Well, MegaBus is $1.50 if you book in advance.

Amtrak's 7 roundtrips per day to Milwaukee aren't enough?

Speaking of, Crain's is reporting 24% year-over-year ridership increases on Hiawatha.

Hiawatha already has a station at Mitchell Airport - a bus shuttle connects the station to the terminal.

Ostensibly, if KRM is built, another shuttle will connect the terminal to the new station in Cudahy.

I've seen several trains during the rush hour that were standing room only over the past 6 months... Sucks to be stuck standing for 1.5 hours...

How sure of a thing is that Oakton Yellow Line stop?

A civil engineer for the Village of Skokie assures me that the Oakton Station project is still active. All necessary land has been acquired and funding has been set aside.

It's in the design phase right now, as architects and engineers work with the various demands of CTA, the Village of Skokie, and ComEd (which owns high-tension lines along the tracks). The design should be complete within the next 2-3 months, and then bids will be solicited from contractors. Keep an eye out on Bidclerk.

Based on the size of the project and likely scope of the project, construction should take 6 -9 months. I'm expecting a small "island" station like the new ground-level ones on the Brown and Pink Lines.

I'm very excited about this Oakton Station. It's three blocks from my sister's place which means I could now get there now without driving.

So, where will the funding come from for this station? Is this state or federal money or out of the capital budget of the CTA?

To my knowledge, Oakton will be dual side platforms, initially for 4 car trains but extendable at a future date to berth 8 car trains. It's possible it could be an island platform, I think there is room for it but I remember seeing preliminary plans with side platforms. The platform(s) will be on the north side of Oakton. Construction funding is coming from (someone correct me if I'm wrong) the Federal government with Skokie paying the 20% local match.

Speaking of the yellow line. Are there, or have there ever been, any plans to run it as a simple extension of the red line? I don't think I've read anything about it, but I've always kind of thought that's what the 3rd rail conversion was all about.

That's sort of how the Niles Center extension was run in the 30s and 40s, but it wouldn't make a lot of sense now to run eight-car trains all the way to Dempster and back.

It would make more sense to run the red line to Linden.

Dempster (and eventually Oakton) both have short platforms (max 4-car platforms, though expandable to 8), commensurate with the relatively light loading along the Skokie branch. As pointed out, from an equipment utilization standpoint it wouldn't make a great deal of sense at this point.

The third rail conversion was mostly just to (1) eliminate the last catenary in the system, which is less reliable than third rail and susceptible to getting damaged in storms, (2) eliminate the requirement to maintain cars in the fleet with pantographs to run on that small portion. A minor benefit (3) was that a slow zone for the crossing point between third rail and overhead power could be removed (either 25->55 or 35->55, but really not a huge deal in the scheme of things).

Purple Line platforms are only 6-cars in length, so it becomes logistically difficult for how you deal with the fleet. Running the Purple Express all day is probably more plausible operationally than extending Red to Linden.

Makes sense if you only look at a map, but not if you look at ridership. Until fairly recently, Evanston was handled at off hours by single cars (Cars 1-50) where you paid the motorman as you entered--essentially just streetcars up on the elevated tracks.

If train operations were selected by democracy, I'd vote for this. I kinda wish they'd consider it, and add Loyola and Wilson. They could more than make up the extra time spent at Loyola and Wilson by skipping Wellington, Diversey and Armitage (with good switching, I think you could run the Purple Line on the Red Line tracks between Belmont and the L/subway split). Then you'd have a real express train for the whole North Side instead of just a fast commuter shuttle between Evanston and the Near North.

..

When I change to the Purple from the Red on weekdays from around noon to three p.m., the platform at Howard can be pretty crowded with people making the same transfer. I don't have the ridership figures (and I doubt they exist for exits), but it seems to me that the number of passengers riding the Red Line north at that time of day with Davis as their final destination is higher than that of those bound for Morse or Jarvis. I agree though that it makes more sense for the Purple Line to be an all-day express with one or two more intermediate stops than to extend the Red Line to Linden.

Or at least run loop trains once every 30 minutes between 1030 and 330 (or whatever it is). Just do every 3rd train or something. That doesn't seem like that big of a deal, and it will give people an awesome option of timing their activities and making the quick trip downtown at the top and bottom of the hour from Howard.

Yeah, that purple line express is awesome and it gives a great option for people coming from the north shore/north suburbs.

Whenever my parents come in to the city (because they live on the North Central Line) they have no choice on the weekends but to drive in. Metra's schedules are too rigid and the cta ride from linden to the south loop without express is unbearable. Being able to go to linden and then express it in to the loop would be great. Hopefully after all the station work on the brown line is complete and we're back to 4 tracks they'll consider this.

"Evanston Express", "Skokie Swift."

Yeah, these names just don't have the same special ring as Purple Line Express and Yellow Line.http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/images/smilies/koko.gif

Do any of you know when the new Fullerton station opens, rather than the temporary one? I'm wondering because I'll be attending school right near there in the fall.

Interestingly enough, as a commute option it is about as heavily used for reverse-commute to Evanston jobs as it is for inbound. People coming inbound have the faster Metra option, but the Purple Express is as good as it gets for most people who live in the north side and work in Evanston.