Not building the crosstown contributed to downtown Chicago not completely dying as happened in most midwestern cities, so I worry about the sprawling effects of such a road. I think a more palatable compromise would be to use the ROW as a truck bypass + transit line.

The original plan for the crosstown had one direction in the railroad ROW, and another direction on Cicero Ave., with the land between redeveloped as commercial/industrial that would thrive due to easy road access.

The issue, as stated, was that it was a political nightmare, because it basically required bulldozing a half-mile swath of the city, including Cicero Ave. There's no way an urban expressway (i.e. 3-4 lanes in each direction) would fit in the current ROW, it would require either eating Cicero Ave and/or the half mile of neighborhoods between the railroad and Cicero.

As when he passed the law a year ago requiring CTA to make $200 million annual contributions, I have a feeling he's playing politics, but I can't quite figure out how.

Here's where I think you and the people on this board diverge, this solution does not work. In fact this is how the cta operated for 20 years (70's-80's) and while it can work for small systems with new construction, on large systems with 100 year old infrastructure you get the green line in the 80's. During this time the CTA diverted large amounts of capital funds to maintain day to day operation on the track they had and neglected the larger system overhaul, expansion etc. The entire system was falling apart and they made the decision to no longer raid capital funding for maintenance and completely overhaul the system. Thus far they've redone the green, blue-douglass, red-dan ryan, orange (new system), and working on the brown (not a complete overhaul), quite a bit in a 20 year period. Now the flip side to that is while you've redone your infrastructure for another 50 years you're day to day operation falls behind, which is what we're seeing. It's an incredibly difficult situation and while from a riders perspective its not acceptable to have the kind of failures associated with the cta recently from a historical funding/system perspective its amazing that we even have a system at the point at all. A lot of people here defend the cta because they're basically paddling upstream with a toothpick, and amazingly making progress.

What's the point of having a new highway and CTA line at the same time? If you have a shiny new road, people are just going to drive more and clog it with cars.

If there's a railroad right of way, they should put a CTA line on it. Run it ground level, it'd be better than an expressway tearing up the city.
Every expressway run through an existing area has basically trashed the livibility of the neighborhood.

As somebody who lives in Old Irving, and hence is about a block away from the the proposed Crosstown route, I have to say that I might have to convert to NIMBY-ism as my new religion if this gets pushed. A Mid-City Transit Way for train or bus -- sure, I'd be all for that, but another highway wrecking this area (and all the brand new developemnt that's gone up and is still being built along that route)...I don't think so. The space which they are talking about is not big enought for a highway unless they bulldoze quite a bit of property.

Preference is your solution. Run the CTA only in the spot.

We do need a western CTA line.

Highways have a relatively easier time at getting money than mass transit so if we get that pushed through one of the bargining chips is only if they provide design and right of way for the rail.

At every mile or so put TIFs with business/high density housing/economically diverse housing.

Toll fees would pay for both the roadway and that line.

^ Yuppers

Do transit, bus, or truck route.

I'm actually all for a segregated truck route along this path. With the increased usage of freight via truck in this country, as well as the current situation with trucks on the expressways - this seems like a decent idea.

Make the truckers happy by giving them their own through route, make the expressway commuters happy by taking some trucks off the road, make the freight people happy by eliminating hours of idle time in traffic.

I change my mind about the Tollway and agree with you. Was hungry for that CTA line....and for a second wanted to make a pact with the devil for a tradeoff of adding another horrible highway.

NO NO NO NO NO CROSSTOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last thing this city needs is another expressway destroying our urban fabric, leading to more car use, and pollution. Even as a self-funded toll road, no fucking way I would support this. Six Corners and Austin will be forever destroyed.

Also Madigan is a total fucktard. How could he not know about the Mid-City proposal? Way to stay on top of the facts, its only been around for what, 10-15 years?


I am open to a truck route on the ROW, but only if we see a new CTA line with the deal.

Grrrr...google is right there, man.

Citizens for Better Transit: http://www.bettertransit.com/about.htm
Citizens Taking Action: http://www.ctariders.org/

These may not be as big/established as other similar community groups, but they are focused on transit. FWIW, many local Chicago community groups have been pushing the transparency/new management line for years.

As was mentioned, a google search is revealing:

http://www.kfa-inc.com/about%20kfa/egovernanceaward.htm
http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/news/news_0...taofficial.htm
http://www.transitchicago.com/news/a...ticleid=117996

And from a board meeting:

"We try very hard to cultivate talent here and encourage career growth. And increasingly, the high caliber of our managers is being noticed. In the last year or so, several talented General Managers were recruited away to companies such as Air Canada, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, or to bigger jobs at smaller transit systems."

Full transcript here:
http://www.transitchicago.com/news/w...ticleid=132332

This was a lame search, BTW. I'm sure much more can be dug up on this subject.


This, and then you get defensive when someone calls you a troll? I, for one, do not work at the CTA. I work as a programmer in the trading industry.

