New ridership for old rail: An analysis of changes in the utilization of Chicago's urban rail system, 1990–2008

Marcelo E. Lascano Kežić and Pablo Luis Durango-Cohen

Research in Transportation Economics, 2018, vol. 71, issue C, 17-26

Abstract: We analyze the evolution of the spatial distribution of ridership in Chicago's Elevated Train over the last two decades, by means of station-level average daily passenger entries and census data to establish links between ridership changes and urban processes. Overall, we observe that 2007–2008 ridership was slightly below 1989–1990 levels, but recovering since the late 1990s. Ridership gains have shown a strong tendency to concentrate within a 10 km radius from the CBD. Outside of this area, losses since 1989–1990 have been steady. The ridership recovery and its spatial distribution appear, therefore, to be related to an acceleration of urban processes, i.e., gentrification, immigration, employment concentration in the CBD.

Keywords: Chicago; Urban transportation; Urban rail; Ridership data; Downtown; Gentrification; Immigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L92 O18 R41 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885918301471
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:retrec:v:71:y:2018:i:c:p:17-26

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_2&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2018.06.012

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Transportation Economics is currently edited by M. Dresner

More articles in Research in Transportation Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().