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Did anyone post the canopy renderings for the "Your New Blue" renovations at Grand, Chicago, and Division stations?
https://i.postimg.cc/26rGL7yP/Blue-L...-Rendering.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/mrx8BssZ/Blue-L...-Rendering.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/9fG1fnmd/Blue-L...-Rendering.jpg |
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Those look nice I just wish in locations where they have the space like the Polish Triangle @ Division, the island @ Chicago and the NW stair @ Grand they could have rebuilt the stair entirely and made them wider and generous and the canopy more substantial architecturally. Yes I realize this would cost more money.
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The structural steel component at the Grand Location is partially up already as of this last weekend. Don't think I saw the same at Chicago avenue quite yet, but they are working on two entrances there now.
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Could have paid homage to one of the many schools or architecture Chicago is home to, and instead we got whatever this is...
Also, the last rendering appears to be the division stop but they recently reopened the stops with no modifications to the entrance. |
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Cheap in. Cheap out.
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They look fine to me... seems like they accomplish the goal of providing cover over the stairwells without blocking sightlines to the buildings beyond.
I can't speak to the condition of the one at State/Harrison, but I'm surprised at how well the bus shelters on Loop Link are doing. No design will stay immaculate on the tough conditions of Chicago's streets but these seem to be holding up. Also, these new Blue Line shelters are definitely not a perfect fit, but a lot less of a stylistic contrast with the moderne design of the station platforms and mezzanines than the faux-Victorian shelters CTA used on the Red Line and on the Blue Line at Jackson/LaSalle. Maybe CTA finally figured out they already have stylish 1940s designs on the subway system that just need to be brought into the 21st century. |
i have seen it many times with VTA structures, rust and falling apart after only a few years. For the amount of money they spend on these projects this should not be happening. I understand you are going to over pay due to corruption on these projects but i still expect them to hold up better.
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Not sure where to post this, but does anyone know what is being built on the south side of I-290 just east of 1st Ave?
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Might seem like a small project but it's actually pretty nuts, they're building a huge circular secant pile wall so they can dig down almost 70' without the Des Plaines River coming in. Picture the giant round shaft at the Spire site. Unfortunately this massive work of civil engineering will be topped with a pump station building that belongs in Bolingbrook, precast panels with fake red brick. Truly awful compared to the subtle, Jetsons-ish pump station that exists now. https://webapps.dot.illinois.gov/WCT...1-1c7a1c384c22 https://i.imgur.com/ac1QcXK.png https://i.imgur.com/aLXHADA.png |
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Great info as always, ardecila your new pic threw me off! Oh i can hardly wait for the Ike to be widened. Always boggled my mind that they had it narrow to 3 lanes. Even though when the project is going on the traffic will be HELL it will be worth it.
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Is it confirmed being widened?
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This pump station drains the western section of the expressway through Maywood, Bellwood, Broadview, and Westchester. There's a firm plan to do the widening, just no money yet. In the meantime, IDOT is doing a few "advance projects" like this out of their usual budget. Of course, if a few more years go by with no money, they'll have to start the study process all over again since Chicagoland and its travel needs continue to evolve. |
What the status of the cta new 7000 series
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What the updates on the cta green line Damen/Lake station do anyone know when are CDOT going to start construction
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Anybody know what this barge is doing by the Amtrak yard? Is it just working on the the channel retainer walls?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Cv...=w1027-h770-no |
Yes, Amtrak got approval this fall to rebuild the sheet piling along the riverbank. The South Loop neighborhood organizations and Friends of the Chicago River asked the state to require Amtrak to follow the river design guidelines, but that went unheeded and they're just putting new sheet piling 18 inches out from the existing sheet piling.
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Does that kind of seawall work normally trigger the River Design Guidelines (pedestrian path, railing, 30' landscape setback, etc)? Usually it takes a change of use to trigger those requirements.
That would be a serious burden on Amtrak to give up a 30' strip, given that they're not redeveloping the whole railyard. Every pieces of that yard is used pretty intensively; the land along the river is the main access road. |
What the updates on the cta green line Damen/Lake station do anyone know when are CDOT going to start construction
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"CTA President Frank Kruesi has called the Circle Line, which would cover six times the area of the Loop "L" system, the "single most important" transit project in the region. But watchdog groups are concerned that the plan, which was first made public four years ago, could take precedence over projects, such as the extension of the Red Line to 130th Street, in transit-poor communities." Thank God yall didn't build the circle line so we could get the Red Line extension! Wait...14 years later and it's still not happening just yet. 14 years. |
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Well, yeah. People in that community still cling to the "promise" made by Mayor Daley (Senior) and CTA back in the 1960s - which was to branch the Red Line down 94 and 57, by the way, not to build an el through the middle of the community. Politicians can dangle that out there to earn votes from this corner of the city. The problem is that Roseland and West Pullman have absolutely tanked in population since then. They have dropped 34-36% in Black population since 1980. Riverdale has lost 47% of its Black population. (I can only find the Black population trends, but each of these community areas is more than 90% Black so it's a fair stand-in for overall numbers).
