I don't know how many delegates will be using this as they get shuttled around and, if it is like the RNC in Milwaukee, stay within their secure zone. But good for volunteers and other workers

Looks like a nice station and a well needed infill location. Is it the closest station to the United Center?
Looks like the pink and blue lines come close? Looking at the map on Urbanrail dot net, seems like there is no transfer station between the pink and blue lines?
https://www.urbanrail.net/am/chic/chicago-rail-map.png

Yes, this is now the closest L stop to the UC.

Gmaps walk times to a UC entrance from the 3 L stations around the UC:

Damen green line: 8 minutes

IMD blue line: 10 minutes

Ashland green/pink: 13 minutes



A theoretical future pink line stop at Madison would be the closest an L station could get to the UC, at only a 4 minute walk.

Correct, no transfer between Pink and Blue. Until 2008 they were two branches of the same line, so there was no need for a dedicated transfer station.

CTA may build a Pink Line station close to the United Center in conjunction with the big "1901 Project" just announced by the UC owners to build up their parking lots with mixed-use development. That's probably ~10 years out at least, unless the UC wants to pay for it themselves (unlikely).

The Pink Line also runs short 4-car trains, which are not ideal for gameday crowds. If a UC stop is added, CTA will need to run longer trains and build the infrastructure (longer platforms, bigger yards, etc) in order to do so.

Would love to see one built one day. Ideally as part of a larger Circle Line plan, but I'll take it piecemeal as well.

It's an 8 minute walk from the Pink Line Polk station to the Blue line Medical center stop, cutting through the medical center itself.

Does the CTA offer transfers for situations like that?

You typically get a transfer within 2 hours of going through the faregate or tapping on a bus (which you can even abuse for a round trip, if you're quick enough...)

New plans announced for redesigning part of DuSable Lake Shore Drive
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/othe...d0aca45c&ei=70

Interesting renderings in the article. But I had to laugh at this:
Yeah, and I want a flying car and millions of dollars. These protesters are not serious people. Take what you can get.

Why is it crazy to paint one lane red (out of four) for buses, when buses are already carrying 20-30% of the total people on Lake Shore Drive? There should absolutely be a bus lane, with the remaining 3 lanes for private cars.

Light rail is probably not the right solution; the bus routes can exit LSD and drop off people where they live, on local streets like Sheridan, Broadway, etc. A light rail line would be limited to LSD itself, and a lot fewer people would live or work near the stations since the highway runs mostly through parkland.

Which lane is the dedicated bus lane? The right lane, so all cars coming on/off LSD have to cross over and will clog up the lane at every exit? Or the left lane and the busses have to cross all the way over and back?

I'm fine with the concept of bus lanes on the interior streets where busses are making constant stops every other block and the bus lane includes the bus stops themselves. But the whole point of a freeway like LSD is for all traffic to move smoothly. There are no bus stops.

The bus lanes should be on the west where the buildings are. And in the renderings here, that's where they're shown. This looks good, with no bus lanes on the high speed portion.
https://northdusablelsd.org/wp-conte...erings_All.pdf

LSD revamp plan is currently a horrendous waste of money for nothing but cars, and CARS, and even more fucking CARS!!!!

Par for the course from our stupid-ass state DOT.

Thank God we have some noble and serious citizens of our fine city pushing back against it.

Keep fighting the good fight, Chicagoans!

? Clearly the concept of the LSD express buses is foreign to you. Thousands of people rely on those daily.

Yes, the bus lane would be the left lane. Crossing over to exit is not some insurmountable barrier, but when IDOT had a plan with bus lanes "the Exchange" there was a separate fly-under ramp from the center bus lanes to N Michigan.

I would love if they downgraded LSD to a boulevard as some advocates want - it's cheaper to build, safer for everyone, and quieter/less noise pollution. However, I know that's a reach and I will personally be happy if they add a proper bus lane. The fact they couldn't even do that is insulting, given how many people rely on those buses (up to 30% of all LSD users are bus riders).

What are the speed limit plans? Currently much of it is 40 but with drivers seemingly around 60. If even the current limit was enforced, it would help with the character of the Drive

Agreed! But CPD can't be bothered to do speed enforcement, and cameras are currently banned on DLSD by state law.

Part of my gripe with the current design plans is that, by upgrading to full expressway standards (wide lanes, shoulders, broad curves, etc) they are sending the message to drivers that higher speeds are OK. If there is no serious enforcement, then most drivers will ignore the posted speed limit and go as fast as they feel comfortable.

