Good to know ;

CTA, Pace will complete transition to Ventra by July
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,2147918.story

By Jon Hilkevitch
Tribune reporter
6:23 p.m. CDT, March 14, 2014

Confident that nearly all of the bugs in Ventra have been worked out during a sometimes tumultuous seven-month rollout, the CTA on Friday said it will entrust the new fare-payment system to fly on its own by July without the safety net of the old fare system........

Chairman: No room for partisan politics at Metra
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,1515271.story

By Richard Wronski, Tribune reporter
March 16, 2014

One month into his chairmanship of Metra, Martin Oberman, a longtime Chicago Democrat, ventured into DuPage County, historically a suburban Republican bastion.

Few turf fights in Illinois' political wars have been more us-vs.-them than mass transit. Traditionally, Chicago Democrats have protected the CTA, while suburban
Republicans have jealously guarded Metra and Pace.......

Oberman needs to cut the shit with this political stuff. Guess what Oberman: both Republicans and Democrats ride METRA and neither care who is to blame politically, they just both look to you now to fix it. I am rooting for you to succeed, because Chicagoland needs METRA to work properly, but he should be running it as an a-political organization, rather than advertising it as the reverse.

Oberman mentioned later in the article, ""But I don't sense even in the Republican suburbs that people are unwilling to pay for the right service." Okay....thanks for that insight Captain Obvious.

And in earlier interviews mentioned something about "rich Republican friends in the western suburbs (DuPage) complaining about train horns bothering their horses." So much for non-partisan?

Yet he says, "This isn't partisan......." oh really? You sure make it seem like that...

Oberman says, "but the biggest enlightenment (for me) was the sheer complexity of the system. It just never occurred to me, and I bet it hasn't occurred to most of the people who ride the trains every day either." No, it doesn't occur to me because it isn't my f'ing just to ponder the complexities of METRA, it is your job.

DuPage/Western suburbs have the HIGHEST METRA ridership in the entire system, so how about making the trains run on-time, improve customer service (most METRA conductors are GREAT, some are real shit-heads), scrap visionary projects like the STAR line and instead run a train line down/near 294 from O'Hare to Midway, and improve Union Station to Ogilvie/Millennium Station standards.

Sorry for the rant, but it doesn't seem like he's getting off on the right foot here with this suburb (Republican) vs City (Democrat) stuff.

Did you read the article? Sounds like he's at least paying lip service to a more egalitarian, less hostile culture at Metra.

Of course, it's all well and good for a Chicago appointee to speak of equality while the city (CTA) continues to receive far more transit dollars per capita than the suburbs. It's understandable that a largely suburban agency would zealously guard the share it receives. Unfortunately the city/CTA still account for a majority of the transit usage in the region and that's not going to change because of anything Metra can change or even build... The very nature and culture of the suburbs needs to change and start accepting higher-density arrangements with less parking and smaller roadways, at least near rail stations and bus routes.

^Exactly. The Democratic city vs. Republican suburbs was a spin added by the Tribune reporter. But anyone who thinks transit policy in this region has been color-blind hasn't been paying attention. Sometimes the colors are white vs. black; sometimes they're red vs. blue.

Fair enough.......(regarding the spin from the reporter), and yes I did read the article.

But Oberman did say those quotes I outlined, casting a totally unnecessary dig at Republican suburbs in DuPage (again, the hand that literally feeds METRA with funds/riders).

And the suburbs are slowly adding density near train lines. Just take a trip out to downtown Wheaton, Elmhurst, Downers Grove, and Glen Ellyn. All have added and continue to add (in the near future) mid-rise condo/apartments in the last 5 years adjacent to or walking distance to the METRA stations, that have revitalized their respective downtown areas.

Still other suburbs are likely not to build near train stations (high density), like Hinsdale, Naperville (was tried once and shot down), Winnetka, and Lake Forest. It just isn't in the character of those towns for the areas around the train stations. Just like masses of spacious single family housing on 0.5 acres isn't in the character of the city.

