Hey, thanks for the shoutout!

Can’t say we agree with everything on here, but overall great analysis!

Better Metra service: Yes!
BRT on Western: Yes, currently being studied
Better station naming: a no-brainer
Downtown Circulator: actually already exists, it’s called Loop Link and it’s not a single route but several routes that run together to form a circulator using bus lanes on Washington and Madison
Fares: yep, need to be simplified
Hadn’t thought about a Midway Express before, O’Hare probably needs the express more as the Orange Line is quite fast but I support infills on the Heritage Corridor

Great video!

CICERO- SIS-UR-OH

The reason why the Pink line is separate from the Blue Line is that the ridership on that line was significantly lower than the Forest Park branch and both branches were significantly lower than the OHare branch.  Essentially CTA was running long empty trains on the 54/ Cermak branch because the trains were thru routed.  As a separate line CTA can run 4 car trains which is more efficient,

Ok so comments from a Chicago resident's POV:
1: it's OHgilvie or ohGILvie (depending on who you ask)
2: it's CICero not cicAIRo
3: the red line should not take over yellow line service - the yellow line has pitiful ridership because (even with your proposed infill station) it goes barely anywhere; it is nowhere near worth the cost of expanding the stations from fitting 2-car yellow line trains to 8-car red line ones and increasing the strain on the operations of the already extraordinarily long and soon-to-be-longer red line.
4: the blue line should not take over pink line service - the pink line was spun off for a reason. it has always had much less demand and usage, and so in a very cash-strapped system with twin crises in both recruitment (not enough train + bus operators) and finances ( the CTA is about to hit a fiscal cliff), it is very much not worth straining the limited resources of the blue line to run (by CTA standards) high frequency, high capacity, modern cars and long trains on a pretty low performance section of the system. The only two options there are either running trains with way too much capacity and frequency than are justified (this is not a situation where larger, more frequent trains will increase demand - we know that when the blue line was running its trains on the pink line, they were still doing very poorly) or lowering the standards for the entire blue line instead of just letting the pink line run its own, smaller trains.
5: similarly, the purple line should not run through the state st subway all the way to the cottage grove branch. It's just not warranted - I agree the purple line express service should be extended, if not 24hr, but running it all the way that far south is just an unnecessary strain on the extremely strained resources of the CTA for very little benefit.
5: I really don't think it's necessary to review all the station names for repeats. It's not that confusing. If I'm on the brown line, and my stop is at irving park, I would never think "oh, is that the blue line or brown line irving park?" I'm already on the brown line. I know which station that is. Certainly for actual Chicago residents that's not necessary; as for tourists, who may not be familiar with the system, how would they even know to be confused - if you're not familiar with the system, and google maps tells you to take the blue line O'hare direction to western, you wouldn't know enough to confuse it with the 4 other stops on western at different points, and if you did somehow know that, you would still not be confused because google maps told you which western station you're going to.
6: western BRT would totally be great yeah. I mean an el would be better, and not that expensive by american transit price standards, but the funding for that is not going to be there unless there's a really different paradigm at a city-, state-, and nation-wide level regarding funding transit. And it would probably get sued into oblivion. But as for a loop line, the western line wouldn't have to be a full loop - you could literally just run it down western and to, say, midway or 95th, and it would be a massive connectivity win. The actual loop line, which was a real proposal that got as far as a fully finished phase 1 (which is what we now know as the pink line - phase 1 was repairs and modernization of track leading to the pink line's creation as a side effect) was supposed to run closer into downtown, and thus be a lot smaller and more feasible. Both of these would be great as elevated metro, and brt on western would be a great cheaper alternative, though I'd definitely be worried the alder system in chicago would cause the brt to get diluted to oblivion or just never happen.

What about re-extending to Green Line and Jackson Park and having a Metra Infill station at Irving Park instead of Montrose.

