:slob: :slob: :slob:

So sexy!!! I am going to build that in Chicago once I make my first billion... :D

I forgot to mention that all that new track would require additional rolling stock. If we treat the new track miles as route miles, proportionally we'd need at least 315 more rail cars to support added service. That probably means a couple more rail yards - I have no idea what those cost.

The rail cars themselves would cost about $470 million based on the costs of the new 5000-Series cars on order.

After all that, there would of course be the additional operating costs. Even assuming that the costs of new service would be partially offset by reductions in some bus service and maybe some balancing away from existing lines (for example, the Clinton Subway may generate new ridership, but it would also at least partly take some ridership from the existing Brown, Purple and Red Lines), we'd still be talking about increasing the number of stations by 1/3. The cost of operating a station doesn't change much with demand, so that would pretty much be an instant 30-35% increase in stations-related expenses. The full cost of track maintenence would take years, maybe even a decade to be fully realized, but as the track aged it would add to the costs of maintenance. It's about a 30% increase in track amounts, so track maintenance costs would increase proportionally. And then there's the cost of the train operators.

Labor takes up about 70% of the CTA buget. The CTA is already robbing from the infrastructure budget to meet operating needs. Only if the economy stages a fairly robust recovery over the next few years would it be able to even consider adding more than small amounts of service.

One thing does support this sort of plan, though - the ratio of CTA rail to CTA bus ridership has changed fairly dramatically recently. For a long time, rail ridership was about 1/2 of bus ridership. For the past two years, however, the ratio is closer to rail being 2/3 of bus ridership.

Based on the 2011 budget proposal, adding the tracks I estimated for in my first post would result in an increase in operating expense minimally:

Security: +$10 million
Power: +$10 million
Scheduled Transit Operations positions: +333 positions
STO labor costs: +$36 million
Non-STO labor costs: +$52 million (extrapolated from current ratios)
Material: +$10 million
TOTAL: approximately $118 million in additional operating expenses

IF (a big if) ridership and fare revenue increased at a proportion of new stations, 45 new is 31.25% added to the existing 144 stations, then rail ridership/revenue would increase by 31.25%. If that happened, and rail started from a base of 40% of all ridership, then ridership/revenues would increase by 12.5%. That would mean about $65.4 million in additional fare revenue. Advertising revenue would also go up some, probably only at the same ratio, though, so maybe an extra $2 million, tops. So that means all that extra track work would yield about $67.4 million in extra revenue. With increased costs of $118 million, leaving a shortfall of $50.6 million annually.

Now, that's well within the mandated farebox recovery ratio, which is good - that means that it would overall improve the efficiency of the agency. It also doesn't include any of the potential bus savings, although I think that would likely be at most about $20 million a year in savings, at most. Either way, you're left with a structural deficit of several percent of the budget that would need to be paid for somehow.

The CTA is estimating that a "normal economy" would yield nearly $100 million a year in more tax revenue, but most of that would be offset by stopping taking money out of the infrastructure budget. The portion that isn't, will soon have to go to catching up the funding of employee pensions.

Which leaves us with having to find a new tax source - a source on top of whatever source we'd have to find to support the infrastructure build-out to begin with.

Now, over the long haul, if the city aligned zoning with the new stations so that average ridership per station was higher than the system average for the new stations, these numbers could look better. But the per-station average would have to be nearly 80% higher than the current system average for the operating costs to be fully covered by new ridership. That seems highly unlikely.

I suppose the easiest way to fund that difference would be through Cook County property taxes. If City residents alone took on $60 million a year in additional property taxes, we'd be looking at something along the lines of $5/month per household (yes, per household, not per person - it'd be about $2 per person per month). That seems reasonable and politically doable to me. If we included all of Cook county, that'd probably drop to $3/month, although I don't know if politically we could get the whole county to participate.

Of course that's just for the operating costs. To fund $12+ billion worth of infrastructure, that's over $4,000 per man, woman and child in Chicago. If the Feds paid half of the cost and we spread the costs over 40 years (10 years of construction with 30-year bonds), with inflation and interest we'd probably be looking at something in the range of $90/year per man, woman and child for the next 40 years. For the "average" household in the city, that'd be something like $25/month in extra taxes. Is that a lot to swallow? Yeah, probably, but if the City were serious about building out an improved rail infrastructure it might be politically possible. Another option would be to create micro-TIF districts around the new stations and funnel 100% of those property taxes into the infrastructure coffers. That would be a interesting test of the power of TOD, and it would force the City to better align appropriate zoning with Transit infrastructure because it would be dramatically more transparent if they lost tax revenue due to poor zoning choices.

