To many Chicago residents, the Yellow Line is more of an inside joke than a true transit option. Stretching only 4.7 miles and just three stops — Howard, Oakton-Skokie and Dempster-Skokie — the line is by far the shortest of all eight Chicago Transit Authority “L” lines.
Existing near the top of the “L” map, the line is fundamentally disconnected from the rest of the city’s transit system, averaging only about 1,300 weekday riders as of November, according to CTA monthly ridership reports.
On paper, the Yellow Line looks like another casualty of the CTA’s long-running budgetary and ridership struggles. But viewing the line’s failures as a byproduct of the organization’s economic struggles overlooks the real tragedy of its current function.
Originally opened in 1925, the then-Niles Center Line boasted seven intermediate stations between Howard and Dempster-Skokie, serving communities in south Evanston and Skokie. However, because much of the land surrounding the line was sparsely populated before World War II, the line faced low ridership and financial issues that ultimately led to a service suspension in 1948.
However, Skokie, Chicago and the federal government still saw promise in the line’s potential and funded an effort in the 1960s to reimagine the line. It became a “demonstration project” to test if modern rapid transit could successfully connect suburban areas with the city center, according to Chicago’s “L” website.
Calling the new line the “Skokie Swift,” the CTA fully integrated the project into its services in 1966, meaning the line ditched its roots as a multi-stop commuter rail and instead began acting as a nonstop shuttle between Howard and Skokie.
In the first years of its operation, the line was incredibly popular, with around 6,000 weekday passengers. But in recent years, its popularity has dwindled.
Now known as the Yellow Line, its purpose hasn’t changed, with the only major developments on the line being new 5000-series CTA cars in 2014, a third rail system installed in 2004 and the addition of the Oakton-Skokie station in 2012.
All those improvements were intended to modernize an already modern line by helping maintain the line’s 55 mph speeds.
However, in trying to maintain that image, the line’s once revolutionary speed became its greatest vulnerability.
A serious collision in November 2023 prompted investigators to discover serious safety concerns with CTA’s operating procedures for fast-moving trains, like the ones commonly operated on the Yellow Line. As a result, the last two years have seen the once “high-speed” link reduced to a measly 35 mph.
The most formidable truth is that the necessity for a short, nonstop transit line is no longer what it used to be.
For decades, officials have discussed extending the line by an additional 1.6 miles to the Westfield Old Orchard mall, a major regional destination that would increase ridership and finally give the line a purpose beyond being a simple commuter shuttle.
Despite being identified as a “locally preferred alternative” and receiving federal attention, the extension project remains on the shelf due to a lack of funding and vigorous opposition from residents who fear it “would disrupt” their quality of life, according to Chicago’s “L” website.
The most obvious problem with the Yellow Line is that, by being a non-stop shuttle service between Skokie and Howard, it completely ignores neighborhoods in South Evanston.
After seeing the benefits of neighborhood integration when riding the Brown Line, or the northern portion of the Purple Line, it feels disheartening to see the large transit desert caused by the Yellow Line.
Neither the Purple Line nor the Yellow Line cover south or southwest Evanston, and while I could ride the buses offered by Pace or the CTA, they don’t have the same culture-building potential that is so obviously evident in many other lines.
In the case of the Purple Line, entire subneighborhoods in Evanston, like Dempster or Noyes, thrive because of the constant flow of people brought by the stations. But in the case of the Yellow Line, that community growth is just not possible in valuable regions along west Main Street or West Oakton Street.
And at the end of the day, this is the problem I have with the Yellow Line — it feels less like an integrated part of the community and more like a haunting experience of what could have been. As the train glides past James Park and over the residential streets of south Evanston, it functions more like a ghost than a public utility.
Even though the infrastructure is physically there, with the tracks running directly through Evanston’s 8th Ward, the train fails to serve the people living alongside it.
While exploring beyond the “blue tint” of the train windows, the Yellow Line allowed me to see vibrant parts of downtown Skokie, but it did so at the expense of south Evanston.
And that is the Yellow Line’s quiet tragedy: It is a line built with first-class speed, but not first-class service.
George Koutrouvelis is a Medill freshman and author of “Through the Blue Tint.” He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