If the speed limit is 40mph, then the road should be designed accordingly with tighter curves, no shoulders and narrower lanes.

Not only does it send the message that faster is ok, but it's wasting money to make a road capable of higher speeds if that capability isn't needed.

People , this road is already constructed so that nobody should pass over it on foot, so we just need to accept that this is the eastern most north south expressway, hence the underpasses. In case you are not keeping track EVERYONE is driving faster, cops and cameras are not going to make a difference. In my humble worthless opinion there should be inner drive bus lane option. Not sure on how that would look but that is the way to go.

I've never heard of an expressway with a speed limit of 40mph. Maybe things are a lot different there, but around here the lowest tends to be about 50 with most being 60-70mph. So it may not have been intended as an expressway at all and was instead just over-constructed for its intended purpose. Something common with every road type in NA where even some quiet side streets have stuff like overly wide lanes and rounded corners because people falsely think it's safer and to accommodate fire trucks.

There are buses that use the inner drive, but we're talking about express buses that do not stop until they arrive downtown.

I know this, i am saying to maybe have some sort of lane or system to make it express on the inner or between the inner and outer.

Oh look, some more unserious Chicagoans are coming out against the LSD revamp, as currently proposed.

What's wrong with these people? How did they get so unserious?


Full article: https://chicago.suntimes.com/transpo...-leanne-redden

Regarding Bus Lanes, what is the REALISTIC end goal? I ask because, if the cars are all going 60 and the busses can't speed so are going 40, then there are no cars holding up the busses and... no need for bus lanes.

If the cars must be slowed down to 40 and the busses are going 40, again no need for bus lanes.

Bus lanes allow the busses to go faster than the cars right? So if the cars are already going slower than 40 such that bus lanes are needed, then why spend tax payer dollars to redesign LSD to slow down cars?

As a serious person who has fought against IDOT blasting a 5 lane road through my forest preserve, I assume there's math to back this up?


If the end goal is to entice rich empty nester seniors to buy all those 2nd home condos in awesome downtown skyscrapers, and they're one slip on the ice away from a broken hip, you won't be enticing any of them onto busses. However, just thinking out loud, if you tell them that the bus lanes are to get all those slow crawling busses out of their way so they can happily speed away, they might go for it. Know your target market.

^ you seem painfully out of touch with the tens of thousands of people who rely on the LSD express buses everyday, and how those express buses operate.


People > cars.

It's the foundational principle of all cities worth a damn.

:haha::haha::haha::haha::haha::haha::haha::haha:

It's fun going faster than traffic on DLSD via bike.

Bus lanes are meant to allow buses to bypass congestion, not to bypass vehicles traveling at normal road speeds. When congestion occurs, vehicles may be stopped or driving below walking pace. Yet if the bus lane remains clear, the bus can continue to drive at normal speeds. But congestion may only occur during the busier times of day so that's the only time the bus lane would really be needed. But while those times make up a quarter or less of the day, the lane would still benefit a disproportionately large number of people since so many people were traveling in that short time. So it's worthwhile to have, even if it isn't necessary all the time.

This isn't inequality. People invented cars for a reason. The ADA lawsuits are coming from old boomers who can't walk to bus stops, just wait. My parents are 73, can barely walk, can barely drive. Won't be taking the bus anywhere.
And those of us who do the work that make cities possible can't afford to live in the "cities worth a damn".

Traffic congestion happens at intersection and interchanges. Do the busses get their own off ramp too? Their own turn lanes? Do they get to turn the traffic lights green like ambulances?

What you want is a subway. Until you get that, going to have to deal with cars.

Let busses drive on the shoulder like emergency vehicles.

The whole point of creating this type of infrastructure is to allow transit to deal with cars. It makes no sense to say you have to deal with cars while simultaneously opposing strategies for doing it. .

Or just have a bus and emergency lane instead of a paved shoulder?

I fail to see how getting on a bus gives a person a fundamental right to faster travel than a person who bought a car, paid sales taxes, pays for license and gas taxes, and most likely is subsidizing the CTA.

Busses and cars should travel at the same speed.

The realistic end goal is a bus lane in each direction so that buses are not caught in rush hour congestion. The congestion will continue to exist on the new road.