Depending on how you count, Chicago has up to 5 trains to 5 airports:

1) CTA Blue line to O'Hare
2) CTA Orange line to Midway
3) Metra North Central Service to O'Hare transfer (connects to the airport's automated people mover, which counts)
4a) South Shore Line to South Bend Airport (station at airport terminal)
4b) South Shore Line to Gary/Chicago Airport (there's a station named after the airport but not immediately at the airport, also this airport hasn't had commercial passenger service in 10 years)
5) Amtrak Hiawatha to Milwaukee Airport (station named after the airport but requires bus transfer to terminal)

Also based on your pronunciation of Cicero I guess you haven't watched Better Call Saul, which you should.

you can pry the 6 westerns from my cold dead hands
they are a staple, if anything we need more of them
other than that great video!

Something Ella Fitzgerald may have said about Chicago’s SouthAsian cuisine: It’s Delightful. It’s Delicious. IT’S  DEVON.

The Red Line Extension is overdue for the south side and southern suburban communities. The redline extension connects so many neighborhoods and allows easier access to jobs. It's literally a shit show after the 95th Red Line. There are so many food desserts and communities cut off from the rest of the world because they barely have a bus service. I think Chicago has a huge opportunity to better connect the west & south sides of the city with trains!

The BNSF frequencies are bad, But they are necessitated before the pandemic by trains that were so full they could not take the whole route. During rush hours, BNSF operates as a series of chunks where the train will go express to or from downtown and serve a selection of stations rather than the whole line.

With regard to station naming, The simple solution is to use both names as occasionally happens. "Clark and Lake" for example

It’s pronounced Oh-Gil-Vee if that makes sense, it was named something easier before changing names. Great video by the way :)) and yes, the walk between stations is absolutely terrible in the winter, don’t be like me, bring a coat

Also about the yellow line, it’s very interesting cause it was built for the late North Shore Line which operate service from the Loop and Indiana station to Milwaukee via either the mainline which branched off the Evanston branch or the Skokie branch known as the Skokie bypass,  but shut down in 1963, originally up until the 40s I think the CRT operated rapid transit up until Niles center now known as Demeter. The CTA later started operating an experiment to create this sort of commuter rapid line nicknamed the “Commuters friend” and or the Skokie Swift, and started operating it in 1964 after closing basically all the station. An extension to old orchard would be awesome because it would serve the Mall and students at the nearby Niles North High School, but after 2011 it hasn’t since been studied as an option by the CTA. Also fun fact up until 2004 the Swift used overhead wire, so the 3200s assigned to the Skokie swift had pantographs (pretty cursed) now those trains usually operate on the brown and you can still see the remnants of the pantographs

It really pisses me off that the Green Line does not go to Midway. And the Orange Line should be 24/7!

pretty good video. The walk to Union Station from Quincy, Clinton blue and Clinton Green is not bad. We don't need to spend a ton of money to make all the train lines touch Union Station. The better solution would be more frequency on the Metra lines. With trains every 15 to 30 minutes, riders would take metra instead of CTA if they were transferring to a different Metra line or Amtrak. Adding a Metra Station on the UP Northwest line in Logan Square would put most blue line riders in walking distance to a Metra station. And we don't need Denver's mall bus downtown. I have never not walked from the train when my destination is in the loop and theres plenty of bus routes for people that can't walk.

Chicago has many corridors that have space for extra tracks that can be used for orbital services

I would propose these changes:

Red Line: none. The extension will do wonders.

Purple Line: extend it all the way to Ashland/63rd or even creating a Western Station. With this, reopening Racine and building a station at 59th/State feels extremely necessary.

Brown Line: I would merge it with the Orange Line.

Pink Line: I would extend it to Harlem and close Kostner.

Green Line: getting rid of the Englewood Branch and extending it all the way to the Obama Center while building an infill station at Dorchester or University.

Yellow Line: opening one more station (maybe Asbury) would be great.

Blue Line: I think it’s fine. I wish there was a line running from O’Hare to Midway, tho.

Chicago needs to grow. the RLE has been a long overdue promise now being fulfilled. That area has a lot of potential. i was in that area a week ago. it is always interesting to see what ppl say who don't live here.

One problem our regional rail needs to overcome is freight congestion. Currently the said rail line i.e. BNSF dictates how the commuter rail can operate on their line. There were talks at some point of transit consolidation that could help overcome this.

I saw myself holding my office lunch in this video haha, would’ve been great to chat. I love the CTA.

The least used line of the L is Yellow, not Pink