It's not just condos and apartments that are needed by Metra stations, it's jobs. Large-scale office buildings just aren't gonna fly in most suburban downtowns. We have no Metropark, New Carrollton, or Stamford-type suburban job centers on the Metra network.

"We have no Metropark, New Carrollton, or Stamford-type suburban job centers on the Metra network. "

Nor do I think we will ever, unfortunately, unless the Blue line (rather than METRA) is extended out to Yorktown Center in Lombard (and past Oakbrook Center), and Woodfield in Schaumburg.

"It's not just condos and apartments that are needed by Metra stations, it's jobs"

I agree, but that is very tough, considering the "corporate poaching" game that Rahm has engaged on (and rightfully so), moving jobs from the suburbs to the city, i.e. Sara Lee, United Airlines, AT&T, Motorola, Guggenheim Investments, and the list goes on......

Okay, but the centralization of employers in downtown Chicago is still beneficial, since the downtown is the one location that everyone in the region can access by transit easily.

Politically, it is difficult to tear up a suburban downtown and redesign it for high-density employment, and the results (Stamford) are unappealing. What we should do is look at underutilized stations for employment growth, those that are near industrial zones or have large park-n-ride components. Route 59 in Naperville would work well for a large-scale office TOD, but it needs to be planned as a real TOD and not just an office park with sidewalks. Belmont Road, Cumberland, Dee Road, North Glenview, etc. Larger cities like Elgin, Joliet, and Aurora can also host larger buildings as they already have the infrastructure in place.

Instead of dreaming of ways to extend transit to employment centers, maybe we should not allow employment centers in places with no transit. That's the real scandal of the last half-century: how developers have been allowed to turn farmland, inaccessible except via highways, into office space. But that would require some sort of regional planning, the last thing the suburbs would ever allow.

Bingo, Motorola's Harvard fiasco, for example. Pure genius... :uhh:

So Shore expansion update
 

Looks like the NICTD plans for extending the South Shore to Dyer and eventually Lowell & Valparaiso is getting a funding boost.


NWI Times
U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., has renewed a push for extending the commuter rail line to south Lake County and a number of other major improvements are planned all along the line.
The proposed eight-mile extension to Munster and Dyer that Visclosky is advocating is less ambitious than previous proposals, but he and others see it as just the start for eventually laying tracks all the way to Lowell and Valparaiso.


Indiana Economic Digest
Local leaders have until March 31 — the deadline to submit the project for the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program — to raise half of the funds for the estimated $571 million project. So far, commitments from the RDA, Lake County, Munster and other municipalities have brought it within $5.5 million of their goal.

Interesting. If built, the line to Dyer would probably use dual-mode locomotives that run on diesel and overhead electric wires, a first for Chicagoland. The "new" section of the line, built on the now-abandoned Monon corridor, might be constructed as electrified track. I'm glad to see it moving forward.

https://web.archive.org/web/20071006...s/image003.gif

I don't think there would be any reason to electrify the new trackage. Nor would there really be any reason to use dual-power locomotives. The section under Millennium Park is really short, and there'd only be a few trains a day—if any of this in fact ever comes to pass. It would be no different than Union Station in needing electric propulsion.

Task force: Create superagency for transit
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,3006718.story


By Richard Wronski
Tribune reporter
6:15 p.m. CDT, March 17, 2014

In what would be the biggest reshaping of the Chicago region’s bus and train system in 30 years, a Public Transit Task Force is recommending abolishing the Regional Transportation Authority and the boards of the CTA, Metra and Pace in favor of a new superagency in charge of policy and funding.........

The original West Lake Corridor study called for dual-mode locomotives and suggested the possibility of electrification, I'm not just imagining things.

I don't know if that would actually come to pass, but NICTD has experience doing electrification on the cheap.

Any idea what role Mike Pence would play in all of this?

LSD flyover starting construction in spring and finishing in 2018 is official. http://www.navypierflyover.com

Goodness is that ever true. They've got to be the only electrified commuter line outside of the third world using wooden poles for the OCS.