One of the el lines in chicago. The green line runs from about 63rd street out to harlem and lake. Great to get downtown from iit. See also red line, purple line, blue line, orange line, yellow line, brown line. Together with the metra and once in a while a cta or pace bus, these things get you from kenosha to elgin to south bend and everywhere in between.

I just rode one of the new space age Green Line Ts yesterday. They just seem wrong because they are actually modern. They also have a digital sign inside, displaying the destination, much like the Red Line. And the conductor is actually intelligible.

The new ones have a sunken middle, with the ends raised in the middle. There is also an extended middle section with seating, between the two sections of the trolley.

The sunken middle also allows for handicapped access, and there is an area for wheelchairs to lock themseleves in.

A tortuous subway and street trolley good for spotting cute girls who don't want to talk, the MBTA Green Line provides an excellent excuse for being late to work in the morning. Of the original five street-level routes, only four remain as the A Line closed in the late 1970's. In a humerous insult to Boston University, the Boston College (B) line slices through the middle of campus; Boston College students are better served by the Riverside (D) line, so they do not ride the Boston College trolley.

First off, for those who don't regularly put up with the public transportation in Boston, the Green Line is hell on wheels; hundreds of wheels. It is also much smaller than any modern subway train, and overcrowding is almost guaranteed. Also (remember this), it's doors, unlike virtually every modern subway train, open and close accordian-style. It is the oldest and most dilapidated of the subway lines, with the possible exception of the Blue Line: the Blue Line reeks of 1970s failure and decay, whereas the Green Line is a moldy oldy that has seen far better days. Of course, the entire MBTA reeks of 1970s failure and decay.

Regardless, the Green Line is the setting for my tale. In my younger days, one or two years ago, I ventured into Newbury Street, Boston's overpriced, overtrafficked, overrated boutique street. I did this via the Green Line, for I was not yet even close to ready to maneuver the impossible lanes of Boston by car. And so, there I was, on a hot, sweaty summer afternoon, and the train immediately filled with hot, sweaty summer afternoon people. So many, in fact, that the crowd took on the properties of a liquid, flowing into every nook and rusting cranny.

One of these nooks was particularly unsafe, on the steps going up from the door (did I mention that the trains are elevated, trolley-style?). And this nook was filled by a certain young lady possessing, if not beauty, a certain rough-hewed Asian grace. She spoke not a single word of the English tongue, as far as I could tell. And her hands found themselves right along the doorway, right between the crack which would soon jump into motion as the accordian closed.

I, meanwhile, a lucky one, was squarely in the middle of the train, between two doors, oblivious to the coming calamity. The doors closed, and the train began to move; all routine. But there was a certain shriek that pierced the air. Was there trouble along the rails? Were the brakes frantically trying to halt the metal monstrosity before certain doom befell us all?

I looked over, given my vantage point, and saw the nature of this unearthly howl; a lady, screaming in a voice that had no timbre in the western world; her arm, attached to her hand, attached to her fingers, all of which were attached, in a rudimentary vise grip, to the door; Her fingers were all crushed in the grip of the accordian. My stomach fell.

And then I fell; the crowd surged, buckled, jumped, jived. Within a moment I was upside-down, about to be trampled, my life flashing before my eyes. Quickly, I grabbed a shoulder, a waist, and yanked myself up. I looked over again at the source of it. I saw a man, an old man, who looked exactly, miraculously like Colonel Sanders, pull the emergency brake. The brakes came on, and the train screeched to a stop. The doors opened, and the Colonel took the ladie's hand in his, protecting the twisted fingers from further harm.

The scene was over. The train hadn't even left the station. Within a minute, the now-whimpering lady was escorted from the train by an officer of the MBTA, the doors were shut, and the Green Line chugged back into motion. All that remained was an old gentleman dressed in a white suit to tell of the disaster.

I, though, will never forget that scream, not as long as I live.

The Boston Green Line is the oldest subway line in North America; it began operating in 1897.

