The Loop (CTA)

Uncommon card · No. 184283

The Loop (historically Union Loop) is the 1.79-mile-long (2.88 km) circuit of elevated rail that forms the hub of the Chicago "L" system in the United States. As of April 2024, the branch served 40,341 passengers on an average weekday. The Loop is so named because the elevated tracks loop around a rectangle formed by Lake Street (north side), Wabash Avenue (east), Van Buren Street (south), and Wells Street (west). The railway loop has given its name to Chicago's downtown, which is also known as the Loop. Transit began to appear in Chicago in the latter half of the 19th century as the city grew rapidly, and rapid transit started to be built in the late 1880s. When the first rapid transit lines opened in the 1890s, they were independently owned and each had terminals that were located immediately outside of Chicago's downtown, where it was considered too expensive and politically inexpedient to build rapid transit. Charles Tyson Yerkes aggregated the competing rapid transit lines and built...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Kelly Martin, CC BY-SA 3.0