Ok, Mr. Wayne ... :)

You bet your ass I will, but I won't get distracted by any of that superhero shit...

This Mid-City Transitway quote can't include the easement costs or the flyover costs of an alignment along the rail line parallel to Cicero, but if it is a Cicero overhead street alignment, you'll have to add quite a lot of street improvement costs. Because the Mid-City would rely on transfers in order to match the RTA's desire for a fully integrated transit system, there would be additional transfers to the Green Line, Forest Park Blue Line, Pink Line, Orange Line, & 2 Metra Lines.

I'd personally construct the entire Mid-City as a Light Rail line, running from Old Orchard to Ford City, it would connect most lines, without sharing much right of way & would carry ridership more akin to a light rail project anyway. The cost savings of switching to LRT would likely fund a line up to the former right of way of the Skokie Valley Line, part of the old North Shore Line.

The Brown Line extension in the alley just south of Lawrence would require to acquisition of nearly every property bordering the south side of the alley between Kimball & the Edens, as well as large & recently redeveloped properties West of the Edens. Not to mention a complete redesign of the Kimball yards, or a reconfiguring of Kimball ave to gain adequate clearance under the tracks during their ascent.

There is no doubt both of these projects could be done, but their execution would be much more complex than dictated by the above costs.

I'll post a proposed transit map including these connections sometime today.

I know that you're doing a pure thought exercise, but I'm not sure I see a need for three in-city circumferential rail corridors.

I would prefer to do a BRT line for the Mid-City Transitway. A BRT line could be located on Cicero itself, in the ROW of the Belt Railway, or some combination of the two. It could be in the railway corridor and then detour to meet existing rail stations, saving the expense of transfer bridges and making the system more user-friendly.

Buses could board the line at any point and speed to any other point, so direct O'Hare-Midway services could coexist with "local" services and "limited" services.

Laying reinforced concrete pavement is much cheaper than laying rails and ballast, and there's no power distribution or signaling systems to worry about. CTA could also recoup costs by opening the busway to authorized private operators to run specialized regional services (Van Galder, for example).

The cost savings over heavy rail would be tremendous, even more than LRT. You could put the savings toward an Inner Circumferential line on the Indiana Harbor Belt (DMUs).

The debate between LRT & BRT will go on forever, I've yet to see a BRT system that delivers on its promises in North America, & most LRT routes have not had significant changes in land uses to match the successes of European Light Rail systems. I just think that the combination of rail ROW & multimodal connections of any proposed Mid-City transitway, would benefit from using rail technology.

I'm having trouble posting the map of a routing system which would utilize the oft-proposed transit wet dream investments. Creating added connectivity & attempting to maintain additional capacity evenly throughout the system, while providing new services to take advantage of underutilized sections of rail.

I'll try to figure out how to post it the most clearly tomorrow, but the basic routes are

Purple: Linden to Cottage Grove via State St. Subway
Orange: Linden to Ford City Mall via State St. Subway
Yellow: Old Orchard to Ford City Mall via Ashland Corridor
Red: Howard to 130th via Clinton Ave. Subway
Brown: O'Hare to Ashland/63rd via State St. Subway
Pink : Jefferson Park to 54th/Cermak via Loop
Green : Jefferson Park to Harlem via Loop
Blue: O'Hare to Forest Park via Dearborn Ave. Subway

This matches most lines with similar ridership on the opposite side of downtown, eliminates crossings in the loop. It adds express lines & some new transfer stops, which would cost significant money, but could change ridership patterns drastically, & potentially reduce crowding on trunk lines.

whoap, figured out my mistake

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...outing2050.jpg

the map looks northside centric, because the transit system is northside centric, along with population, street activity etc. There is no way this system could work though, until the other lines weren't running 2 car trains at times that the brownline runs 6 car trains. I just liked the exercise of attempting to create different single line connections, such as the Northwestern to U of C Purple line, stopping at almost every major university other than UIC along the way, essentially a university line. A yellow line which ferries passengers swiftly across the city, from Skokie to Midway, but likely at limited frequencies, while providing connections promised by the circle line, without circling. Lastly, a direct O'Hare connection via rail from the most heavily frequented CTA stations.

