The last thing the CTA needs is longer (and therefore, more expensive in terms of cost per rider) train lines. What the CTA needs to do is stop trying to compete in the commuting business (where it is up against the far superior Metra system) and get back to doing to city transit should do - shuttle people around the city. Getting people to and from Ford City is not a priority when compared with getting people from Union Station to Navy Pier, Streeterville hotels to McCormick Place, and a hundred other quick trips that are currently impossible on our ill-conceived rapid transit system.

I agree with you in principal, however this area is not served by Metra, except for the limited service Herritage Coridor line with one station in Summit. The rest of this area is served by PACE, and we all know how wonderful and frequent PaCE service is, but atleast its something. I actually rode the 379 route last night for the hell of it from Moraine Valley College to Midway, and eventhough it was 10:45 Pm when the bus pulled into Midway, it was still about half full, better than quite a few CTA buses running on the fringes of the city.

I belive there is a good oportunity here because the line would not be that expensive to build, and stations could even be built under the Overpass viaducts to save money by not including platform canopies. The parking lot at Bridgeview stadium could be used as a park 'n ride location durring the off season for transit riders or even remote long-term airport parking closer to home. Right now it just sits unused, I am sure staduim management would be open to more income generation. Also, perhaps some TOD could be built in the underutilized sections of Ford City's parking lots.

There can and will be a massive park n ride facility at the Ford City station.

And it might seem petty, but I'm actually boycotting the Fire until they run a free shuttle between the stadium and the Orange line. I'm not gonna be held hostage to pay $15 to park. I used to be a good customer of theirs too.

I think they should just tear up Bedford Park and build new runways for Midway.

well, pace does offer a shuttle from midway on game days...

That's news to me, I couldn't find any promotion of it last season. I do see it mentioned on their site now though; that must be recent in the last several months. That's good, my boycott is officially over.

^ I'd take that over pretty much everything else as well.

I've been to Ford City--I don't see why it deserves a transit shop. With its seas of parking everybody is pretty much going to drive there anyhow. I say bring more retail into the denser parts of the city so that nobody will even need to go to some outlying shopping mall

Yes, that's a great idea. Who needs heavily used railroad yards or factories that employ tens of thousands of people in good paying job?:koko:

Sometimes it seems that people who don't live in Chicago on this forum just assume that every suburb is shit and nothing good can be seen outside the city limits even if it's adjacent as is Bedford Park.

I was being sarcastic.

My bad. It's hard to tell on these things when people are sarcastic. Especially because I've met deadly serious people who wanted to rip up Clearing and Garfield Ridge to expand Midway. Next time use a couple of these ";)"

I used this bus last season. It sucks (and it's a normal Pace fare, BTW). It takes forever (I think the average speed on those empty industrial park streets was 25 mph) and drops you off about 2 blocks away from the wrong side of the stadium. Plus, the Bridgeview cops that direct the vehicular traffic give priority to drivers, so be prepared to stand on the sidewalk for minutes at a time waiting for them to let you cross a parking lot entrance.

I went to lots of Fire games at Soldier Field. It was great, but I completely understand them not wanting to continue playing there. However, they picked a terrible location for the new stadium. For transit-oriented fans, that is. It's unlikely that I'll go to another game unless there's a direct Orange Line extension straight to the gates.

The initial capital cost of this project is utterly irrelevant. It could cost ten dollars or 10 billion dollars. What is of importance is how much the line will cost to OPERATE. I can guarantee you that an extension to Ford city will be a overall money loser on a per rider basis. It will serve as a weight that will drag down the rest of the CTA system with it.

The Alternatives Analysis should uncover whether or not this is true. If you're right, then I don't think the project would qualify for federal money. I'm not so sure you are, since there's decent trip generators there (a few thousand retail employees, the stores/theatre they work at, as well as Daley College), in addition a huge park n ride facility (all the other park n ride lots on the Orange line fill up by like 7am on a normal weekdays, especially those at the outer ends at Pulaski and Midway. There could be a thousand or more park n ride riders per day). Not to mention potential transfer traffic from the #79 and #67 buses (the 79 is the highest ridership bus in the system, FYI).

That said, I do know that the city is presently trying to acquire land for the extension, so I think some people are pretty serious about it happening.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...i-newsroom-hed

Skokie Swift expansion inches closer

By Dan Gibbard and Andrew Schroedter
Tribune staff reporters
Published January 8, 2007, 12:02 AM CST


Talked about for four decades but with nothing accomplished, an expansion of the Skokie Swift rapid transit line could hardly have moved any slower.

But with the long-sought addition of a new downtown station on Oakton Street looking like a sure thing, Skokie officials believe the time might have come to extend the Swift, also known as the Chicago Transit Authority's Yellow Line, to a new train station near Old Orchard mall.

Any extension is still years away at best, but with CTA officials going to Skokie this week for a site survey, village leaders say they have never been more optimistic.

"It's long-range, but it's more in the realm of possibility than ever before, I think," said Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen, who estimated the cost of the Old Orchard extension at $100 million. "The success we've had in one area perhaps breeds a little bit of optimism that we can succeed in the second one."

The CTA's last expansion in the North Shore was in 1964, when it began running the Swift on the tracks of the old North Shore railroad, which went bust in the mid-1950s.