The speed limit is a separate issue. Outside of rush hours when the road is not congested, higher speeds contribute to more noise pollution in lakefront communities (faster speeds = more road noise), more deadly accidents and more damage to the park.

Because each bus contains significantly more people than each car, particularly at rush-hour. A rush-hour bus can easily carry as many people as 50 or more cars. Yet clearly the 50 cars takes up significantly more road space and are what is causing the congestion to begin with. So there's nothing unreasonable about saying that if you choose a mode that doesn't cause congestion you shouldn't experience as much congestion as people causing it. And yes, people using transit pay less... because transit costs less. If you look at total costs, transit costs less in various ways such as land use, infrastructure, and energy, while causing fewer external problems like pollution. So any subsidies transit receives is more than paid back by the benefits.

You might be amazed to learn that there are people who own cars, but still prefer to take the bus when possible. I am one of them and will be taking the bus to the Cubs game today even though I already CHOSE to pay those other taxes.

In the future, if transit moves faster on DLSD, fewer people will have to purchase depreciating assets (cars) and fuel (pollution).

Those overhead crossings shown in the renderings are not very enticing. They may be easier to navigate than some of the current tunnels, but like the current bridge crossing north of LaSalle (or most crossings over expressways), they don't create a welcoming, park-like experience. The Oak crossing is wider but does not appear wide enough to avoid the sense of cars flying past

Are there really that many people out there concerned with this? There's no reason a dedicated bus lane should came at some ill defined expense of cars in a neighboring lane. Who are the people yelling "how dare that bus go faster than me!"?

Uhhhh, who said anything about "fundamental rights"???????

In a big dense crowded city like Chicago where physical space is at a premium, it simply makes logical sense to prioritize and incentivize highly efficient methods of transportation over highly inefficient ones.

And now that the very unserious people at the RTA have decided to throw their organization's weight behind the effort to get IDOT to remove their collective head from their ass, it seems as those also unserious grass roots transit proponents (who you like to laugh at for some reason) might now have a better chance of getting what they want (dedicated bus lanes on LSD).

If they had taken your poor advice and just shut up and "take what you can get", we wouldn't now be looking at a potentially smarter and better outcome here.

Viva la unserious protestors!!!



Why are you so hung up about old people?

Here are the census 2020 macro-age demos for the City of Chicago.

Ages 0-19: 22%
Ages 20-59: 58%
Ages 60+: 20%

And FWIW, my folks are 77, they both fortunately still walk, and because they live in a Sheridan Road highrise up in Edgewater, they actually use the 147 LSD express bus to get downtown from time time (on topic!).




I also "do the work that make cities possible" (architectural draftsman for MFH infill housing in Chicago) and I can afford to live in this city (that's worth a damn)

And looking at the age demos above, apparently 1.6M other working-age people are also capable of doing the same.

Kirk Dillard is to be commended for courageously standing up for transit riders, not just once but repeatedly.

First he leaned on CDOT to add bus lanes at Chicago/Halsted, where CTA's #1 and #2 busiest buses cross. That was successful, and CDOT agreed to add the bus lanes in the coming rebuild of that intersection.

Now he is leaning on IDOT to add bus lanes on North Lake Shore Drive, where 7 different crowded bus routes jostle for space with cars and routinely sit in traffic jams.

Important to note that RTA has the statutory power to declare bus lanes on any street or road in the region, unless there is a state or local law that expressly prohibits them. I don't think they've ever used this power, but it does give them leverage. Kirk Dillard only answers to the governor, and so far the guv is sitting out of this whole debate.

But he's not serious.

And now some dude from Palatine is gonna have to laugh at him, to boot.

I will say though that bus lanes on north Michigan Ave might be more important than bus lanes on DLSD.

One road vs one bus lane can't be taken in isolation when thinking about overall infrastructure cost. Ultimately the the network of road infrastructure needed to serve individual automobiles is many times more costly (in material road cost as well as pollution) than a network of PT would cost serving the same number of individuals via PT.

Thinking about it I'd argue it is even more important that Michigan Avenue needs shorter, more identifiable, and larger (n-s) ped-friendly crosswalks going E/W. The size of the sidewalks N/S on Michigan is not generally a problem except on the busiest of days. For out-of-towners and older folkers walking across the street would seem burdensome and hectic. The current setup makes many feel they have to stick to one side of the street or the other instead of easily traversing back and forth if they see a store or building that catches their eye on the other side of the street.

