 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Chicago Rapid Transit Company" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
TheChicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) was a privately owned firm providingrapid transit rail service inChicago, Illinois, and several adjacent communities between 1924 and 1947. The CRT is one of the predecessors of theChicago Transit Authority, Chicago's currentmass transit operator.
Leading up to the consolidation of the 'L' companies into the CRT was decades of the Chicago Elevated Railways Collateral Trust (CER), an entity directly attributed to utilities magnateSamuel Insull. The CER laid the groundwork for the companies to become one, including financial agreements and simplification that allowed for free transfers between the various lines at the places where they shared facilities, such as at Loop elevated stations. The CER also resulted in the through-routing of trains from one company's line to another, enabling riders to take a single train from Ravenswood on the Northwestern 'L' to 35th Street on the South Side 'L'.
The CRT was an amalgamation of several elevated railroad operators, each of which operated service in a particular section of the city.[2] These predecessors include:
The CRT network was entirely at or above grade level until the 1943 opening of the State Street subway, now part of CTA'sRed Line.
Following World War II and the continuing financial malaise of the privately owned bus, streetcar and elevated/subway operators, both the city government of Chicago and the Illinois legislature favored consolidating the three separate systems into a single, public-owned authority. The assets and operations of the CRT were assumed by the newly established Chicago Transit Authority on October 1, 1947.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
