I thought so, too, but I would guess that it might be a really difficult project to shoehorn two new stations (a blue one and a Clinton subway one) in there.

I do think there should be a number of stations there where it parallels the Loop, kinda like the current Red Line, not just one superstation between the two Metra stations.

Something's better than nothing..
 

Lawmakers approve scaled-back statewide construction plan
Posted by Ray Long at 11:40 a.m.; last updated at 9:50 p.m. to note full Senate passage

SPRINGFIELD---The state would borrow to spend $3 billion on roads, bridges and public transit and put idle construction workers back on the job under a stimulus plan the General Assembly appproved today.

The idea was to win approval for a smaller statewide construction plan quickly and then attempt to push through the $25 billion borrowing plan Gov. Pat Quinn wants later.

The goal is to get the $3 billion worth of projects into the pipeline and put people to work by early summer, said sponsoring state Sen. Donne Trotter (D-Chicago).

"This is only a beginning," said Michael Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO. "This can't be a beginning and an end."

As many as 40 percent of union construction workers are unemployed during the economic tailspin, he said.

Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) cautioned that this vote was the easy part of getting a major construction program going this spring but the final bigger package will require tax increases to pay for it.

Lawmakers would pay for the program by taking $200 million from the state's road fund to borrow $2 billion for roads and bridges and set aside $100 million in general state funds to borrow $1 billion in mass transit construction. The diversion of revenue comes as Quinn wants a 50 percent increase in the income tax rate to balance a state budget he says is $11.5 billion out of whack this year and next.

Democrats and Republicans voted without dissent in the full Senate and immediately burst into applause, signaling their happiness and what they cautiously dubbed a fresh era of cooperation. The House followed suit tonight.

Still, the progress is a breakthrough after six years of stalemate on a construction plan under Rod Blagojevich, the deposed ex-governor.

Trotter said the construction bill represented a "new day."

The money for roads, bridges and mass transit is part of an overall package to tap billions of dollars more in federal stimulus funds to help prop up state programs throughout the state and a new allocation of funds that would soon reopen state historic sites that Blagojevich closed. About $330,000 in general revenue would reopen the state historic sites. The rest of the package will be paid for with billions of dollars in federal stimulus funds.

Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) praised the legislation because the decisions on what projects would be funded were based on engineering analysis rather than political clout, what she said was another departure from the Blagojevich days.

"We're actually going to put people to work, start putting shovels in the ground," Radogno said.

Quinn issued a statement tonight applauding lawmakers for quick approval.

You need to look at the geography here to understand my question. The "underneath"-the-river option means FOLLOWING the river, underneath it, for several hundred yards. I suspect NYC doesn't have anything like that. Here, there is quite a bit of private property, not to mention caissons, that must be avoided.

The map provided by Mr Downtown looks somewhat preliminary, since the line goes directly under the new SCB apartment tower at Grand. I think instead it would have to go under the new park at Erie, cross the river, avoid the footings of the Ohio ramp bridge, and then skirt around the west corner of the Kinzie Station tower.

Otherwise they would have to burrow under the Kinzie Station townhomes (legally not workable?) or indeed just follow underneath the river (like I said, maybe asking for trouble).

I'm pretty liberal but Cullerton is a liberal douche

Can anyone speculate a reason why Daley hasn't pushed for the 'Downtown Circulator' concept again?

If his idea was struck down by a Republican Governor and a Republican-dominated general assembly then why not try again given the completely different political environment we are in at every level?

^Well, there's the small matter that it was an incredibly dumb idea.

It started around 1980 with the germ of a reasonable idea: that the Carroll Street railroad tracks provided a route for Union/Ogilvie to Streeterville transit. But as studies progressed, it turned out that a busway network would actually provide faster service for riders, that there were huge routing problems in Streeterville, and that Carroll Street couldn't be used after all. So the project turned into a mere job subsidy program for transportation planners and engineers (the true purpose of many Daley proposals) that finally collapsed of its own obesity. "Downstate Republicans" were just a convenient scapegoat allowing Daley to save face.

^ I'm not following how a busway would be faster than a trolley?

