Update to the fatal chain-reaction crash on Dan Ryan early Saturday morning

The Chicago Tribune has more on that early morning wreck near Garfield Blvd that happened Saturday morning during the AM commute on the Dan Ryan Expressway. One woman dies in a chain wreck crash that involved five vehicles and resulted in injuries to four other drivers although in this article their conditions weren't reported.

Be careful out there!

Yes this is a rare Sunday post.

How was your experience with the Red Line Reconstruction?

So how was your ride on the Red Line this morning (and/or this afternoon)?

Reader Melanie Payne shared with us (on our Facebook page) her experience this morning. (Included are our questions):

Melanie Payne It worked, i got to work 40 minutes early. As long as they keep the shuttles coming and the trains are running no more than 3 minutes apart then people should be good.

Unlike · Reply · 1 · 8 hours ago

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  The Sixth Ward That's great to know. Can we post your comments on a blog post? Also -- my wife is concerned about safety at Garfield (as well as the potential chaos there). How was it this morning? And how does it work for the ride home? (Also, feel free to e-mail us or give us a link to any photo you would like us to use, if any. THANKS (jp)

  Like · 7 hours ago
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  Melanie Payne I have to get back to you for the ride home part. As far as chaos going..im not going to say she is right or wrong but there was ALOT of security over there. Now maybe long term thinking she maybe correct. Im not one for being on that side town either. They have the red line running on the same track as the green line. So its the same type of redline people as before. The redline goes in the tunnel if you she/you need to get off downtown (like me) or even go up north. Sure you can use my quote. Now I might come back to you all a month later and say whether not its the same. :)

  Unlike · 1 · 7 hours ago
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  The Sixth Ward So you're saying you don't have to change at Roosevelt (where the Green Line and Red Line link up)? You can hop on at Garfield, and stay in your seat, until, say, Washington or even up to Howard? (jp)
  
  And if you come back with a very different opinion about the reconstruction, we will have no problem with that (well, we WILL have a problem, but no problem to post about it ;) ). We wonder if the effort will be maintained, or like Wal-Mart, once the hype has died down, the quality sinks.
  
  Thanks so much -- and feel free to send anything (or even your very own guest post) to blog@thesixthward.us

  Like · 7 hours ago
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  Melanie Payne Yes at Garfield they have the Red/Howard and the green line running on the same track. So if you need to head underground and get off at LAKE or JACKSON you can stay seated.

  Like · 7 hours ago
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  Melanie Payne On the Red/Howard train

  Like · 7 hours ago
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  The Sixth Ward So far no big bens on King drive or Cottage Grove. As far as security, now that UC owns a building over there (Washington Park Arts Incubator), you have the transit detail and UC patrolling. wg

  Like · 6 hours ago

We will update this entry when Melanie reports back this evening!

WBEZ: Red Line ridership is up, but not on South Side

Chicago Public Radio station, WBEZ (91.5 FM) just published a story regarding CTA ridership on the Red Line.

Here's a segment relevent for us:

The above holds true for total ridership over the past decade, though all North Side stations have seen ridership improvements from their 2001 levels. The biggest improvement across the Red Line came from Lake, which gained nearly 1.5 million riders from 2001 to 2011. This was enough to push it from the third most popular Red Line station in 2001 (behind 95th/Dan Ryan and Chicago) to first in 2011.

95th/Dan Ryan, 2001’s most-used station, dropped to fifth-most used in 2011 (behind Lake, Chicago, Fullerton and Belmont). It is one of only five stations to see ridership declines in the past decade – all are on the city’s South Side. The others are 87th, 69th, 63rd and Garfield.

These are five of the nine South Side stations that will be closed for five months starting in spring 2013 as part of a $425 million CTA track replacement project. The closure will impact every station from Cermak-Chinatown through 95th/Dan Ryan.

Click here for details, and to see the charts of Red Line ridership by station, since 2001.