I thought I was going crazy - one of their headline articles up right now said they're going to spend $52 million to do upgrades and work to keep 7 Red Line stations in working order. It will involve up to 40 day rolling closures for each station from Lawrence northward.

I kept thinking - didn't they just do this a few years ago!?!? Finally I went and re-read....and the Tribune posted....as a headliner article on their website....an article that's well over 2 years old.

Talk about confusing people.

So does this mean that the RPM project will be done in phases and once a phase receives funding, they will start construction for it immediately?

Time to rebuild the Humboldt Park branch! :yes:

No, what will happen instead is that we will keep paying for more studies, talk about it, have some arguments, then put it in the backburner for 2 years. Somebody else will then decide it is worth pursuing, pay millions for more studies, then do an environmental assessment, perhaps test to make sure that it is safe for birds, then somebody will complain that too many birds will die. Then it will be revived a few years later but, since the earlier studies have "expired", we need new consultants for newer studies.

We will then go on a field trip to Germany (paid by the taxpayers) to see how such things run in other countries, pay for more studies and plans, have some lengthy discussions about soil erosion, traffic impacts, and what percentage minority contractors to use, and then after about 10 years abandon the project altogether.

Transit expansion in Chicago is a joke. A shitty, annoying, worthless, pitiful, miserable, expensive joke. It is a scam designed to pay consultants. Period. End of story. Just use & renovate what we already have (something that at least Rahm seems to be halfway decent at) because we ain't expanding the transit system--EVER.

Should be titled "CTA moves to studying doing something", but at least they are putting a Brownline flyover on the radar. It also irks me that they used "el" instead of "L", but I digress:

CTA Moves to Unsnarl North Side el Tracks

The Chicago Transit Authority is announcing tentative plans today to proceed with a long-awaited fix to unsnarl a mid-North Side rail junction that ties up hundreds of Red, Brown and Purple line trains a day.

The agency, as part of a broader $1.3 billion program to rebuild some track and stations, also wants to build a build a bridge or bypass for the Brown Line where it crosses the Red and Purple line over Clark Street a couple of blocks south of Wrigley Field, sources familiar with the announcement are saying.

The work is predicated on a full engineering study of the plan and obtaining a source for the estimated $50 million to $75 million needed. But assuming that occurs, the project is likely to finally get a green light decades after CTA first began considering it.

Roughly 850 trains pass through the crossing every work day, with southbound Red and Purple trains stopping every time a northbound Brown Line train needs to move through the so-called Clark Junction. Northbound Red and Purple trains also have to stop and wait if a northbound Brown line train is crossing in front of them.

More Here: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...side-el-tracks

The subway option for this project was $2 billion yet they go with this inferior option. More windswept stations, more element exposed tracks.

The DNAinfo article on the same topic said that the CTA needs 16 buildings for the flyover. That stings. It's necessary, but it stings.

Yeah, I don't even want to think about it. I love that area because they would sandwich those old buildings around the tracks. It's going to look void, open and industrialish after they're done tearing everything down. They don't put the buildings up that close to the tracks anymore, I'm expecting a lot more vacant areas around the trains. They'll probably call them "parks" to sell it better.

Even more reason the subway option should have happened instead.....

Just wait until the CTA sends out notices to all of the buildings that need to be purchased to straighten the Sheridan Redline stop. I wish they can extend the subway from North Avenue to Wilson. Think of all the new potential development when they remove the existing tracks? I am sure the surrounding property values would increase too.

When I attended an informational meeting years ago, most of the attendees complained about "potential cost overruns" with pursuing a subway option. Yes, there is risk, but run the numbers first. That is why financial models have sensitivity analysis.

Renderings via Crains:

Flyover:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/...20140417120501

New Platforms for the 4 rebuilt stations:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/apps/...20140417120501

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...side-el-tracks

The renderings show conceptual development on those sites.

Also, as I've pointed out in the past, CTA doesn't always tear down buildings when it acquires them. This building at Armitage was acquired, shaved down in size, and the facade re-assembled. This stripmall at Diversey was acquired and shaved down. I expect CTA will do similar things for the flyover project. Some buildings have rear wings that will be demolished, while a few buildings might have to be torn down completely (like that condo building at School/Wilton. The effect on the street will be minimal.

Oh cool! I had no idea. There is hope for the area yet. I too was really worried when I saw that there would be 16 buildings acquired. That has the potential to completely destroy the area. Let's hope they stick to work like what Ardecila pointed out.

Well, the Crains article pretty specifically says "demolish"

Also, does anyone know what the status is of the Brown Line rehab south of Armitage/north of Merch Mart? I havent really seen any activity to indicate anything of real substance is happening...other than workers constantly walking up and down the tracks. Is there a timeline for when this is supposed to be completed?

I don't know, TuP. First, I think improving frequency is much more important than expansion. Not to say that I don't want expansion.

But I don't think it's too hard to see a near-term future where we don't have the pension issue hanging over our heads. Once that budget is no longer in crisis, adding the $500M (!) per year in Casino revenue--that's just the city's portion--goes a long way. If just one third of that was used to finance infrastructure bonds, my back-of-the-envelope calculation means we could afford $25B in transit infrastructure without any federal investment. That's everything on the wish list and a whole lot more. I'd be surprised if we don't see some big plans hatching in five years or so.

CTA plans L overpass at Belmont to eliminate bottleneck
 

http://www.suntimes.com/26902197-761...l#.U1AxkVVdX9Q


BY ROSALIND ROSSI Transportation Reporter

April 17, 2014 11:12AM

The CTA plans on building a bypass north of the Belmont station to eliminate delays where the
Red, Purple, and Brown lines intersect and trains must stand and wait for other trains to pass......

The CTA doesn't even know what will happen. Look at the Wilson project... columns were being shifted around until the last minute to appease local residents and business owners.

We need to wait for CTA to do a detailed engineering study before they will know what gets torn down. 16 properties will be acquired but that doesn't mean the buildings on them get town down.

I'm kind of confused where this flyover would actually go, could someone who understands draw a line on a map or something?

This Curbed article has a decent schematic:
http://chicago.curbed.com/archives/2...roject-yet.php

If the map is accurate, it appears some buildings just east and north of the Red Line at the split will need to go and some building north of the brown line just after the split. I checked streetview and it doesn't look like anything we would miss TOO much is in the path, but it's hard to know for sure.