Map of the Boston Green Line:

                   Lechmere  (North end of the D(*), E lines)
                     |
                   Science Park 
                     |
                   North Station  ( Commuter Rail  and  Orange Line )
                     |
                   Haymarket  ( Orange Line )
                     |
                   Government Center  ( Blue Line ; North end of B, C lines
                     |                                and some D trains (*) )
                   Park Street  ( Red Line )
                     |
                   Boylston 
                     |
                   Arlington 
                     |
                   Copley  (E line branches off here)
                     |
                     +----------------------------------+
       B, C, D lines |                                  |  E line
                   Hynes/ICA                          Prudential 
                     |                                  |
                   Kenmore  (lines split)             Symphony 
                     |                                  |
   +-----------------+-----------------+              Northeastern 
 B |               C |                 | D              |
 Blandford St.     St. Mary's St.    Fenway           Museum of Fine Arts 
   |                 |                 |                |
 B. U. East        Hawes St.         Longwood         Longwood Medical Area 
   |                 |                 |                |
 B. U. Central     Kent St.      Brookline Village    Brigham Circle 
   |                 |                 |                |
 B. U. West        St. Paul St.    Brookline Hills    Fenwood Rd. 
   |                 |                 |                |
 St. Paul St.     Coolidge Corner    Beaconsfield     Mission Park 
   |                 |                 |                |
 Pleasant St.      Summit Ave.       Reservoir        Riverway 
   |                 |                 |                |
 Babcock St.       Brandon Hall      Chestnut Hill    Back of the Hill 
   |                 |                 |                |
 Packards Corner   Fairbanks St.     Newton Center    Heath Street 
   |                 |                 |             (End of E line)
 Fordham Rd.       Washington Sq.    Newton Highlands 
   |                 |                 |
 Harvard Ave.      Tappan St.        Eliot 
   |                 |                 |
 Griggs St.        Dean Rd.          Waban 
   |                 |                 |
 Allston St.       Englewood Ave.    Woodland 
   |                 |                 |
 Warren St.      Cleveland Circle    Riverside 
   |               (End of C line)  (End of D line)
 Summit Ave. 
   |
 Washington St. 
   |
 Mt. Hood Rd. 
   |
 Sutherland Rd. 
   |
 Chiswick Rd. 
   |
 Chestnut Hill Ave. 
   |
 South St. 
   |
 Greycliff Rd. 
   |
 Boston College 
(End of B line)
(*) Some D trains end their runs at Government Center - up to half of them, depending on whatever the MBTA decides to do at any given time.

The Green line is part subway, part streetcar, and part el (elevated train). The tracks leap out of the ground north of Haymarket to form the start of the elevated section at North Station, and continue elevated before returning to ground level across the Charles River at Lechmere. The B/C/D/E lines run as streetcars for most of the length after the splits.

The MBTA has committed to reopening the Jamaica Plain portion of the Green Line E, which continues on from Heath Street down to the Arborway where it meets up with the end of the Orange Line at Forest Hills.

There used to be an A Line which split off from the B Line a bit past the Kenmore split, but it closed in 1969, originally "temporarily", but the MBTA has finally, recently, started removing the tracks. This route is now served by buses.

There is also a long-standing desire by the MBTA to extend the north end of the green line on to Tufts University in Somerville. This plan got a boost recently from a developer who plans to renovate the old rail yard and other abandoned property north of the Lechmere station, and also pay for a renovation and part of the extension of the Green Line. But I'm not counting on anything happening here any time soon.

In reference to Israel, the Green Line is the popular name for what is more correctly known as the "1949 Armistice Line".

The original borders of the state of Israel were determined by the 1947 United Nations partition plan that divided the British Palestine Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. However, following the 1948 War of Independence, Israel annexed a great deal of the territory that had been allocated for an Arab state. The remaining territory was annexed by Jordan and Egypt.

The borders negotiated at the end of the War of Independence form the 1949 Armistice Line. All the territory within this "Green Line" is generally acknowledged by all parties to be "Israel proper", meaning that it is no longer disputed.

In 1967, during a war with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, Israel conquered additional territory, consisting of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank of the Jordan River. This territory, outside the "Green Line", is disputed and has never been considered by the international community as a legitimate part of Israel.

The Sinai peninsula was returned to Egyptian control in 1978, as a condition of the Camp David Accords. The West Bank and Gaza continue to be a focus of negotiation in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Syria has stipulated that unconditional return of the Golan Heights is a condition for the beginning of peace negotiations, so little progress has been made in that direction.

The CTA's Green Line connects Chicago's West Side with the loop and the South Side.

The Green Line runs between 4 am and 1 am Monday through Saturday, and between 7 am and 1 am on Sundays and Holidays. Passengers needing to use the line at times when it is not in service can use the Forest Park branch of the Blue Line, which parallels the Lake Street Elevated, or the Red Line to 95th-Dan Ryan, which parallels the South Side Elevated. Both lines run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Below is a text map of the Orange Line's route. Please keep in mind that it is not to scale. Traffic is two-way in all areas of the map. North is up. Stations are marked with either an o or a (T). The latter represents a free transfer station. Mouse-over the (T) to see which lines you can transfer to at that station. The one exception to this is King Drive, which is marked with a *; this station only serves inbound trains (trains going to the loop/Harlem-Lake).

