That is not actually the bridge - it is temporary supports for formwork. The bridge will be a cast concrete box girder, held up by a cable suspension system. It will span from the "mainland" by Lake Park Ave to the Lakefront Trail with only one large mast in the middle and no other supports.

The details are actually really advanced and thought-out, this will be lightyears ahead of other bridges in Chicago.

http://burnhamplan100.lib.uchicago.e...et_bridge1.jpg

Holy crap. :slob:

Looks like the first block of red concrete bus lanes has been poured for Loop Link! This is integral colored concrete, so it shouldn't fade like the Jackson bus lane or the red stamped crosswalks around town.

http://i57.tinypic.com/313fuzc.jpg

Tolled Highways
 

^The Loop BRT is going to be really awesome. Can't wait for this to be done.

To the discussion of the tolls, aren't all the highways leading into the Loop already tolled? I have only driven on a few of them so I'm not totally sure. But would you be adding an additional fee for these special lanes?

The first thing that comes to mind when reading your post is, how do they add toll lanes without taking away from the lanes everyone is already allowed to use? Meaning, are they going to add additional infrastructure or are they just going to take away a lane that already exists? But it sounds like you've got these solutions already and I'm curious to hear them.

I don't know how many people would really be willing to pay $15 each way. That sounds pretty extravagant for a commute. But then again, people blow money on worse things all the time.

All the freeways leading to downtown Chicago are free. It's likely that converting 1 lane on them to a toll lane is politically unpalatable. New construction would be fair game for tolling, but in reality that will require significant expansion of viaducts, tunnels, trenches, etc and would result in very high land acquisition and construction costs, even for one additional lane.

The other option would be to add a tolled viaduct over the existing expressways, but these would be unsightly, and would probably have to be elevated some 15-20 feet above the ground.

As for tolls, I think that $15 would still attract a lot of drivers. In Minneapolis, where I'm from, the HO/T lanes on two freeways feeding the core have tolls upwards of $8 and are used quite well.

^ You guys talked it up, though this isn't for the city...

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#sectio.../p2p-83314638/

CTA now finished their EA for the Lawrence-Bryn Mawr project on the Red Line.

$1.3B for 1.4 miles of track, at the astounding price of $928M per mile. Every other country in the world can build a subway cheaper than this.

Weirdly, they are talking about preserving portions of the old embankment, even as they build a new, wider, taller viaduct above it:

http://i58.tinypic.com/jturu0.jpg

928 MM /mile is outrageous. $150MM max would be at least understandable & palatable, given costs elsewhere (US & Europe, anyway) -- except for NYC.

Costs here, like elsewhere in the US, are too high - but to be fair, that's the bill not just for constructing elevated track, but demolishing and then rebuilding a structure over which runs a 24-hour operating line.

Yeah, I would guess it would cost half as much, perhaps even less, if they could just shut the entire line down for 2 years, like they did with the Green Line in 1994. But that ain't gonna happen to the busiest stretch of transit in Chicago. A billion per mile is about what the original projection for the subway alternative was for the RPM.

And what were the main arguments in the analysis for the subway alternative again? Was it cost?

It was laid out to be about the same price as redoing the elevated structure. In order to attain that comparable cost, there was a reduction in the number of station, which was widely unpopular and considered detrimental to existing business corridors.

^ Do you have a link to the alternatives analysis? I was looking for it on the CTA's website the other day and couldn't find it.

Didn't the subway version also include only 2 tracks instead of 4, meaning no express tracks?

No picture, but the new entrances to Clark/Division Red Line are in... Well, at least two of them are.

Yes, but the speeds would be higher due to fewer stations and wider curves.

This is interesting. The added express trains will only run every 30 minutes, with 3 new Loop-bound departures from Linden at 7pm, 7:30pm, and 8pm.

Not sure if they can get the magic 39 passengers per car on a 4-car train. The usefulness of this express service will increase quite a bit once the Wilson stop opens, although by then the CTA will (hopefully) be two-tracking north of Wilson rebuilding the viaduct.

I hope this is a first step towards making the Purple Line into a legitimate North Side express train, with transfers to Red every 3-4 stops and extended operating hours. Ultimately, it would be great to make the Red Line the express train from Howard to 95th, and Purple Line would be a local from Linden to the Loop.

^ I hadn't thought about that, but making the Red Line the express does probably make more sense that somehow making the Purple express from Howard to the Loop by getting rid of all the extra stops south of Belmont. Has that been mentioned in any official documents ever?

^ Nope. CTA's planners apparently don't get license to think about the big picture very often.

Cecil Adams a few years ago noted that there was a vague consensus among planners: that CTA would eventually need to run the Purple Line as a full-time express and send it into the State Street Subway permanently, terminating at the new Cermak station on the Green Line. This would presumably be done after the Clark Flyover is built; this would allow for additional Brown Line trains to pick up the slack at local stops from Belmont southward after the Purple Line service was shifted away.

Unfortunately, making the Red Line the express train like I am proposing would mean Evanston loses CTA express service. In reality, they would still have express service - it's just called Metra. But that's too "big picture" for anybody in Chicagoland to comprehend.

Amen! The lack of holistic thinking is a real head scratcher. When the renewal of the red/purple first came out, CTA insiders were quoted emphasizing that the program was a Red/Purple project only and that no discussion was appropriate re how it would interact with the rest of the system. The silo mindset truly stuns. I have little hope for the CTA -- and I say that sadly.