Of course it's a no-brainer, but Chicago sometimes moves painfully slow on grasping the obvious.

The Paulina connector was first built in 1895. The Chicago stadium (the United center's predecessor that once stood on Madison just north of the current arena) opened in 1929.

So the city has only had 93 years to make a station there happen. I think we're gonna need a minimum of three decades of study to figure out if building an infill stop along an existing rapid transit line that's only 750 feet from the front door of a 20,000 seat arena that hosts 200 events/year is a good idea or not.

Nobody read my post, as expected.

I said why does it need to built NOW, in 2022.

In 1900 L stops spurred development. Why? Because to thrive, a neighborhood required L access. They were utterly vital.

Today, it makes sense for L stops to get thrown into the mix AFTER significant development happens.

It makes more sense that way. Build it too early, and you run the risk of having a $200 million station in the middle of nothing. But if a place is up and coming, seeing a lot of development and investment, then you have a case. Early on people arrive by car, bike, foot, Uber, etc. but that limits growth capacity and you build an L stop.

Stop this “back in 1900 they were wiser” bullshit. They weren’t wiser. They had fewer options.

Steely Dan, first sentence in his reply.
"because a 20,000 seat arena that hosts 200 events/year and sits within 750' of an existing rapid transit ROW would already have a dedicated stop in any city that wasn't stupid."

^ That’s not an answer, that’s a value judgement that is the same thing as saying “Trains are cool that’s why”, which is what I predicted people here would say.

If a L stop were necessary for UC to thrive, they would’ve asked for one. But I guess somehow UC got filled to capacity year after year without one.

Reread the post I just made above which explains when I think an L stop would be justified.

When the Paulina connector (the old Metropolitan West Side elevated) opened in 1895, there *was* a Madison St. station at Madison and Paulina. It was closed in the 1950s when the Met northwest branch was rerouted through the Milwaukee/Dearborn subway and the Paulina connector became non revenue. The station was demolished a few decades later.

So its even worse that the city not acting, Steely. The city actually had the infrastructure, and they demolished it. And this is why we drink so heavily. :haha:

TUP, you're arguing in bad faith here.

sadly, that's become the norm for you.

There is a such thing as induced demand. Build it, and they will come. That area is very prime real estate, it wont take much for development to flood over from the already booming Fulton Market. A transit station would definitely help speed up the area's conversion to more productive use than just empty lots for car storage (and more tax revenue for the city as a result).

What an asinine statement. What makes Chicago better than 99% of US cities is that it's transit friendly, walkable, and very urban. Why the hell should we not continue investing in transit especially in future hotspots like the UC? And nobody uses? We have the best transit system in the country aside from the NYC metro. We're third in ridership just behind NYC and DC. Making our city more transit accesible and bikeable/walkable is key to a sustainable city.

Guess we should be like suburban hellholes such as Atlanta/Houston/Dallas and continue expanding highways and building surface parking lots for more cars :uhh::sly: Houston keeps expanding the Katy Freeway yet traffic is still a shithole, mhmm...

Yep. Check out the T Third line in 2011:
https://goo.gl/maps/JdZipyTysGcbCWbE9
https://goo.gl/maps/BCFCV4v9oZBXgfEM8

And 10 years later:
https://goo.gl/maps/Bm3Ff2MiiNNyCFTN6
https://goo.gl/maps/7LAqybzpEJo3YYjM7

And basketball and hockey are not big tailgating sports so it's not like you need the arena to be surrounded by a sea of parking lots. And it's not even like you'd need to build a whole new line just to add a station. Adding an infill station to an existing line should be relatively easy and inexpensive, especially compared to amount of added service it would provide.

^ To which I respond again:

Here are some responses that more properly address my point, these guys actually read what I said:

^ I think UC is obviously in better shape than some other areas where L stops are surrounded by big fields.

But I still think we are a long way off before a $200 million train stop is justified. If L stops didn't cost so much to build then it would be more of a slam dunk. But they are insanely expensive nowadays!

