Clark/Division

new mosaic tiles
http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/42/9mo6.jpg

the big hole's been filled (elevator shaft at center)
http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/19/bn60.jpg

new south entrance (SE corner LaSalle/Division)
http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/199/jnfc.jpg

new north entrance (NE corner LaSalle/Division)
http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/545/3jzr.jpg

Nope, not dead, just on the back burner. The West Loop Transportation Center is on CMAP's Fiscally Constrained List, which makes it a high priority and makes it eligible for New Starts Federal funding. The only other major CTA projects on the list are the Red Line Extension on the South Side and the Red/Purple Modernization on the North Side.

Right now, CTA is investing majorly in bringing the current system into a state of good repair with track work, station renovations, and rebuilds of selected transit hubs (Wilson, 95th, etc). Once our system is in better repair, CTA will be a very competitive candidate for funding from the Feds.

I'm actually optimistic about the WLTC getting built. Traffic in Union Station is only growing, and offices are increasingly moving to the West Loop. The WLTC project provides lots of benefits to city-dwellers riding CTA to West Loop jobs and suburbanites riding Metra to the same, not to mention the ever-growing ridership of Amtrak.

^ I thought the Clinton Street Subway and the West Loop Transportation Center died when the Olympics went to Rio. The whole 2020 Plan depended on massive federal financing. The projected cost of the subway was around $3B (IIRR).

I thought the Carroll St. Transitway is the only 2920 Plan project that has a reasonable chance of being developed because it would cost much less.

Ardecila, what would the routes look like through the Clinton subway? Would some Blue Line trains be diverted, or would they run a sort of 42nd St.-style shuttle?

The Olympics was an easy way to get cash, but the need for a West Loop Transportation Center has not gone away. Already, Michigan/Minnesota/Missouri are planning Amtrak improvements that will send more trains into Union Station. Metra's planning improvements that will send more trains into Union Station. The West Loop continues to see job growth at a breakneck pace, and it'll only accelerate once Google moves out to Fulton Market.

More trains and more jobs mean a lot more people, and parts of Union Station are already at capacity. Something will be done, even if it's not a stacked tunnel.

In the medium term, a flyover at 75th Street will shift SouthWest Service (15 weekday trains) to LaSalle Street, which will free up some capacity at Union, but that extra capacity will not last very long.

The original, very loose concept for a West Loop Transportation Center was just a Blue Line loop between Lake and Congress. However, tying a new tunnel into the Blue Line at either end would be extremely costly (there's already a flying junction at Lake, pointing the wrong way, and at Congress you'd need to underpin the Eisenhower viaduct).

I think planners realized they could probably get a lot more bang for their buck by building a much longer subway from North/Clybourn to Clinton to Cermak/Chinatown, and running either the Red Line, Purple Line, or a Brown/Orange fusion through it.

http://chicago.straightdope.com/clinton_subway.JPG
Straight Dope Chicago

It is not a question of need or of a bad plan. It is a question of money not being available to fund the 2020 Plan. I agree that the City still may have not given up.

Here's what you posted in 2011:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show....php?p=5311902

Are you sure that the huge block of concrete poured earlier this year at River Point was not designed to stabilize/protect tunnel stub connections to facilitate a later connection and that the doors at grade level leading into River Point indicated on some of the renderings are not to facilitate connections to Metra?

^Huh? There's no room left for platforms, and Metra certainly wouldn't build a new station on a curve only 1000 feet north of Union Station.

The Milwaukee-Dearborn-Congress subway tunnels are at -80 CCD where they cross under the Union Station north approach tracks.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I believe there are emergency exits and ventilation shafts in this area for the Blue Line, which may affect River Point. :shrug:

Fitzgerald questions transit agencies’ training on taking politics out of hiring
 

http://www.suntimes.com/22790619-761...of-hiring.html


Corruption-busting former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald Wednesday voiced concern that the region’s four transit agencies seem to have dropped the ball on adequately training staff on how to remove politics from hiring.

Fitzgerald’s comments came during the second meeting of a transit task force formed in the wake of allegations by ex-Metra CEO Alex Clifford that two Metra Board members conspired to dump him because he would not “play ball” on patronage requests — two of them supposedly originating with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).


Fitzgerald said his observations were based on the written responses of all four transit agencies to 25 detailed questions he had posed involving ethics issues.

The answers of the Regional Transportation Authority and the three agencies it oversees — Metra, the Chicago Transit Authority and Pace — indicate that the agencies provide “lots of training” on avoiding discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, national origin or a disability, Fitzgerald said.

Some agencies reported training about gift-giving, ethics and avoiding nepotism, he said.

But, Fitzgerald said, he didn’t see a lot of training based on “removing politics from hiring.’’


“There’s not a lot of training on whether people can be hired based on political affiliation,’’ Fitzgerald said during the meeting of Gov. Pat Quinn’s Northeastern Illinois Public Transit Task Force. “I have concerns about that.”

During the first requested appearance of all four transit agencies before the task force, Fitzgerald questioned whether there should be a “firewall” between elected officials and the hiring process.

In an exchange with RTA executive director Joseph Costello, Fitzgerald asked whether the RTA keeps any record of politicians who call the RTA to say they’d like someone hired.

