Anyone know the status of the central loop BRT project? Supposed to be done by the end of this year.

No idea. Seems like Ashland BRT gets roadblocked at every juncture, though. I actually don't remember hearing about a loop BRT.

^ You'd probably remember once you saw renders or maps, which were posted in this thread (maybe over a year ago though?). It's eastbound on Washington and westbound on Madison, or something like that, involving some significant lane reconfigurations.


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I don't understand the concept of destroying the taxicab industry with an unreliable, privacy-infringing fleet of picky, paid volunteers, but in contrast private commuter buses do sound like a fine idea. Did this come out of nowhere (or just out of San Francisco) ?

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ets-cta-riders
Ride-sharing on steroids: New private bus service targets CTA riders
By Brigid Sweeney May 09, 2014

... Blackline, a new bus service that runs between Belmont Avenue and Sheridan Road and three spots in the Loop, offers North Siders reserved spots on a fancier, less-crowded bus for their daily downtown commute.

...

"No more being treated like a sardine, getting passed by a full bus or dealing with uncertain pickup times," Blackline's site trumpets. Company executives, unnamed on the site, did not respond to requests for comment.

The company starts with only one route. It runs just two buses in the morning, departing from a single location, at Belmont and Sheridan. It deposits riders in the Loop 15 to 30 minutes later, according to its schedule. Riders, who must buy tickets and reserve spots in advance, can be picked up from the three downtown spots by two buses in the evening.

A weekly Blackline pass costs $23. (In comparison CTA bus fare, using a transit card, would total $20 for the same number of trips.) ...

In a broad sense, services like Uber, Lyft, Zipcar, iGo, and even conventional taxis provide alternatives to private vehicle ownership. Put all those services together with conventional transit and pull away restrictive regulations, and maybe you've got a system that is cheap enough, convenient enough, and flexible enough to entice people to give up their personal vehicles. The net result is not less traffic, but less precious space in the city devoted to auto storage.

Blackline is a new type of service for Chicago, but it too increases the diversity of transportation options. It won't get people to sell their cars, but some people might stop taking Lake Shore Drive every morning if they can also avoid a crowded L car. Downtown parking isn't getting any cheaper.

It's pretty much a private bus that's chartered to pick up from Belmont and Sheriden and drop off downtown, and that charter is split between individual seatholders. Seems like a clever idea to me. I doubt it'll really disrupt anything, since the need to reserve a seat in advance makes it less simple than Uber-style immediate ride sharing, but it could be useful for a few people.

Agreed with Ardecila and this, but this is nothing really novel.

A service like this has existed in New York City for a long time. My cousin in Queens who works for Citigroup takes a private bus like this into Manhattan daily.

I think it's about time we have more of this in Chicago, and it appears this company plans to expand its routes.

But I don't understand the pro forma at all. Even if all 50 seats are filled with passholders for four round-trips, that's only $4600 a month—less than $200 a day. Who'll run a bus four hours a day for that?

They're probably renting the bus from an event rental service that takes care of maintenance and leases it out for other events on nights and weekends, which might bring down costs some.

But yeah, it's generally tough to make transit service profitable - at transit fares.

Well, they also plan to add 2 more routes. It may not be very profitable at first, but once it gets a dedicated customer base it can expand routes and increase prices.

Like many businesses, there is always a struggle in the beginning

Yeah, if they're buying the buses and maintaining them themselves just for this purpose it seems like a long shot. But if they're just putting to use the event/party buses that would otherwise just be sitting idle at 7am and 5pm, then it kind of is like the Uber Black model of monetizing downtime.

As a person incapable of sticking to a schedule in the mornings, it would be more attractive to me if you didn't have to pre-book your seat at specific times and instead could just show up at a corner and flash a membership card when the next bus shows up. At that point though you kinda would be making a CTA replacement.

Even though this is after the fact...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...0,573698.story

http://www.trbimg.com/img-534fc869/t.../1006/300x1006

Why are there no stations planned between 115th street and 130th Street?

I think this money would be much better spent on the circle line and or clinton st subway

This part of the southside is very much underserved. I'd like the circle line and Clinton subway just as much as the next person, but this area is also in dire need of activation.

Hundreds of parcels may be needed for Red Line extension: CTA
 

http://politics.suntimes.com/article...05132014-936pm

TUE, 05/13/2014 - 9:36PM

ROSALIND ROSSI

@ROSALINDROSSI | EMAIL

As many as 259 parcels of land — including 95 with residential buildings — could be seized as part of a Chicago Transit Authority plan to extend the Red Line to 130th Street, officials revealed Tuesday......

Because it's a huge sewage treatment facility.

It's hard to imagine a more pointless project than this extension.

Since the article mentioned how the people there were leaning towards the plan with the least number of displaced parcels, the community will probably show support for the Halsted Alternative instead. This would be great because the extension would be going through an area with a higher population than the other route and it would serve a neglected stretch of Halsted that would gain increased activity from the extension.

G E E -- Do you think some of those endangered Property Owners might be interested in the NO DISPLACEMENT Alternative to provide CTA "L" service to the Far South Side:

(I must start making some phone calls): http://bit.ly/GrayLineInfo https://app.box.com/shared/2iuoc4khdl

While in general I agree that putting transit on a commercial street is beneficial, the population and jobs density of this area is nowhere near what it should be for a project of this scale, and the chances of population growth of any significant amount in that area is close to zero. This project should just not be built or, if something needs to be built, it should be set as a BRT project. Certainly given that for $2 billion you could build most of, if not all of, a Clinton Street Subway that would carry far more riders in a month than this extension would carry in a year, the wisdom of building anything is very, very suspect.

Red Line Extension
 

I'm betting this is just re-election non-sense chatter for Rahm to keep the far South Side on board. Once re-elected, the south side will have to deal with the consolation prize of the massive 95th st. rebuild, while the funds go towards the full north side rebuild.