If you think they are expensive now TUP, I'm fairly certain you won't like what the price tag will look like in 10 years, where it could easily be double.

Why wait to build it then, when the city would also lose on potentially a decade's worth of higher property tax revenue with the property redevelopment that will occur within a half mile radius of the station? The UC neighborhood's gentrification is essentially a sure thing, and happening now even. There are new developments on Madison as far as Western. The city adding fuel to the fire is an investment in the neighborhood's viability and city's finances. Gotta spend money to make money, right?

Well, the Damen stop is slated to cost only $80M. You might be thinking of State/Lake or Washington/Wabash, which are more expensive because they're downtown and construction is tricky down there. Damen is still too expensive at that $80M price, so it's understandable why the city doesn't go hog-wild adding L stops everywhere there is some development - or might be some development.

But again, it takes two to tango and the stadium owners have no intention of encouraging transit use or developing their lots. The city needs at least one of those two things, ideally both, to justify a new station. The last time the owners talked about development, it was just being used as a carrot for them to get more huge tax breaks. And even that was pretty limited, only one parking lot, where the teams eventually built their office building. They know the city wants redevelopment, but the owners clearly weren't interested in redevelopment for its own sake, even though it could be profitable to them.

You can't fix stupid. Just gotta wait for Reinsdorf to die - I'm guessing Wirtz might be more open to development, but Reinsdorf manages TWO stadiums with huge ugly parking moats. Ironic as Reinsdorf made his money in real estate :shrug:

That tax break, by the way (which Rahm refused to give them) was large enough to fund a new station even at CTA's inflated costs. There is certainly a deal to be made where TIF funding from the parking lot development can pay for a station and/or other infrastructure in the area.

You first need a plan before you put in that investment. You don't just spend the taxpayer's money that way and "hope for the best"

As Ardecila is saying, you need the owners of UC to play ball. Get them on board, negotiate a complex land swap/land use type of deal with them so that development is even possible. Then get some proposals out to developers, then you can maybe start talking about adding an L stop with a timeline, etc to get the ball rolling.

You don't just look at the huge parking lot, do nothing, and say "Gee lets build a massive L stop here" without all of those other moves.

Right. Development isn't a force of nature, it's never "inevitable". You could see it that way if you have a free market, where land is owned by many different owners that are competing. The sum of many individual decisions, made independently, can feel like a force of nature.

But the area around the UC is not a free market - the land is basically owned by a cartel. The land may get developed on all sides around it, but the cartel will keep using their land as parking so long as it is profitable to do so. They also have a lot of political power, so don't look to the city to strong-arm them into changing anything.

and absolutely no one here has argued for such.

here is what i actually said in reply to ardecila before you went off on some bad-faith rant about it:

Do they really own ALL those lots? Even the ones to the east of pink line? Rush may even own some of the property to the southeast of the stadium, not sure. I have no skin in the game, I have no trouble walking from the IMD blue line or I usually pregame on Madison and take their shuttles over. Seems like there are better spots to put stations in our system.

I will also note that this isn't a Chicago problem, it's an American problem. There are very few examples of cities being able to dictate terms to sports teams. Even NYC can't manage to get Madison Square Garden from squatting on top of its biggest transit hub.

The United Center doesn't own all the lots, but there is a tight club of parking lot owners who leech on the team like parasites. They all charge basically the same rates and I'm sure there is some collusion going on. Institutions like Rush and the Teamsters also own parking lots, but those aren't typically used for event parking.

^ there has to be some lever of power the city can exert over reinsdorf/wirtz to get them to play ball.

CTA should buy up as much of the land as possible, develop the station, and then sell it :). But we all know it doesn't work that way...

Why wouldn't the United Center and whoever else owns these parking lots want these lots to get developed? Wouldn't it be more valuable as mixed use development rather than parking? That's what the Giants did with their massive parking lots. After full build out, there will essentially be no more surface parking lots left.

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