Social Distancing on The Red Line

It shouldn’t surprise anyone in these times that people are riding less on the CTA trains than they used to due to social distancing. One of the easiest places to get sick is to be crammed shoulder to shoulder in a small subway car with poor ventilation. People’s ability to social distance depends a lot on their social-economic status. The New York Times reported in an article in late March that even though in wealthier areas ridership has fallen sharply this was not the case in poorer neighborhoods.

This situation is not unique to New York. We can see a similar situation in Chicago according to data from the CTA. Now it is well known that the North Side is in general (with exceptions) wealthier than the South Side. The Red Line CTA train is the only train that links the North Side with the South Side. It is also by far the busiest of all the CTA train routes. I plotted the number of boardings on a daily basis in the graph below. The red plot is the number of boardings south of the Loop, the blue plot is the number north of the Loop, and the gray plot is for stations in the Loop (downtown) itself (Lake, Monroe, and Jackson stations). Not surprisingly there was a sharp drop off in the Loop because several people are working remotely instead of traveling to work downtown. But you can also see in the graph below that ridership fell much more strongly on the North Side than the South Side. (Note: Downward spikes in graph are due to lower ridership during the weekends.)

Below in the next table you can see the drop in passengers for each station on the Red Line. (Please note some stations like Belmont and Fullerton serve more trains than just those on the Red Line.) The stations from the South Side (those in red) top the list but even the stations that are at the top of the list for the North Side serve less wealthy areas.

There has been a discussion on why minorities are more susceptible to COVID-19. One reason could simply be that because of economic conditions they are forced to ride on the subway and are not able to work from home. I am sure the people riding on the CTA today are not doing it because it is fun or they are going out. People from wealthier neighborhoods on the North Side can work from home and don’t have to ride the CTA at all - an option several don’t have.

StationCount work week
1/6/20 - 1/10/20		 Count work week
3/22/20 - 3/27/20		 % of remaining traffic
79th286551150340.14%
63rd13624519238.10%
95th/Dan Ryan427471614837.77%
69th20192755437.41%
87th17062580934.04%
Garfield13451450933.52%
47th12501414033.11%
Howard23847712729.88%
Jarvis6617155423.48%
Wilson28927626321.65%
Roosevelt45906985221.46%
Sox-35th17213338919.68%
Morse19958388019.44%
Loyola18764362719.32%
Berwyn14801279318.87%
Argyle14161253917.92%
Lawrence12783227117.76%
Granville15707273017.38%
Bryn Mawr21267350416.47%
Thorndale13876200214.42%
Clark/Division34916502914.40%
Cermak-Chinatown16872228413.53%
Chicago57632717312.44%
North/Clybourn25901300611.60%
Sheridan23288237310.18%
Belmont5600751589.20%
Lake9506386869.13%
Harrison1448512718.77%
Grand4793139568.25%
Addison3015524408.09%
Jackson4563436518.00%
Monroe4634032897.09%
Fullerton6916038035.49%