This is not a trivial fact - the Federal process for funding rail expansions is highly competitive (although not immune from political influence). A declining population makes it unlikely that FTA will give a grant when New York, LA, SF, etc are all clamoring for money to build transit into fast-growing areas. It also makes tools like the transit TIF a lot less effective, since even the promise of new rail service is unlikely to boost property values in such troubled neighborhoods. If we had a budget for rail expansion like Paris or Madrid, absolutely we should extend the Red Line... but given that CTA only does an expansion once every two generations, is this really the ONE project we want to sink our resources into? Nobody seems interested in LA-style proposals to raise taxes and really expand the system comprehensively, so I think we do need to look at the Red Line Extension as a zero-sum and accept the fact that funding the RLE means any other large project won't get funding. I like Rahm's approach of rebuilding 95th - substituting a flashy, medium-scale project for a huge project seemed like a way to let the Far South Side down easy. But he kept insisting the project wasn't intended to take the place of the Red Line Extension. Now CTA is proposing a Halsted BRT, which could serve the west side of Roseland, West Pullman, etc while Metra Electric serves the east side of those communities. But still, they keep sinking money into the Red Line project. |
Posting in another thread about buses reminded me of something I've wondered about.
Has the city ever explored creating new public parking lots or even building public parking garages in popular areas in order to move cars from street parking to centralized parking areas? In my understanding of the godforsaken parking meter deal, that could potentially open up arterial bus routes for BRT lanes, right? |
Yes, convinced that shoppers were going to Evergreen Plaza and Old Orchard because of the ample parking, the city did exactly that in the late 1950s. The "birdcage garage" at State & Wacker, one at Wacker & Madison, one at State & Congress. In outlying "shopping centers" (the midcentury meaning of the term), they had the School St. lot near Belmont/Ashland/Lincoln and one near Lincoln & Lawrence. I'm just sure there were similar lots at Lawrence & Broadway and Six Corners, and think I remember signs near 63rd & Halsted, Madison & Pulaski, and in South Chicago and Roseland.
In the 1980s, the city decided it shouldn't be competing with private garage operators and sold off the downtown garages for redevelopment. The outlying ones lasted longer, into the 1990s at least. That little strip center at Lawrence & Oakley has a row of parking meters that are some kind of a legacy, I think. I don't know just how they came about, or who collects the coins. As for undercutting the parking meter deal, there was a dispute about a decade ago about the city having agreed to block any new garages within the Loop as part of the inducement to sell off the Grant Park garage leases. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the parking meter deal forbids any city-owned facilities from being built in competition. |
There's a parking garage at Belmont Central, although that is managed by the SSA and not by the city directly, and the parking is unmetered.
There's also a series of public parking lots up and down Cicero Ave that were created when the curbside parking was eliminated to widen the road to four lanes. Most of them are decrepit now. |
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There's actually one parking garage left in downtown, although it's run by Park1 on St. Clair St. Here's a forgotten Chicago link about them: https://forgottenchicago.com/feature...rking-garages/. It definitely gives off '60s vibes.
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This is probably news to NO ONE but I am new the city and want to at least pretend I have news to break lol
I went on a tour of Union Station last night and the tour guide(the chief architect) mentioned that they were putting doors on the west side(which were never there originally) because of the boom in the west loop area. There's been a lot of talk about the practicality of that area becoming more of an office location, the western door will save people a minute or two, so I guess its something. |
Imagine if we got rid of all parking on major streets and made them bus only. :D
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Union Station has always had entrances on the west side: the two on Clinton next to the north and south taxi drive portals. The renovation will turn the old Fred Harvey dining room space in the middle into retail space that will have an additional, and maybe grander-looking entrance from Clinton.
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The problem has never really been the parking meter deal; it’s an inconvenience for sure, but the real problem are business owners who don’t want to see any parking removed (whether metered or not) and neighborhood residents who don’t want shoppers, restaurant customers, etc parking on their block. |
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^Or build a turnback someplace near Chinatown and quit wasting all those platform hours running trains back and forth through areas of the city with suburban densities.
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However, if the Red Line ever upgrades to 10-car trains then CTA would need to lengthen yard tracks at Howard. The 95th Yard already has longer holding tracks. |
Seems like you could probably squeeze a low speed loop under the tracks through that parking lot on the north side of Archer without a lot of trouble. Sure speed would limit throughput but you're not going to turn the entire line there.