Costello said no such record is kept because all such callers are referred to the agency’s website for directions on how to apply for jobs.

During questioning by task force member Ashish Sen, leaders of the RTA and Pace conceded their agencies have doled out severances to employees who were not under contract.

Pace executive director Thomas Ross said Pace has awarded “maybe one week’s pay for every year of service” to a departing employee, but such deals were “nothing of the magnitude” of the up to $871,000, 26-month separation agreement given Clifford. Clifford’s deal, and the circumstances surrounding it, spawned investigations by two inspectors general and the formation of Quinn’s task force.

Also Wednesday, RTA Chairman Robert Gates Jr. charged that the RTA was being “required to provide oversight without the tools.’’ RTA officials have said they did not know about Clifford’s buyout deal until after it occurred, and under current rules, Metra was not required to run hiring or separation decisions past the RTA.

Gates recommended that the RTA be given more power over Metra, the CTA and Pace or, as an alternative, all four agencies should be consolidated into one that would set policy and revenue for the region. Such an agency could be divided into a light rail, heavy rail and bus division, he said.

The concept didn’t sit well with Ross, executive director of Pace, which provides suburban bus service. Ross said Pace has bus contracts with 90 different communities, and “they expect to control how the service looks if they are paying for it.’’ For example, he said, changes are currently being made in Lake County based on its requests.

“You get everything in one location in some ivory tower, and all you’re going to get is criticism,” Ross said.

Under an executive order signed in August by Quinn, the task force has been asked to consider streamlining or restructuring the four agencies, to address patronage and ethics issues raised by the Clifford case, and to create a blueprint for a “world class” transit system. Its initial recommendation are due in mid-October.

POLITICS will be removed from Public Transit in the Chicago area -- The day AFTER a Snowball deposes Satan to Rule Hell.

Does anyone know why the Wells street bridge is only half done or why it is taking so long to complete?

It's on schedule the last I heard, so I suppose it's because rebuilding a bridge in place is a lot more complicated than just floating in some new girders.

Structural, it's been in place for months. The north half of the bridge looks completed, but the south half and sidewalks are dragging. Maybe it's just my perception, but it seems like a long time.

More Eisenhower news...

First, there will be a joint IDOT/CTA meeting on October 7 at the Ashland/Harrison Marriott. Officials will present design concepts for the highway, pedestrian connections, and Blue Line station rebuilds (the goal is to do this work in tandem to create decent environments around stations).

Right now, it's looking like the most likely alternative is to add a fourth lane through "The Avenues" and restrict it to HOV. The left lane between Central and Racine would also be converted to HOV, giving a continuous carpool lane from Mannheim to the Circle.

They've chosen interchange designs for 25th Avenue and 1st Avenue. Although the designs for Harlem and Austin are innovative and will provide strong pedestrian connections across the highway, the other designs are crap (SPUIs, diverging diamonds). If/when the Blue Line is extended, it will dump riders into pedestrian-unfriendly traffic islands (which is exactly the problem we're trying to solve at Harlem/Austin).

http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/706/39qw.jpg

http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/843/2m0n.jpg

On the other hand, IDOT is strongly considering a plan that would extend the Illinois Prairie Path down the Eisenhower ROW through Oak Park. A potential later phase would then extend the trail deep into Chicago using an abandoned rail line, CSX's Altenheim Sub. That would take it almost to Western, where there are several on-street paths continuing furhter downtown. Other than the Lakefront Trail, this would be the first major regional trail to run through Chicago.

http://imageshack.com/scaled/800x600/194/pqkt.jpg

Well sure but I dont think anyone would deny that things have slowed to a crawl on that thing. The original bridge was floated into place and opened in what....a couple weeks? I dont have the numbers at hand but I know it was extremely fast compared to today. I dont really understand why with modern construction techniques its taking 7 months to lay down a road bed...if the same flurry of activity that accompanied the demo was maintained throughout te project this thing would have been finished months ago. As it stands theres usually just a couple of people working at any time.

Renderings revealed for new $75m Washington/Wabash L station.

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130...-elevated-stop

News to me. It sounds like this one station will be replacing both Randolph/Wabash and Madison/Wabash.

interesting. so i assume this concept is out?

http://www.chicago-l.org/stations/im...ndering02t.jpg
http://www.chicago-l.org/stations/im...ndering02t.jpg

A Calatrava knockoff? Nice.

Did anybody hear about the CTA crash again today? It appears another example of a parked train rolling out of the yard into a station. This could have been much worse.

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/8e...4449340780.jpg

http://news.yahoo.com/chicago-train-...152224274.html

The new station looks amazing. Nice open feeling, beautiful/simple design. I like how the lighting is integrated into the steel fins and the tubular girder instead of being surface-mounted. That should reduce a lot of clutter.

Reminds me of Boston's Fields Corner station a bit. I think the undulating was added so that the canopy would have a low profile at Washington, to avoid blocking the sight lines to Pritzker Pavilion down that street.

I'm curious what the street access points will look like. Will there be a mezzanine, or will they build compact stationhouses on the sidewalk like at Morgan?