Chicago Transit Authority
Compare L stations using GTFS stop metadata and Chicago ridership averages. Blend ridership with safety, walkability, and connectivity scores to create your own station ranking formula.
Stations in this snapshot
–Adjust the sliders to decide how much each category should influence the ranking. The weighted score blends ridership, safety, walkability, connectivity, reliability, and frequency into a single score.
| Rank | Station | Lines | Ranking value | Weighted score |
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ADA | Lat/Lon |
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Based on average weekday entries from the Chicago Data Portal (dataset t2rn-p8d7). Stations are ranked by daily riders and scaled 0–100, where 100 represents the busiest station in the system.
Derived from Chicago Police Department crime data within a quarter-mile radius of each station. Lower crime density yields a higher score. Well-lit, high-traffic stations tend to score higher.
Measures the pedestrian environment around each station: sidewalk coverage, crosswalk density, nearby amenities (shops, restaurants, services), and residential density within a 10-minute walk.
How well-connected the station is to the rest of the transit network. Factors include the number of L lines served, bus route transfers available, and the number of destinations reachable within 30 minutes.
Reflects on-time performance for the lines serving each station. Brown and Purple lines score higher due to consistent schedules. Terminal and Loop stations receive slight penalties for operational complexity that can cause delays.
Based on peak-hour trains per hour aggregated across all lines at each station. Multi-line transfer hubs score highest. Red and Blue lines contribute ~10 trains/hr each, while the Yellow line contributes ~3 trains/hr.
The spending column shows estimated operating costs per station. Use the dropdown to switch between annual spending and spending per ride. This is an informational metric only and cannot be weighted. Click the column header arrow to sort stations by spending (ascending or descending).
Annual spending factors in base operating costs (~$1.5M), ridership-driven expenses ($150 per daily rider), multi-line infrastructure surcharges, ADA maintenance, and premiums for terminal and major hub stations. Spending per ride divides annual spending by total estimated annual rides (weekday avg × 261 + Saturday avg × 52 + Sunday avg × 52). These are estimates based on CTA budget data and industry benchmarks, not official per-station figures.