Isn't it just a matter of choosing between using tracks versus road? How is one going to be superior to the other?

The PATH tunnels to Hoboken are 5,650 feet long. The Clark St. tunnel from Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn is 3,100 feet underwater. BART's Transbay Tunnel is 3.6 miles, in an active seismic zone. There are lengthy underwater subway tunnels in Hong Kong, Shanghai, London, Hamburg, etc. There's a 31-mile tunnel under the English Channel, and one in Japan that's 33.5 miles long. The Clinton-Larrabee subway looks like it might be under the river for about 400 feet.

The North Branch of the Chicago River is not some deep fissure; it's just a few feet deep. Tunneling in Chicago is pretty easy, thanks to a layer of easily worked blue clay at -40. You just carve it away with power knives and put iron or concrete rings in to line the tunnel. Since there would be stations near the ends, though, in this location it might be undesirable to go even that deep. You'd probably just sink prefab tunnel sections into a dredged trench, as was done for the State Street Subway.

The DEIS/Alternatives Analysis doesn't elaborate much on the model used, though it's clear that it was cooked as much as possible to favor the recommended LRT (not trolley) option. I think the main reason is that the buses would be smaller, arriving more frequently, thus reducing average waiting time. Articulated LRVs also present problems of making turns and clearing intersections because they're longer vehicles. Plus, it's questionable whether we'd allow light rail vehicles to operate "on sight," so they'd be slowed down to some extent by the signaling that buses don't require.

It is possible for subways to burrow underneath private property, you just have to be deep enough. It's rare in America, but only because we don't have that many subways to begin with. Check out London, though - they have done it many times. There's also a couple examples on the Metro in DC.

I'd imagine that neither the East Bank Club nor the Kinzie Station townhomes has a deep foundation that would obstruct subway construction, so the line could be run beneath either of these properties.

Or be there first. The Howard-Dan Ryan subway tunnel is only a few feet beneath some of the townhouses in Dearborn Park II.

As for Larrabee-Clinton, why wouldn't you just do this, avoiding everything:

http://i43.tinypic.com/23j1t8g.jpg

Yes, okay, I know it's all possible. I'm aware of those and have ridden through some of those ultra-long overseas underwater tunnels. My point originated from the sense that here, in recent decades, we have tended to lack the financial and political might to build ambitious things like that (e.g. tunnel boring machines being many times more expensive than cut-and-cover and thus viewed as an unreasonable alternative in the fiscal process; I wasn't envisioning prefab tunnel being dropped into a dredged trench longitudinally in a narrow river channel). But certainly this is a new era. The shadow of Boston's Big Dig disaster is fading; they even settled the crappy-ceiling-panel-wrongful-death lawsuit last month. These days we have an appreciation for public transit, new stimulus funds, and Daley is making no little plans. So maybe we won't shirk away from building what really ought to be built.

Yes, that's the route I suggested above.

Now, do you TBM under the elevated C&NW, which has narrowly-spaced supports? Or do we get C&NW to finally do a little viaduct rebuilding?

The diagram in the plan seems to suggest that there will be a station at Grand/Kingsbury. If this is the case, then the subway would need to cross the river south of Grand, where the river banks are densely developed with Kingsbury Plaza, East Bank Club, and Kinzie Park.

^ If that remained a part of the plan it might have to follow Kingsbury all the way to Kinzie and then hook quickly west.

Otherwise, Erie Park would be an easy place to construct a station, though it would be inconvenient for major bus route transfers.

Problem with that is that the new station at Grand is only three blocks away from the Grand station on the blue line. Kingsbury and Grand really would be a better location.

The East Bank Club is only 3 stories tall. That means it's not too heavy, and there's also no way that it has substantial or deep caissons (if it has caissons at all?). So, they could probably dig under that with out having to go too deep (don't need too much overburden to distribute the load) and without too much underpinning either.

Because there's no utility relocation or repaving required, the part in the river channel would probably be the cheapest and easiest part of a Larrabee-Clinton subway. You can just shop-fabricate the tubes and sink them in the riverbed.