Proposals to extend the line go back to at least 1965, Tribune archives show, when the Skokie Valley Transportation Council, an ad hoc committee of North Shore towns, recommended an Old Orchard stop.

In 1985 a Tribune editorial warned that suburban traffic would worsen and asked, "Whatever happened to the plans to extend the Skokie Swift from Dempster Street to Old Orchard?"

Until recently, not much.

But in 2003 Skokie did a study that helped persuade the CTA to include the project in a request for federal "New Starts" funding earmarked for congestion-easing transit projects that year. Now the agency has launched a formal study process, and consultants will travel to the village to get a tour of what has changed since the '03 study.

"We've worked hard to push for support among congressional delegations and others to get on this list and to work to secure funding," said CTA spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler.

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who pushed for funding of the CTA study, spoke confidently.

"When the first project is complete [at Oakton Street], we'll go all the way to Old Orchard," she predicted. "I think this is going to be an enormous boost to the local economy."

For now, the Skokie Swift runs non-stop between Howard Street in Chicago and Dempster Street in Skokie, with about 2,500 riders a day boarding at Dempster. The $15 million stop at Oakton, near the Illinois Science + Technology Park, could debut as early as 2008.

Skokie planners have identified three possible sites for an Old Orchard station: on the west side of the Edens Expressway, where the old North Shore line used to run; just east of the expressway, next to Niles North High School; and in the mall's parking lot, near Bloomingdale's.

The line would probably need to be elevated or laid out in some way to keep the trains from crossing busy thoroughfares at street level, especially Dempster, said Steve Marciani, the village's planning supervisor.

Officials believe demand for the added stop is strong, as Skokie stores, hotels and businesses located north of Golf Road employ more than 11,000 people, he said.

The new line would whisk shoppers, employees and others to Westfield Shoppingtown Old Orchard, the Cook County courthouse and other nearby office and retail developments.

"The whole corridor is very busy," Van Dusen said. "A lot of employers have told us they would like it because they pick up their employees at Dempster."

At Old Orchard, the idea went over well among workers, managers and shoppers.

Carrie Dunham, manager at The Limited, said not having a viable rapid transit system makes it difficult for her to recruit workers who don't live nearby.

Many of her employees live in Chicago but would prefer working at The Limited store at Water Tower Place because they can ride the CTA to work, Dunham said.

"I think [the extension] is a good idea," she said. "We don't have public transportation out here. There's a bus, but it stops at a certain point and stops running at night."

The Yellow Line doesn't only shuttle people from Chicago to the suburbs. Philip Luu, 17, said he lives in Skokie but rides the Yellow Line to Chicago to hang out with friends and volunteer.

Because the train doesn't stop near his school, Luu, a senior at Niles North, takes a bus to Dempster, then rides the Swift to Howard. There, he switches to the Red Line, which carries him south into the city.

The Yellow Line extension would eliminate the bus leg of the journey, which Luu said he would welcome, especially in the winter or when buses are running late.

"That would really be nice," said Luu's friend Mohini Ghale, 18, of Skokie. "We'd have a straight line to the Red Line and to go downtown."

Skokie, meanwhile, "would like to see public transportation because it takes cars off the road," Van Dusen said. "Anything we can do to ease congestion is a good thing."

The extension's estimated cost would include engineering studies, equipment and land acquisition, Van Dusen said. The $100 million estimate is for an above-ground line, he said, and tunneling would bump it higher.

It's too early to worry about exactly how to fund the project, village officials said, but it's clear the federal and state governments would have to pick up the lion's share of the tab.

Before the CTA can secure federal funding, the agency must demonstrate that a formal process of planning and design has been followed.

Ziegler said the extension proposal is in its earliest stage, known as alternatives analysis. In this phase, engineers study "traffic generators"—where people live, where they go and how they get there—as well as possible routes, station locations, ridership estimates, costs and what other transportation options are available.

The analysis takes at least two years to complete and is one of four the CTA has in the works, along with proposed extensions of the Orange and Red Lines and creation of a new downtown Circle Line.

Dan Gibbard is a Tribune staff reporter; Andrew Schroedter is a freelance reporter.

dgibbard@tribune.com

^
 

:cheers: It is good to see this project in the CTA priorities. $100M is not out of reach.

The point is not that people might or might not want to ride the train, it's that longer lines cost exponentially more money to operate. Plus, in order to keep trains running on a steady schedule on a ten mile line, you need X trains. Extend the line to 20 miles and you will need 2X trains to adhere to the same schedule. Will you get double the riders? I think not.

Sweet. I hope they keep it east of the Edens, though.

$100 million?? The extension from Dempster to Old Orchard would be what, 1.6 miles? And isn't the old North Shore right-of-way still there and completely intact? Sure, build grade separations at Dempster and maybe at Old Orchard, but does that mean that the whole line needs to be elevated?

$100 million for a 1.6 mile extension with just one station seems high.

Actually that sounds about right, cause they'll need to extend the Dempster platforms to 4 cars and the add room for a second track in preparation for the grade crossing which from the sound of it could mean Dempster Street being raised and the trains running underneath. From there it's really easy to stay on the Right of way and just build the grade separations.

If bids for remodeling the Grand stop came in at $65mil this is a steal. However just as the Grand project, bids for this will probably come in higher.