LSD is an urgent project, since the bridges and underpasses (and the shoreline protection) are crumbling. If we're gonna rebuild the whole road, now is the time to have the important discussions about how transit should factor in before we spend billions.

Michigan Ave is important for buses too, but there's less urgency. It's also unclear if the "community" will support bus lanes. A recent exhibition at CAC had two rival visions: the Mag Mile Association's vision designed by LJC included bus lanes, while a rival vision funded by a deep-pocketed landlord and designed by Gensler had no bus lanes at all (despite narrowing Michigan Ave overall to just four lanes wide). Now that's unserious!

Not surprisingly, the Gensler vision was heavily peddled to media outlets in Chicago as well as the architectural press - and a lot of the coverage gave the impression that it was an official, approved city project. Meanwhile, the Mag Mile Association vision with the bus lanes got almost zero press. So, any official planning for bus lanes on Michigan Ave will likely face some stiff, well-funded opposition from some very influential people.

Exactly.

Bus lanes on the mag mile would be gravy.

But that's not the project directly in front of us at the moment.

We gotta get the LSD redesign correct right now, before the window closes and whatever gets built is locked in for another 2+ generations.

Is there any way to create a dedicated BRT route along DLSD? Having the bus lanes in the left-most lane and then having them merge across 3 lanes of car traffic to make the stops sounds like a PITA that would slow the buses down during rush periods. Why not have a dedicated bus road ala the McCormick Busway, running alongside DSLD? To be clear, I am not advocating for more total road lanes. DSLD would be 6 car lanes instead of 8, with a 2 lane BRT route running along its western side. Having enclosed bus station buildings would be a nice bonus as well.

My assumption as to why this would not happen is $$$.

Not really money, it's space. A dedicated bus road to either side of DLSD would lead to a huge "footprint" along the lake, since the busway would have to flare out at every junction along the way, and a big loss of parkland that would need to be offset with lakefill elsewhere.

Granted, a 6-lane road without shoulders would be a lot smaller than the 8-lane road with shoulders that IDOT is proposing - combine the smaller road with the busway and it might even out.

I don't think merging across 3 lanes is a dealbreaker. Buses enter/exit at Hollywood, Foster, Irving Park, Belmont and Fullerton. Traffic dwindles further north and there is typically free flow; for the first three access points, traffic is not so heavy that buses can't change lanes. For the last two, I suggest rerouting those buses (134, 135, 143, 146) to a new, bus-only access at Diversey by the driving range. Southbound lanes would get elevated on a flyover, and there would be a signal intersection on the busway for buses to enter/exit.

Damen Green Line Station - Lake & Damen
 

August 6, 2024

^Such a cool project, thanks for the photos SW!

I thought this article was interesting. . .

https://www.wifr.com/2024/09/11/idot...o-metra-train/

Regional but relevant. . .

. . .

edit

Can we cough up 11.5 billion from somewhere to upgrade the rest of the 145 stations to that standard? One wishes.

Metra is one of Chicago's transit systems too! It's nice to hear good news and progress on one of these rail projects instead of yet another delay.

I'm not usually a big fan of Metra extensions - instead of supporting small towns and their downtown areas, they drop a giant, 1200-space park and ride in a cornfield with not even a pedestrian connection back to downtown (see Elburn, Manhattan, Grayslake, etc). The only thing you can do is drive to the station, usually from a brand new subdivision that's also in a cornfield. Just a recipe for more sprawl. Amtrak doesn't really care if their stations have a lot of parking, so they usually end up in historic downtowns and, where possible, in historic stations.

For the Rockford extension, it's looking like Huntley will get one of those massive (and expensive) park and rides, but there's no money to build stations in Marengo, Union or Gilberts. Belvidere doesn't want a big park and ride, they want a downtown station but Metra and UP are fighting it.

Rockford is kind of a special case as a large city, they are undertaking a study to figure out the best location for their station. Likely it will end up where the old station was, at the south end of downtown by Main St and Cedar. The old CNW station is long gone, but the freight depot remains and is currently abandoned. Could be a nice renovation...

It seems (from a cursory glance on Google maps) that the most likely routing that Metra will use for the Rockford extension is almost entirely single track. Is part of the $275 million going towards double tracking the line? Or will they just install rail sidings so that trains will be able to bypass each other? Obviously double tracking the whole line would be the most ideal (triple tracking even better to allow for express runs), but that will obviously come with a much larger cost.