I'm very jealous of your mapping skills. I love maps - I have maps all over my walls at home.

How about an extension of the Forest Park Blue Line to Maywood, Bellwood and Hillside. I can't understand why this is has never been a major priority. Seems to me to be a large transit riding population with many neighborhoods just as dense as the west side. The line could terminate with a large intermodal center at the three way intersection of the Tri-State, the 88 Toll and the Eisenhower. Such a location with quick and easy interstate access would guarantee substantial kiss and ride and parking lot commuters.

Thanks

Anhy way you could provide a clickable version that would allow us to zoom in?

Hey, as long as we're sharing our future CTA maps, I thought I'd post one I made up on google.

I'm sure it's not as well thought out as yours in certain respects. My main idea was to provide rail transit to everywhere within the city limits. Obviously it's extremely ambitious, but I think it would be nice to have a plan that focuses on eventually covering the whole city with a transit grid. I tried to follow existing rail corridors wherever possible.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en...d1329&t=h&z=10

working on it

I have it in PDF form, is there a way to attach it that way?

The only way I know how on this forum is to link to the pdf via a hyperlink; consequently your pdf would need to be hosted on a server some where accessible to internet

Free PDF hosting for those interested provided by
http://freepdfhosting.com/upload.php


http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l2...outing2050.jpg
Link to Map

You can see at closer inspection that my map making skills are quite lacking. Also forgive that I forgot to alter a few wrongly colored station names & stops from previous iterations. I'd also love feedback on all aspects of how this system might function, where deficiencies might exist, how to improve the concept, & what other new services could be provided.

one such idea? Rush Hour Brown & Purple Line Loopbound service to supplement existing service, which is just what the trains currently do.

Totally unrelated, but this photo of Dearborn Station was recently posted on the fantastic Shorpy.com and is so stunning I just have to post it:

Dearborn Station, Chicago, 1910

http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/4a24000a.jpg
http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/4a24000a.jpg

Sure wish they would have reconstructed that gorgeous roof.

There's a possibly apocryphal story that Mayor Thompson jokingly scolded the firefighters for saving so much of the building. The architecture was always rather eccentric and by 1922 was probably considered hopelessly old-fashioned.

http://i55.tinypic.com/15poadk.jpg
Chicago Daily News Collection, American Memory Project, The Library of Congress

Who said it's not a priority?

An extension to Oak Brook has been seriously discussed for several years now. The extra room in the Eisenhower median would potentially allow for express service to compensate for the long trip.

Soon, IDOT will move forward on their study of the Eisenhower widening. That study is also investigating potential corridors and ridership for Blue Line service.

The extra room in the median is only between California and Halsted.

Serving Oak Brook and similar destinations is a job perfectly suited to a busway, so that there's not a long walk from the train station to the office building. Some of the old CA&E right of way next to the Maywood Court House might be used, but most of that is now part of the Prairie Path.

There appears to be sufficient room along the entire row to add express track, signals would have to be relocated and some of the clearances from bridge supports will be tight but it looks doable.

You mean Laramie? I'm sure the clearances could be worked out.

Further westward (as I keep mentioning) the CSX's Altenheim Sub (the freight line) is used very infrequently, and the trains that do use it will diminish gradually in the coming years.

I'm sure CSX would part with it for the right amount, and IDOT will need to buy it if they want to avoid costly and unpopular property takings through Oak Park for the widening project. Oak Parkers have been the main opponents, so appeasing them is crucial to the whole effort. However, the land available is more than what is needed for two additional lanes. That leaves room for the express tracks.

Sure, let's do a busway. No suburban leader will take it seriously. Buses in the suburbs (i.e. Pace) are pretty much a long-running joke. CDOT has, so far, been the only agency to seriously consider busways, both along the lakefront, in the Carroll Street corridor, and on numerous other corridors.

The Elgin-O'Hare project is considering both a busway and LRT for its transit component, but the fact that LRT has not yet been ruled out tells me that the politicians driving the process won't settle for less than a sexy new rail line. The busway even has a built-in funding advantage, in that it can be funded entirely with highway dollars, while an LRT would need to seek an FTA grant.