If it can be built as a self-funding toll road, it's fine by me. Any road that doesn't require significant demolition of existing structures and can self-fund is fine by me. But at that point, it should probably just be built as a private road, with the only public involvement being assistence with the legal aspects of land aquisition.

I'm in favor of the Illiana. Most widening projects are a waste of money though. You can't build yourself out of congestion with wider roads.That has been an established fact. Transit is first and foremost. These transit proposals have been stagnant for too long. I want to see some action, not just talk.

..

Hmmmmm.

Why is the CTA falling so far behind the rest of the country?

I visited Chicago back in '88 primarily because of their excellent transit system. I wanted to see it first hand. They had buses and trains running 24/7 as often as every five minutes. Something you couldn't find here in Southern California.

Now it seems L.A. is passing up Chicago's transit system. We built the Red/Purple line subway, plus four other light rail systems and a regional rail system (Metrolink), all built since my visit. High speed rail is just arround the corner. What has Chicago built in the last 20 years?

What went wrong? Why has the CTA abandoned their transit dreams?

Most of L.A.'s projects were built with a .5% sales tax increase. Can Chicago do the same?

^ LA is doing what Chicago did in the early-mid 20th century.

I'm not sure that qualifies as Chicago "slipping behind". If anything, LA is playing catch up with the rest of the civilized world right now--about time, don't you think?

Chicago and LA are simply in different stages of their city's development.

All due respect, you should do a bit of research. Chicago has a number of new transit lines/extensions in various stages of planning--nothing u/c right now, but I anticipate there will be a lot more action in the next decade.

It sounds like you just need to read a bit more, no offense. Since your visit the entire Orange line to Midway has been constructed and pretty much all the stations have been redone on almost every line. Buses and trains still run every 5 minutes or so on the entire system, and now with electronic ticketing things are much more efficient. CTA and Metra are still MUCH more extensive than the LA system. I don't believe anything on the CTA has taken a step backwards since '88 at all. The CTA is also proposing Orange, Yellow, and Red Line extensions right now, in addition to a completely new Circle line. As for high speed rail have you read about this at all? The Chicago high speed rail hub network is one of the official HSR corridors in the new bill, with not one but three high speed rail lines starting and ending in Chicago.

I'm glad to see things aren't as bad as I had thought. It's just that I had been reading various forums over the years and kept reading about various proposals to extend the subway and El that kept getting voted down.

The subway is still only 12 miles long, right? Are there any plans to extend it, or add new lines in the foreseeable future?

^ Plenty of plans:

1. Create a new subway line in the west loop
2. Create 2 subterrannean BRT's downtown
3. Create a new circumferential line, the "Circle Line"
4. Extend the Red, Orange, and Yellow Lines
5. Create new stops on a couple of lines
6. New Metra Lines/Metra extensions.
7. Express service to/from the airports

The only proposal that has run into significant community opposition is the Yellow Line extension. Regarding the length of the subway, you'll have to asks somebody else. Chicago's rail system is quite big, by 12 miles you must only be referring to the underground portion.

What do subways have to do with anything? Yeah, the subway is 12 miles, but there is no functional difference between a subway and our elevated lines. All of the new lines or extensions currently being spec'd are elevated or grade-separated surface lines because they function the same and cost far less than subways do. In addition to the new orange line, in 1984, just four years before your visit, Chicago finished the extension to O'Hare, a number of stations that were part-time stations when you visited are now full-time. And the Green Line and Pink Line have been completely renovated since your visit. The Brown Line has had all its stations expanded to accomodate longer trains so that it can handle its growth. There are extensions recently approved, but not yet funded, for the south branch of the Red Line, for the Orange Line and the Yellow Line. There has also been a routing selected for the second piece of the new routes for the Circle Line, which will improve access to our Medical District, and the City is tentatively planning a new subway through the West Loop to provide better access to two of the commuter rail stations - this would be called the Clinton Street subway, and would also involve expanding Union Station's high-speed rail capabilities, and underground bus connections to aid in running mostly-grade-seperated bus services to the Michigan Avenue corridor from the West Loop commuter rail stations and office district. That's long-term, but it is a plan that will probably find legs once this recession starts to lift and/or the Feds get serious about funding more than just starter routes of high-speed rail.

Chicago has 8 lines and 144 stations on over 100 miles of rail serving about 620,000 people on a typical weekday, all running the same train cars as the subway, all capable of sending trains into the subways for the purposes of emergency reroutes or transferring equipment between train yards and lines, and rail serves both airports.

Despite the improvments, L.A., which is about 40% bigger than Chicago, has 5 lines with 62 stations (including light rail stations) on 73 miles (including light rail) serving 275,000/day, and your subway and light rails lines run incompatible equipment, with rail serving no area airports.

You also seem to be unaware of the extent of our commuter rail, which constitutes 11 lines with 237 stations covering 495 miles of track in Illinois and into Wisconsin. That doesn't include the seperate inter-city South Shore line, which functions as a commuter rail into Indiana, all the way to South Bend (home of Notre Dame), which has 20 stations over 90 miles of track. On the South Side inparticular, the commuter rail system also provides a lot of service within the city, not just for suburban commuters.

Some additional food for thought on the subject.

