Mr Downtown, it's your occasional posting of that 1916 Through Routes plan that made me aware of its existence in the first place. Thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
I think a new subway under Clark or LaSalle is critical to the concept, though. I don't think you'd get the same success routing all suburban lines around the edges of the Loop.
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I'll agree that the central loop is one of, (and arguably
the), most important destinations, for sure. But a few considerations make me think that part of the Arnold/Hooker plan is not as necessary today as it may have been a century ago.
First, the Arnold/Hooker plan was drawn up before the State Street and Milwaukee-Dearborn Subways were ever planned, and their presence makes constructing a Clark or LaSalle subway both more complicated and less necessary. I believe that having effective connections among the various commuter lines, and between the commuter lines and the CTA, renders digging another tunnel through the center of the loop for commuter trains an unnecessary expense.
Second, it's not
that far to walk from Union Station or Michigan Avenue to the central loop. Scores of people already do so today. It's not unrealistic to expect people to continue to do so in the future.
To me, effective connections means the following:
- Have cross-platform transfers wherever possible
- Make transfers as short as possible everywhere else - such as up or down a single flight of stairs - with distances measured in tens of feet rather than hundreds of yards.
- Full fare integration between all systems
The principle behind the commuter rail portion of that fantasy map is to pair the lines into 'trunks' based on the routes they follow when approaching the loop, and to send one line from each pair through Union Station and the West Loop, and the other through Millennium Station and Streeterville, and provide convenient transfers between them for access to the opposite side of the CBD.
NW Trunk: UPN/UPNW
W Trunk: UPW/MD/NCS
SW "Trunk": BNSF/Rock Island/Heritage
S Trunk: ME/South Shore
These trunks where the paired lines run together provides an ideal opportunity to arrange for timed transfers among the various commuter lines.
The ideal way to arrange these "trunk" connections is with three stations.
- The outermost station allows inverse cross-platform transfers from inbound trains on one branch to outbound trains on the other. Example connection: Des Plaines->Evanston
- The middle station allows same-way cross-platform transfers from each inbound line to the other. Example: Des Plaines->Streeterville
- The innermost station allows inverse cross-platform transfers from outbound trains on one branch to inbound trains on the other. Example: Union Station->Streeterville. This is probably the least important of the three since other ways to make this connection exist.
This scheme is described in detail by Alon Levy
here in the context of the Boston North-South Rail Link. A similar scheme has been implemeted in several places in the Hong Kong MTR.
All the lines I have "paired" together in Chicago, except the BNSF/Rock Island pair, run together for long enough for a full three-station cross-platform transfer scheme, with stations in places that actually make sense. The BNSF/Rock Island pair, which would have to be done by a cruciform (+ shaped) station in the Southwest Loop where transfers are the second-best kind, accomplished by ascending or descending a single flight of stairs directly on to the platform of the other line. For the other three "trunks", if the "ideal" configuration with those various cross-platform transfers is not attainable due to cost or constructibility, as long as the transfers are short and well-timed, they would be successful nonetheless.
Similarly, if transfers between the commuter lines and the CTA system are kept as a primary design criteria, they can be successful as well.