Author: Minseok Ryu

Program of Study: Quantum Science and Engineering PhD, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering

Metra train passing by. Picture taken from my windowsill.

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Transcript (provided by author):

Welcome to the ELI’s Finding Chicago Global Perspectives Podcast Series for AEPP 2024. I’m your host, Minseok, and I’m currently enrolled in the University of Chicago’s Quantum Science and Engineering PhD program at the Pritzker school of Molecular engineering.

Has anyone ever (train) taken a train in Chicago? To get to downtown or come to hyde park? If you ever did, at least for once , I am sure you must have noticed that it’s quite poorly managed, so these trains rattle a lot, the train stations rusty, and train themselves and rusty too and they are not so clean. And This poor management not only bothers its passengers, but it also affects neighborhoods living next to the train station. 

I especially feel this to my skin. cause I live next to the station and I hear this train, noisy train, passing by every 15 mins. And  what’s worse is that, I hear these freight trains passing by in the middle of the night. And I really wished some soundproof walls or at least sound-reducing walls to be placed around train station for me to sleep better. So this raised me a question. Who is running this train system?

Is it run by private company? or by the public government, say the city government of Chicago?

And Whoever it is running the company, why couldn’t they spend some more money in train system for good of its citizens when the Unites States has enough money to do that?

This weekend, while I was visiting countryfest by Metra with my friends who did their undergrads here at the University of Chicago, I asked them if they had any ideas about this or knew something about its history. So the train system were apparently run by private companies but were subsidized by the government, as it is the case for train systems in many other train systems in different countries in the world. But they told me these poor management may have to do with Americans preferring cars over trains in their primary method of transportation. so the demand for renovation was low.  And they even told me that some car companies may tried to hinder the development of train system to make them incompetetive against their cars. 

But my question persisted, because I had this vivid image from all the old school movies that I watched in my childhood, And those were western American movies  where cowboys took the trains a lot. But as I was enjoying countryfest and walked around  Northern parts of Chicago, I soon realized one thing. So There were a lot of people, especially white people in the suburban area, far from the center of the city where train stations were located. I knew from my pervious research for my previous AEPP presentations that this due to white flight , white flight, where white people moved to suburban area where ethnic diversity were growing, and I could really witness this with my bare eyes! I thought this would be the main cause for low demands of the trains, because if huge population is dispersed in outer parts of the city they will prefer cars over train for sure. 

But convenient public transportations probably might be the best help for middle class or low-income households who cannot afford private vehicles but are seeking job opportunities outside of their neighborhood. So this led me to question the public/private partnership in order to  provide essential services for people in need. You think that government is there to complement private sector and is warm-hearted in that it helps people in need outside of the market logic, but they were actually quite similar to private market in that it followed what the dominant group  within the community thinks is good for them, more than for the underrepresented people in the society. 

Thank you for listening to my podcast. Before I finish my podcast, I also wanted to add that safe and convenient public transportations not only help people, but it can also  reduce carbon footprints significantly, and is good for the Earth, compared to  cars and airplanes. So I want to end my podcast by saying that I genuinely hope all the best for the Chicago train system to be better than it is now.