Here are the ones sunk in 1911 for the reconstructed LaSalle Street streetcar tunnel.

http://i41.tinypic.com/15g43yd.jpg

Daily News Collection DN-008999

^ Your knowledge never ceases to end, Mr. D.

I just wish you'd drop that shadow study nonsense... ;)

Road repair money: Mayor Richard Daley and Gov. Pat Quinn outline spending plan for city streets
Quinn and Daley tout new state spending bill

By Susan Kuczka and Richard Wronski | Tribune Reporters
April 5, 2009
One of Chicago's worst pothole-scarred streets was selected as the backdrop Saturday for Gov. Pat Quinn and Mayor Richard Daley to outline nearly $200 million in city road repairs and other improvements included in a new statewide construction package.

"We don't want to be the shock absorber capital of the United States," Quinn said at a news conference in front of an auto repair shop on the 5400 block of North Avenue.

Minutes before Daley arrived, a crew patched a huge pothole that threatened to damage eastbound cars.

"This money alone will fund 100 miles of [street and bridge] repairs and traffic signs," Daley said at the event also attended by Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and several other lawmakers and aldermen.

The construction package approved by the Illinois General Assembly last week follows the recent passage of a federal economic stimulus plan. The state bill restored $40 million for Chicago's streets—money that Daley said the city could leverage to receive another $150 million in federal funds.

"Just think, it's changed around that quickly," Daley said, noting Chicago had not received any federal funding for state roads since at least 2006.

Besides the road money, Chicago area mass transit is slated to receive $900 million from the state.

The CTA is set to receive $495.9 million, with $173 million earmarked for new hybrid buses and $87 million for a mid-life overhaul of existing buses. Another $113 million is going for Red Line track replacement, $48 million for Red Line substations, $25.5 million for Brown Line substations; $22.5 million on rail station renovations and $27.5 million on bus garage renovations, officials said.

Metra wants to use its $290.7 million to buy 160 new cars for the Metra Electric line, a project with an estimated tab of $585 million, according to agency officials.

Pace wants to use its $68.4 million to buy new buses, vans, paratransit vehicles and equipment, and to overhaul engines on buses in its fleet, officials said. There's also $45 million set aside for paratransit, officials said.

Not entirely sure about that. For the above ground portion, Union labor isn't cheap - but union divers and underwater welders are far, far more expensive. I'd also be pretty surprised if there weren't sewers, water mains, and even electrical wires running under the river in at least a few locations (but perhaps not where this subway line would encounter them)

Regarding the streetcar tunnels - somebody needs to figure how and what they should be reused for. All three of them are still intact, right? The idea of pedway connections have been mentioned here before, but it seems like the city would rather build a pedway to the west loop during the construction of the Monroe Transitway, than use the tunnels that already exist.

That's an interesting question regarding the tunnels. I actually researched them a few months ago. As far as I can tell, they should be sealed from the freight tunnel network and unaffected by the 1992 flood. At LaSalle, however, the south tunnel approach was severed by the construction of the Blue Line underneath Lake Street.

Pedway connections would be the cheapest and most obvious use for these tunnels. If maybe 100 feet of basement space was opened up in the Loop Transportation Center, then the LaSalle tunnel could be connected to the network. It would exit at the intersection of Hubbard/LaSalle in River North.

The other two tunnels are far from the existing pedway network. Perhaps the Van Buren tunnel could be put back into service as an extended entrance for Union Station. With an extension, it could become an all-weather connection between Union and LaSalle Stations.

A major problem with these ideas is that security would be difficult in these tunnels. The curve that they make underneath the river is probably not ADA-compliant, and it reduces forward visibility, creating an opportunity for muggers. The tunnels could also potentially be easy terrorism targets. If proper surveillance is installed and the tunnels close at, say, 9pm, then these problems should be workable.

For the Monroe transitway, however, it seems like an entirely new tunnel would need to be constructed underneath the river, requiring the underpinning of the Monroe bridge footings. :koko: The LaSalle tunnel was built before there was a LaSalle bridge, so that wasn't a problem.