Originally Posted by untitledreality (Post 5931646)

I think at one point an Addison transfer station was actually in the works. Then one day the land got sold off to a developer and we got this five floor building: http://goo.gl/maps/YXSf0

Originally Posted by Marcu (Post 5933747)

...
The Clybourn stop is alongside the Kennedy so it's completely anti-urban in appearance, but there is decent development just west of there if one can manage to get passed the highway.
...

Originally Posted by J_M_Tungsten (Post 5933773)

Nice update shot Hayward. I'm very confused at how this project is being done. Are the going to completely rebuild the tunnel as well?

Originally Posted by emathias (Post 5933935)

One of my coworkers commutes our office (Madison and Canal) via that station, and he's not the only one. It's not ideal, and I don't think it'd be popular as anything other than a commuting stop, but if it were converted to something more like a S-bahn with regular semi-frequent service, I could see people willing to live in larger buildings along Cortland and Ashland and Armitage. There's all that industrial property along the river there, but if the city wanted to make that more scenic they certainly could turn it into a really popular area for residential stuff. Small, quirky streets, current access to retail along Cyborn, walkable to Armitage historic district, walkabout to parts of Bucktown, easy access to the highway. Add in S-bahn level access from the Metra station, and residents would have that and a 10-minute walk to the Brown Line. That's certainly not an overnight sort of plan, but it's the kind of thing that could add a lot of value and connect two of the hottest neighborhoods in the city (Lincoln Park and Bucktown) with continuous residential and commercial strips. Properly done, that whole area could the hotter than (insert your expletive of choice) in a couple decades.



They're building a new entrance at Lasalle. Unfortuantely (I'm sure for cost reasons) it will be only on the east side of Lasalle, forcing people to wait for a light to enter the station from the west, but it will let them avoid walking the block between Lasalle and Clark which will be nice in the winter.

Once the Lasalle entrance is ready to open, they will temporarily close the Clark entrance and work on that while everyone uses the new Lasalle entrance.

The photo appears to show excavation for the mezzanine level at Lasalle.

Originally Posted by Hayward (Post 5934307)

It's really disappointing they aren't tunneling walkways under LaSalle. That's a very dangerous intersection. I've witnessed two very bad car accidents since I moved to Chicago over 3 years ago. While they didn't involve pedestrians, they easily could have.

Originally Posted by ardecila (Post 5936136)

So what's gonna be the next big CDOT project now that Wacker is done? There are a couple smaller projects - Damen/Fullerton, Division bridges, Chicago bridge, Wells bridge, etc. I guess the BRT proposals might count.

Originally Posted by emathias (Post 5936367)

I hadn't heard anything about the Chicago bridge - any info on that?

Originally Posted by J_M_Tungsten (Post 5936012)

Lower Wacker Drive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D3W0-4RfbE&sns=em

Originally Posted by ardecila (Post 5936983)

Only CDOT's filing with the Coast Guard. There are technical drawings at the end of the PDF... new bridge will be a fixed bridge, with haunched steel girders. Much like the Halsted viaduct at Kinzie. No magic whatsoever. It will have space for a buffered bike lane and four traffic lanes.

Based on the drawing, it looks like the tight corners of the riverwalk inside the bridge anchorage will be eliminated (along with any semblance of history).

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/bridg...go%20River.pdf

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1629/halsted.jpg

Originally Posted by Hayward (Post 5937560)

I don't understand why Chicago Ave is so wide. It doesn't even connect to the Kennedy

Originally Posted by emathias (Post 5937867)

It used to be a major streetcar route, and when that whole area was mostly warehouses, you needed room for all the trucks that went in and out, too. I think the real question is why was the bridge every built so small.

I'd love to see a really wide bridge there with the sidewalk becoming an arcade on both sides (like the east end of Congress) carved out of the buildings so that BRT (or maybe even trams) could easy route over the bridge without too much traffic impact.

I also agree that re-establishing a bridge at Erie would be ideal, although those Kingsbury residents near Ward/Erie Park would scream bloody murder about the traffic now. Yet another piece of evidence of just how piss-poor Chicago is at overall planning.

I will miss the current riverwalk under the bridge - it really adds character to the area down there.