A Tale of Two Cities: Toronto and Chicago's Transit Divergence
A new series on how two Great Lakes cities grew apart in their public transport offerings, and how they could both grow much better.
A topic I don’t spend a lot of time talking about on my Substack or my YouTube Channel is nation- or continent-level urban strategy — if I may call it that. The idea is that having a series on strong cities is good for our countries and continents, especially in the face of significant challenges like affordability and climate change resilience. The concept of a “climate-haven”, or a city that is particularly well-insulated from the effects of climate change, interests me a lot — while obviously no city will emerge unscathed, some will certainly be better off.
Great Lakes cities, most notably the two largest — Chicago and Toronto, are particularly interesting, because not only do they have access to massive amounts of fresh water, comparatively low risks of flooding and coastal storms (Toronto is 100+ meters above sea level and Chicago is even higher), low risks of other natural disasters, but importantly — very good bones as cities!
I can see a future where both cities have on the order of ~15 million residents, and become even more competitive with coastal metropolises in terms of their economies and quality-of-life. This would be great for both the US and Canada, and it would lead to more “city competition” where urban areas are forced to make larger investments in things such as infrastructure and affordability.
Of course, probably the thing that underlies all of this potential urban growth and economic vibrancy is public infrastructure. The most notable element of this infrastructure is public transport, where both Toronto and Chicago lag behind not just cities internationally, but in varying ways other cities on the continent like Vancouver and New York.
So what is this series actually about?
The series isn’t meant to be about climate havens or developing the Great Lakes cities. However, that is the foundation upon which I plan to build: Chicago and Toronto have huge potential and can learn a lot from one another.
However, today things are vastly different in the two cities. Toronto’s rapid transit system — while quite a bit smaller than Chicago’s — is far better used, and its rapid expansion means that it will be similarly large to Chicago’s network when the currently under-construction projects complete, Toronto also has the streetcar network, GO transit — which is being completely overhauled, and a very strong bus system both municipally and regionally. I also plan to highlight the incredible difference in quality
between the systems — while Toronto’s subway is smaller, it has much larger trains, better stations, and tighter integration with other modes. These are elements which far too often go missed in “Wikipedia comparisons”, but which really to have significant upfront costs and tangible benefits.
Now, the framing might suggest a series about punching down on Chicago (if that’s even possible for Chicago), but that’s really not the case. I see Toronto’s rapid growth as a great impetus for Chicago to do more on rapid transit and urbanism more broadly, and to fix more of the system it has. Chicago does have a few things on Toronto, including some 24/7 rapid transit services, some electric regional rail, and rapid transit to both major airports. But of course, at the end of the day, I personally want Chicago to have a better transport system — and only trumpeting its positives won’t get us there.
So here in 2023, I see a huge opportunity and an inflection point, where we can accelerate Toronto’s positive movement expanding its public transport system, while also shifting what currently feels like a slow decline in Chicago back into rapid growth.
This doesn’t feel like a pipe dream either. The large amount of transit-served land in both cities and room for densification means there is huge room for more affordable housing (Chicago is already quite strong on this, while Toronto is objectively horrible), and their geographies also permit lots of growth and indeed will encourage it. Toronto’s role as Canada’s primate city, and Chicago’s as an enduring centre for culture, industry, and trade in the US will also cement these cities’ economic importance into the distant future.
Of course, these cities also just have a lot in common: Both are split by lakefront, both have a strongly gridded layout, both have extensive highway and freight rail networks, and both are sprawling — this means many of the same problems and solutions can be found and applied in both cities. Ultimately, North America would just be so much better off with two large Great Lakes metropolises, and I hope this series can outline just some of the many ways we can get Toronto and Chicago to a place where they are not just among the top cities on the continent but, in the world.
Series Breakdown
The series will be split into a number of articles covering the following topics, they won’t be every week - probably roughly once a month, I plan on them being rather in depth and long! Here are my planned topics (also open to reader suggestions, reply to this email or drop a comment below!):
Part 1: Rapid Transit: a comparison of the TTC Subway and the Chicago El, expansion and rebuild plans, and how both cities can work to turn their “middle-tier” rapid transit systems into globe-leading ones.
Part 2: Local Transit: how Chicago can learn from (and avoid the pitfalls of) Toronto’s streetcar and LRT systems, implement its own version of the TTC’s hugely successful suburban buses, and how both cities could roll out higher-quality transit region-wide to people’s doorsteps.
Part 3: Suburban Rail: a comparison of Metra and GO Transit, as well as how both cities can work to improve their suburban rail, which, in concert with better local transit, would likely be the most transformative public transport intervention either could undertake.
Part 4: Intercity Transport: great cities need to be well connected to other cities and places, and on this Chicago has a lot to teach Toronto with its much more extensive intercity rail service and air service. However, both cities have lack-luster airports, could do with better intercity rail, and could stand to strengthen their freight infrastructure.
Part 5: Urban Development and Resiliency: looking at the trends that have lead to Toronto’s ascendancy, and Chicago’s staying power. We will also look at how the cities could improve their built form and better integrate it with public transport investments discussed in earlier parts. I’ll also discuss policies and planning which could help cement the resiliency of the great lakes cities and help them even better take advantage of their unique geography.
Chicagoan here, flagging this just in case: https://yard-social.com/2023/05/13/diverging-approach-2034sight/. Interested in what you think of "cross-towner" as a concept. Maybe it's in that RER-type space, but it sounds less impressive.
Another small but meaningful tweak worth looking into: currently there's not much demand for the west side Blue Line, but lot for service through NW side between downtown and O'Hare. There's a twitter thread somewhere about re-routing Orange line so that rather than running through loop it goes into Dearborn Subway and continues to O'Hare. Interested in your take on interlining in this case and how big of a project it would be to connect State St. Subway (probably from a location a little ways north of Roosevelt) to the Dearborn Subway. I'm not on the Musk app so can't find the thread I'm afraid.
IDK if Pulse (a "rapid" suburban bus service: https://www.pacebus.com/pulse) is any good, but the stop shelters look less over-the-top than the Viva stations I see in your videos.
One of my jobs involves a long commute (59th St. Metra to Loyola Red Line with very short walks at either end); at morning rush hour the combination of a Metra Electric express train and the Red Line, with a few blocks' walk through the downtown Pedway is actually quite reliable and (relatively) fast these days, with apartment-to-office taking just under an hour (driving would be at least a half hour, with the parking garage costing about as much as taking both Metra and CTA both ways, and more than if I just use the CTA for the less time-sensitive journey home).
Great project !