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You don't want a loop, just a crossover or tail track. To even wheel wear, CTA likes having a loop at one end of the line (Howard, in this case) and a crossover or tail track at the other.
If CTA used drop-back operator scheduling, you really wouldn't need anything but an automated crossover north of Chinatown Station. But there's a lot more latitude for recovering from timekeeping problems if you have a third track to use, as at UIC/Racine. |
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Alternatively the 13th Street incline could be used. |
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Their current maximum trains per hour on the Red Line is 30, but I don't think they actually run a full 30 trains per hour, I think 24 is their maximum, but they have multiple hours with 10-15 trains. If they have 4 hours of trains every 5 minutes, on average. A trip from Howard to 9th takes almost exactly an hour, so in a 4-hour period any given rail car can provide 2 full round-trips. So if there are 12 runs per hour of 8-car trains then you need enough cars for two hours in each direction for at least an hour to get the system primed. 8*8*2=128 cars, minimum, to support that service. The CTA's RPM documents project a need possibly as high as 35 Red Line trains per hour in 2040. That seems optimistic to me, but if that level of demand were to come to be, it could be met with either 35 8-car trains or 28 10-car trains. The same graph shows a maximum of about 22 Red Line runs per hour currently (in 2020). 22*8=176 cars per hour, and because each full run takes 2 hours to support that level for at least 2 hours requires double that, or 352 cars. I don't know what the CTA's in-service levels are, but lets say they can manage 90% in-service rates at the Red Line yards. That means they need to be able to hold 392 cars across the Red Line yards to meet the current maximum levels of service. If their 2040 levels of service really do require the equivalent of 35 runs of 8-car trains, then they would require room for 623 cars, an increase of 59%. And that's assuming that the projected 35-car runs assumes 8-car trains. If ridership actually demanded 35 runs per hour of 10-car trains, it would require 778 cars, or over double the current maximum needed. Now, chances are the CTA will not require that many cars, but either way the point remains the same that the CTA will need a lot more cars to meet projected demand. Plus, turning back south of Cermak doesn't save as much as you seem to think. It takes 63 minutes to get from Howard to 95th, but it takes 45 minutes to get just past Cermak, basically a savings of 25% of the time and so if you turned back half of the runs, you're only saving about 12.5% of the needed cars. Even with that, you're looking at projected yard space increases of 50-60% more by 2040. You can't gain that by only extended track lengths at Howard, even if the space existed at Howard (which is a big if - maybe you could take over Triangle Park, but that would be unpopular and might not even solve the problem), because with additional cars, you need additional repair bays, too, and move for car movement for assembly and breakdown. |
First, the planning documents for RPM are going to show a huge increase in ridership because they have to justify the multi-billion expense of rebuilding the line, pulling from a Federal funding source (New Starts and/or Core Capacity) that are meant to either provide totally new transit service or add extra capacity to overcrowded lines, respectively. The planning studies have to show ridership growth because the Feds haven't created a program explicitly for "rebuilding crumbling rail lines". While the numbers are not outright lies, let's say they are probably very cherry-picked. I'm sure the planning documents for the Green Line rebuild and the Pink Line rebuild showed similar projections of high growth, even though the last 2 decades have shown nothing but population loss on the South and West Sides.
Second, even if there is high growth requiring additional service, it's likely most of that growth will be on the North Side. I'm sure it's mathematically true that this growth can be accommodated by a corresponding decrease in service to the South Side... if you want more air on one side of a balloon, pinch the other side. Of course, this would only apply at peak, and my vague sense is that the South Side ridership is less strongly peaked than the North Side ridership. So reducing service on the south Red Line (from, say, 3-minute headways to 6-minute headways) would not necessarily cause a capacity issue. Third, such a trade-off may not be easy to make. Even if the turnback was built tomorrow, I don't know if the Red Line's infrastructure could handle 30% more trains circulating on the north half of the line, from a power, signaling, operational or safety perspective. It might end up being more cost-effective to just go bananas lengthening all the platforms to 10-car operation. Quote:
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https://i.imgur.com/MAMgLP2.png Google Maps |
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Setting aside the existence of land, the grades may not work. I believe the Red Line is on a grade from the tunnel portal until just before the Cermak platform... a sloped grade is probably not ideal for train storage since the brakes would have to be engaged the whole time... if the slope is not a problem, then the obvious candidate for a layup track is the existing 13th St portal.
The cheapest place for a flat layup track might be in the Dan Ryan median... just get rid of the breakdown lane on either side and spread the tracks apart. You could even do this south of 35th so CTA can bring on extra trains for Sox games. |
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