Agency service area population (pop. density in p/sqmi)
LAMTA 8,493,281 (6,939)
CTA 3,763,791 (11,510)

Annual trips taken per service area resident
LAMTA 58
CTA 133

Fleet buses per 1,000 service area residents
LAMTA 0.32
CTA 0.59

Annual Bus Service Hours per service area resident
LAMTA 0.90
CTA 1.84

Annual Railcar Service Hours per service area resident
LAMTA 0.075
CTA 0.98

Annual Local Transit Tax Funds raised per service area resident (excludes Fare revenue, Federal grants, and monies from State budgets/programs)
LAMTA $87.44
CTA $185.90**


I would second urban politician's broader point about LA playing catch up with building up its system, whereas Chicago is playing catch up with modernizing its system. Once LA's rail lines are 30+ years old, expansion will grind to a crawl when the enormous cost of maintenance, modernization, and capacity expansion becomes apparent. Also, as LA MTA becomes a more mature organization with more years of good times and bad times under its belt, it will begin to acquire the same "legacy costs" of having a large multi-generational union labor force, similar to those that weight down CTA, New York's MTA, the Big 2.5 automakers, etc.

** my impression is that this is largely thanks to the high Cook County share of transit funding despite CTA service not extending into the NW panhandle of Schaumburg or the far southwest region.

Did I miss something in the 10/9 article, or has the CTA actually not included a Madison station in the LCA? That station is, from a purely big picture perspective, the most obvious service expansion opportunity in the city, in my opinion.

Why does Chicago insist on providing no HRT access to so many of its sporting venues and tourist attractions? This one is so easy!

EDIT: by "big picture" I mean that they must have ridership estimates and such that I don't have... but the station makes sense on the surface.

Yea, I'm pissed about it too. I submitted a question about it, so I expect to have it answered in a few weeks when they publish the Comment Responses. My argument is that it makes more sense to build at Madison than Roosevelt, and if CTA wants to increase access to the IMD, then they should expand capacity at the Polk station with skyways or pedways and bigger platforms. The IMD has also shown itself to be a crappy land-use planner, so I don't see why the suburban office parks they've built along Roosevelt should be supplemented by an expensive transit station that few will use.

I was just thinking about this before reading Bootsrap Bill's post. There's a disparity between the perception and reality of Chicago's transportation infrastructure. What's especially disconcerting is the attitude of many in the local population whose opinions I'm sure inform non-residents. If you were to read only the comments sections of, say, the Tribune website or Chicagoist, you'd get the impression that the entire system is bound to collapse at any minute and that the CTA is the worst operator of all major U.S. cities.

Well it looks like the CTA is really taking a massive blow on fare increases, shutting down express routes, reduction of hours of operations on dozens of bus routes, as well as a 10% reduction of service frequency on all rail lines, and 14% on all bus routes.

• Basic train fares to $3.00 from $2.25.

• Basic bus fares to $2.50 from $2.00.

• Express bus fares to $3.00.

• Full fare 30-day passes to $110 from $86.

Following routes eliminated:

X3
X4
X9
X20
X49
X54
X55
X80
53 AL.

The hours of operation on 41 bus routes will be shortened, from 25-30 minutes on routes such as Iriving Park and Fullerton, to well over 3 and 4 hours on routes such as Halsted and Milwaukee.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2...fare-hike.html


I think this is going to cause a LOT of headaches and make people quite angry. I know there's a reason behind it, but raising everyones taxes, getting bailouts, doubling fares in only 5-6 years time, shutting down routes, shortening hours of operation, and reducing frequency on all bus and train routes just makes the system look horribly embarassing.

Not to mention this all comes after pushing almost $100 million of planned preventative maintenance and capital funding for 2010 is going to operations. It all seems very detrimental to the agency - although that's kinda how they've lived for decades now.

My only hope is that if our country can pick back up speed and get more people spending - the increased money in future years can reverse the frequency/hours of operation/express bus situation. I really wish they'd mentioned that in the press release - because it would obviously seem hopeful that this is only temporary while the economy is in shock. I fear the price hike is permenant though - which is going to reduce overall ridership by a degree.

I think one obvious reaction of all this (at least by me) is that most of my friends don't have a monthly pass. Where we would always take the train somewhere before - I assume now we'll just jump in a cab for most trips. 4 people is $12 on the train. That's quite a bit when a cab can get you most places for less than $15 in a fraction of the time.

LOL so it looks like Bootstrap Bill was actually right, only he was two days ahead of himself. Yowzers.

I keep hearing from some people on this forum that gas prices will go so high that it will push more and more people towards transit, but in reality quite the opposite appears to be happening. Those prices would officially put transit as "expensive" in my book and I would think twice about taking it.

To a degree? It will flat out kill ridership for non-commuters. If my wife and I want to get from Lakeview to downtown, it's a $7 cab ride and takes about 15 minutes. If we ride the train, it takes a half hour and costs $4.50 (right now). I'm pretty sure we'll be willing to splurge and spend the extra dollar for a commute that's twice as fast and gets us EXACTLY where we want to go.

I think your off-base here. The CTA is funded by sales taxes and real estate transfer taxes which have plummeted. Tax revenues everywhere have plummeted. Practically every state in the US is having a budget crisis and most nations running tremendous budget deficits.

The 'problem' with the CTA is a problem any agency supported by taxes is having. I don't think you should mistake the worse economic crisis in over 70 years with the quality of how the CTA operates itself.

But I'm not pretending this isn't bad. Some of these cost saving methods are going to hurt ridership and therefore fare box revenue. I hope this doesn't trigger a downward spiral in ridership.

I know this, but the bottom line is this city will now have the highest sales tax in the country, the most expensive street parking, and now the most expensive transit services. And Daley just promised a 10% wage increase to the Unions. Listen, if this is put into place the CTA will be significantly more expensive than the NYC MTA. Something is definitely wrong here.