Agreed.

I maintain this is impossible given the unreasonable high expectations (like keeping the green line open) and unreasonably low amount of funding. This isn't a management issue.

Like this: http://movingbeyondcongestion.org/
Or how about the article posted above by i_am_hydrogen?

Pull those blinder off for only a moment, huh?

What brings you to that conclusion? That isn't what I got from this.

How on earth is it the CTA's fault that legislators won't fund it? Legislators, executives and people like you have been hiding behind this idea that the CTA is garbage for years. It is a convenient excuse for not paying up for decent regional transit. The funny thing is that even after the CTA has improved in transparency, efficiency and cost effective operations people are still using the same old tired lines. The CTA is being run better now than it has in years, and yet the same people don't want to pay enough money to get a truly functioning transit system.

It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Taft

The Cross Town Expressway is an idiotic idea. It would mean destroying a HUGE number of houses and neighborhoods. If it didn't fly in the 70's what makes Madigan think people will get behind it today?

It would be a great transitway connecting O'Hare to Midway, as well as offering transit service to the West side. If the CTA can work out it's operational budget funding and then get federal $ for the capital expense of building this route they should do it. Until that happens they should just preserve the ROW for future transit use.

But is it wide enough for both? Everytime I look at it (unless I'm totally off base and looking in the wrong spot -- it's the raised track area East of the Six Corners and slightly East of the Metra track at Irving Park Road that runs behind Kolmar Ave., right?), it seems to me to be just about the right size for a CTA line. I don't see how trucks could fit up there too...unless they bulldoze a large path on each side.

Honestly, I don't think its even wide enough for only a two-lane truck route in Old Irving, isn't the railway only one track wide through there? The new infill housing in Old Irving goes right up to the ROW. Anything other than CTA tracks would for sure require some use of eminent domain.

Indeed, although half of those funds had to be shared with the suburbs. Bull Shit IMO, as Chicago and Cicero were to have huge swaths of developed area leveled for it. The Orange Line was even shortchanged, as it was supposed to go to Ford City originally.

To make it wide enough in the northern portion (the Kennedy to Grand Ave.) they would have to take out at least 2 lots on each side of the ROW. That would mean taking hundreds of houses in Old Irving Park, Logan Square, and Humboldt Park. South of Grand it opens up a bit, but they would still have to take out scores of industrial buildings and more houses at the southern end.

The original plan called for razing all buildings between Cicero and the ROW.

What is Madigan smoking?

The same thing as the 71% of respondents on chicagotribune.com who said this was a "good idea."

Taft

Face it we aren’t going to agree. So past this point I will not labor any points of discussion with you or Tank.

Thanks for sharing the obvious links, but as stated by others on this forum Chicago doesn’t have a public oriented group that has teeth when it comes to Public Transportation. By the way Bettertransit terminated on Feb 2007.

I disregarded anything on the CTA webpage and that includes MovingbeyondCongestion since that is always reported on this form and all other major media.

GFOA
Wow….talk about saprovors! Look who GFOA’sr clients are….Government. Bet you they have a subjective outlook on CTA and other government institutes!
….besides this award is for their preparation of budget documents to the standard of this board.

Note – No awards about follow through on budget, transparency or accountability.

LONGHINI

LonghiniI guess I should have specified PUBLIC TRANSPORATION PLANNING. Don’t see that on your web-feed.:

Tank? w/e...


This award is scoped very broadly and would include transportation planning. The award was given to Longhini when he was at the CTA and for his work there.


About the rest: cover your ears and live in blissful ignorance like everyone else in Illinois seems to. What the hell do I care...

Taft

From what I just read in the Trib, Madigan had no idea that the Mid-City concept had even been proposed. I don't know what kind of game he's playing with this. The article goes on to say that the State is saying that they really don't have the money to fund this project either. My head hurts.

Wow

Perhaps it's just a ploy to drive home a point that discussion of roads and highways is necessary to accompany discussion of transit....

Either way I think it's exceedingly unlikely an expressway would get built here, I mean if the Old Man himself (almost as successful as Robert Moses in the magnitude of the works projects he hammered through) couldn't do it, how could Madigan, especially in the more NIMBY-prone environment we're in today?

With any luck, it's a sign that at minimum, a capital program for roads and transit may be a topic of discussion....so even though we're looking at some service cuts, at least over the next few years the assets will be modernized to the point where people like Chicago3rd are satisfied that running more quality transit in Chicago is primarily a question of operating dollars.....then who knows, there might even be local funds available for operating assistance. Service cuts aren't always a bad thing; when broad cuts are necessary, it allows CTA to cut the horrendously unprofitable pet-project routes and cut frequency where it's totally unjustified; for the first few years of Frank Kruesi's tenure at CTA, the CTA actually had a SURPLUS operating budget, following the drastic cuts that were enacted. Then bit by bit, politics demands increased service levels....

I'm just green with envy of Toronto, who spends over half of its capital budget on public transit infrastructure...