Yup, I noticed this starting a couple years ago, and now it seems every other board is in some state of decay. If theres a more inept transit agency in this country, Id love to see it. It seems no matter what infrastructure upgrade takes place, it is almost assuredly done half assed. This quote on Better Gov illustrates just how un-coordinated and and blindly these projects get carried out:

So here you have TWO different CEOs saying their products aren't being used as intended by the CTA. Things as basic as not reading the application instructions on the back of the can. Why is no one held responsible for these never ending fuck-ups? Its not like this is the first time wood has ever been installed in an outdoor environment.

Chicago is really embarrassing sometimes. The more I travel, the more I realize Chicago is falling behind in many transit and other infrastructure issues.

Personally I would have skipped the fire-retardant material and used a super-duty sealant. Screw the fire code - I'm fairly sure there's never been a serious fire on a CTA platform.

There are also plenty of denser woods than southern yellow pine that would have been more appropriate, as well as many artificial/wood-aggregate products like Trex and EverGrain.

^^^ Yeah and if it's going to happen it won't be at a brand new Brown Line Station, it would be in some tinderbox platform like Sheridan where you have a roof covered in 50 years worth of garbage below 100 year old dry ass planks right next to a huge curve in the tracks just waiting to shower sparks or hot grease down below.

It was the first time CTA wasn't allowed to just go to its default creosote treatment, however. I don't remember the specifics of the ruling, but basically CTA can't use creosote on new wooden platforms, but those already treated with it are grandfathered in.

It's all because of the historic-preservation aspect of the project, though. Most new stations are using precast segments for the platform.

For future "historic" platforms, CTA should seriously consider the artificial products.

RTA to spend more than $400,000 on customer survey
 

Daily Herald | 8/18/11:

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2...ews/708189752/

The Regional Transportation Authority will spend up to $435,000 to see how satisfied riders are with transit service.

RTA board directors approved the expense Thursday, hiring Vermont-based Resource Systems Group (RSG) for one year. The questionnaire will cover just Metra and CTA users as Pace is doing its own survey.


“You can never do enough of asking customers what they think of your service,” RTA Chief Financial Officer Grace Gallucci said when asked about the cost at a time when Metra is contemplating fare hikes to balance its budget.

“Private firms do these things very frequently and spend a lot of money to do them.”


The survey has been a long time in the making. The RTA started planning in 2009. In January, it hired RSG to come up with a methodology for the study, paying the company $83,000 through a Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning grant.

In the past, the CTA, Metra and Pace conducted independent surveys. It’s more efficient and informative to evaluate customer feelings on a regional basis, Gallucci said.

Riders will be asked a range of questions on topics including fares, cleanliness of buses, trains and stations, and on-time performance.

“This will help us focus funding in the right areas,” Gallucci said.
The surveys will go out in the fall. It should take RSG four months to analyze the data and write a report.

Pace’s survey will conform to the RTA methodology, officials said.

North Suburban transportation news.

^^ I've been following this debate closely but I didn't think to post it after the transit-centric discussion we've been having lately.

I agree with the Lake County speakers at the meeting... the 53 project needs to happen sooner rather than later. Congestion in Lake County is awful, which is a shame since most of Lake County has excellent train access to downtown. The congestion in this area is pushing residents and families into places like Algonquin and McHenry where transit service is much less convenient. That means an even greater percentage of people driving to work, and less ridership on Metra.

I'd be in favor of reducing the scope of the Addams project to allow enough room in the budget for construction of 53. $8.3 billion is one hell of a project. Addams really only needs to be eight lanes between O'Hare and Schaumburg. Further west, the project should be limited to a rebuild of the 6-lane existing, coupled with some new access points and ramps, as well as a redesign of the existing, outdated ramps. Space could be left in the middle for a future bus lane project, or they could build wider left shoulders at little added cost and run the buses there.

---

Greg Hinz also raised a point that most media outlets have been ignoring. Bill Morris, who is the primary opposition to the 45-cent plan, has an alternative 15-cent plan. He's not suggesting that the construction projects can be done more cheaply, but he wants alternative funding sources to cover the gap, most notably a value-capture scheme for Bensenville, