long conductive object like a metal pole or a ladder which is certainly an issue in depots. I think the main reason why OHL is preferred over third rail nowadays is the cost due to raw material required. You can get away with a pretty thin wire and minimal insulation at 1500 VDC whereas you need a pretty chunky third rail. Why this wasn't done in the past, I'm not sure. Could be an issue of tunnel height, perhaps it's cheaper to make tunnels taller now to allow pantographs to fit.

It really is. Even if you’re not from Toronto

@@dmann5938 I've never been to Canada, yet I still watch every single one of his videos

Gotta have good vibes to get people into the construction mood

Our third rail in Chicago is also completely uncovered and it's several feet back from the crossing with special anti-trespass pads between the road/sidewalk and the third rail.

@@mtgibbs I grew up and lived close by that part of the Brown Line (picture of Kedzie crossing at 1:10). For that last mile there are at least five street level crossings. Despite those pads, every few years or so some idiot comes out of a nearby tavern on Kedzie and goes deliberately to urinate on the third rail, with the expected dire consequences. Also at those five crossings, several car/train impacts occur per year, mainly as a result of some idiot going around the lowered street barriers. In fact, a fellow with whom I went to grade school did cross his Volkswagen around the barriers in the early 1970s (at Sacramento Ave. I think) and they ended up scraping up bits of him with cardboard off the tracks (Yes, I did see the aftermath 1/2 hour after the accident, honest, no exaggeration). The trains now cross at slowed but still damaging speeds. I agree with "RMTransit:" grade level crossings are more problematic in North America (and especially in Chicago) than the rest of the world. Thanks for the video. --Pat, in Chicago, now living near the Damen Ave. Brown Line station.

@@patrickf.4440 Certainly grade crossings are not ideal. I was just pointing out the configuration of our grade crossings (I also live in Chicago). There are also issues because of the volume of trains which mean that the gates are down a lot of the time. It would be great to grade-separate everything west of Western (and maybe extend it to the Jefferson Park station on the O'Hare line) but I don't see that happening any time soon.

@@mtgibbs Yes, I have often felt it a shame that they haven't somehow extend the Brown Line more West/North (in an elevated fashion of course). Obviously it should have been done before it all became too built-up. Cost I am sure, was and is everything. It would be nice for some technology to be developed which would enable elevated train lines to be built traveling above, over the center of a street (in a matter other than the older fashioned and obtrusive elevated tracks as run currently in Chicago). But cost and neighborhood reluctance would no doubt halt such plans (I remember how many businesses were wiped out along some sections of Milwaukee Ave. when they were building the Blue Line subway section; I'm sure others do too). But, then, I guess doing anything extensive in an already built-up metropolis is always going to be disruptive to some, using the Brown Line flyover at Belmont and the station- lengthening that happened a decade or so ago, as just two examples (and the building of the expressways through Chicago in the 50s and 60s, even scarier). I wish us all good luck with future changes. Pat, Lincoln Square

@@patrickf.4440 All good points. I hope at some point we collectively will be more forward thinking about how investments like this would benefit the region's transportation system and people would view the line in the middle of the street or down the alley not as a detriment but as a valuable asset to their neighborhood and city. Good transit service is part of what makes the city attractive to live in. There are ways to build things that are not so obtrusive but it does take a little more money and people in charge to be satisfied with something that's not grandiose but long-lasting and functional and designed to fit in with the neighborhood fabric.

tell that to the Long Island Rail Road 😒 i frequently wait for minutes at a time at grade crossings, ESPECIALLY during peak hours when there might be a train in either direction hitting the same station at around the same time, so the gates stay down between them

Don't see how that's a good idea. Yes, level crossings can be bad for traffic if you're a driver, but if you want to build a bridge or something, it's more expensive.

@@a11u45 sure it is, but it minimizes the chance of accidents and allows better traffic flow on both the road and railroad. Keep in mind, there are also pretty busy tracks with anything from commuter trains to international and inter city express trains sharing the tracks along with freight trains. During rush hour some level crossings are more closed than they're open, which is an issue not only for normal traffic, but of course also for emergency services. Many quite long sections of railroad lines already don't have any level crossing and it works perfectly well

@@EnjoyFirefighting when train lines are constructed, the costs of construction need to be taken into account, as if you spend lots of money on say grade separated crossings, that money might be better spent elsewhere. For example buying more modern rolling stock instead or putting that money in the education system instead. For areas with high train frequencies high traffic, grade separated crossings make sense, but for areas with low train frequencies and low traffic, there is less of a need to spend public money on grade separated crossings

@@a11u45 yeah that's what I'm talking about, smaller branch lines that might get an hourly or half-hourly service at most. Many proposals are there but requiring grade seperation makes it really expensive and often it isn't done then

Same policy has applied here in Melbourne, Australia for the last 20 years.

Late to this comment but I think he’s talking specifically about subway systems and not commuter rail

purple line has one aswell

I think they're fine

But still common practice on the San Francisco cable cars!

@@davidconnor2458 I opened a subway door recently had my hand on the handle and this thing opened a few seconds before the train came to a halt, it doesnt normally happen which is why I had my hans there in the first placd, but this was one of the last trains without a "safety refit" (scrapped by the end of the year). Which showed me to what standard the trains were built back in the day.

Also, the end of the Purple and Pink lines.

But doesn't Chicago have metra trains to connect the city to suburbs

@@AlexCab_49 I mean suburb to suburb travel. Chicago has great transit if you're going and from the city center, but it's lacking if you want to go anywhere else.

yeah in my recollection even though chicago is huge, the less dense outer edges of chicago and the burbs are absolutely sprawling and the region could really benefit from more suburb to suburb connectivity.

@@AlexCab_49 you are right but their southern most point is a hour and 30 mins away from downtown

@@harktischris land, money, and time.

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing

What station is this??? I’d like to visit it…

@@korbermeister1 East 105th Street

This idiot doesn't understand grammar

Just make the road go below grade

Walking on railways is/was perfectly normal thing here. There are too many miles of track and too low of a volume. There are no 160 km/h trains, it's all freight and you know when they are coming from miles away. There is a short section with 160 km/h trains now, about 850 km. There is a train track through my university campus. There is an underpass, but there was also an unofficial over tracks crossing. Worse, some people walked down the tracks over a river bridge, that is dumb. It's now a transit line with a stop at the unofficial crossing. Would have been nice to have when I went.

Public transit doesn't dominate motor vehicles in any way

On at least some of their crossings, maybe all of them, there are anti-pedestrian "baffles" that run parallel to the rails to make it difficult to get onto the ROW. The third rail begins after that.

@@sharkheadism I’ll have to take a look again at those videos than. Thanks for mentioning that, I’ll check it out!

@@DanTheCaptain I wish I knew a proper term for them, some look like large pieces of angle iron laid inside and outside of the rails to form a series of sharp "V" ridges & troughs parallel to the rail. The effect is that it's difficult to walk on them. They're analogous to cattle guards.

and comparing third rail to overheard power!

These grade crossings are operated by JR East and other companies, and the lines that cross them are considered commuter rail. Some lines operated by these companies through-operate into Tokyo Metro and Toei Subway’s system, though.