                 C
                 O
                 N    C
    R            S    A         . Purple Line north to Linden
    I            E    L         .
    D   C      P R    I   A  C  . Brown Line north to Kimball
H O G A E L C  U V K  F   S  L  .
A A E U N A I  L A E  O   H  I  .     S
R K L S T R C  A T D  R   L  N  .     T
L   A T R M E  S O Z  N   A  T  .     A
E P N I A I R  K R I  I   N  O  .     T
M K D N L E O  I Y E  A   D  N  .     E
                                .
o-o-o-o-o-o-o--o-o-o--o---o--o--+-(T)(T)-+
   Lake Street Elevated         .        |
                                .  C     o RANDOLPH
                  Loop Elevated .  L     |
                                .  A     o MONROE
                 Brown, Purple, .  R     |
               and Orange Lines .  K    (T) ADAMS
                                .        |
                                +........+
                                         | Green and Orange Lines
                                         | 
                                         |
                                        (T) ROOSEVELT/WABASH
                                         |
                                        .+
                                       . |
                           Orange Line.  o 35th-BRONZEVILLE-IIT
                      south to Midway.    \
                                    .      o Indiana
                                            \
                                            o 43rd
                                            |
                               South Side   o 47th
                                Elevated    |
                                            o 51st
                                            | 
                                   GARFIELD o 
                                            | 
                                         ---+   
                  Ashland Branch        /   |    EAST 63rd/COTTAGE GROVE 
                                 o--o---    +-*--o 
                      ASHLAND/63rd                 East 63rd Branch
                                    H         K
                                    A         I
                                    L         N
                                    S         G
                                    T          
                                    E         D
                                    D         R

Things to note:

  • All stations have some form of warming-shelter on their platforms. Usually, there is a bus-shelter with heat lamps. Though these are not the best in the world, they do provide some warmth and protection from the wind during the winter.
  • Most stations have Pepsi vending machines (20 oz $1.00), and some also have convenience stores.
  • The CTA uses electric trains, which run off of power from a third rail. Therefore, it is imperative that you stay off the tracks!
  • All train cars have an intercom system to the motorman, located on a panel next to the wheelchair-accessible seat by the cab of each car. This can be used in an emergency, or by customers with disabilities to alert the motorman to wait until they have exited the train.

Credit to: http://www.transitchicago.com, http://www.chicago-l.org, http://www.pacebus.com, personal knowledge.

The Green Line is the newest addition to Portland, Oregon's MAX light rail system. It is currently under construction, and is expected to open in September, 2009.

The line is being built for at least two reasons, and is actually two separate projects put into one. The two joined projects are a six and a half mile southward extension of the MAX line from Gateway Transit Center to the Clackamas Town Center shopping mall, parallel to I-205, and a north-south redesign of the Portland Mall to include MAX service from Union Station to Portland State University. Now, for those familiar with the layout of Portland, this may seem odd, since I-205 is 100 blocks east of downtown, but it does make sense.

The southward extension to Clackamas Town Center, with a half dozen stops along the way, is a very obvious extension of MAX service. The transit agency that runs MAX is called TriMet, with the "Tri" standing for "Tri-County", those being the counties of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas. MAX has been running for two decades now, and had several dozen miles of track, and not a foot of that track is in Clackamas County. Although much of Clackamas County is rural and suburban, the place that the tracks are going to run is burgeoning in population and is long due for a MAX line. The terrain that it is being built along is also fairly easy to build rail lines on, as it follows the path of I-205.

The other part of the redesign is the installation of north/south MAX tracks in downtown, running perpendicular to the MAX tracks that run west to Beaverton and other western suburbs. Because of the small size of blocks in Portland, there was a limit to how many trains could run through downtown at peak hours. For that reason, the Green Line, after sharing tracks with the Red and Blue Lines between Gateway and the Steel Bridge, will separate and run through downtown perpendicularly, ending at Portland State University. This also allows a further expansion of MAX service southwards into Milwaukie, although that will take a great deal more planning, money and politics before it happens.

The construction has caused a few problems, especially in the downtown area, but has proved to be fairly well budgeted as far as time and money goes for such a major project. Before long, the Portland area's famous transit service will have another gem in its crown.

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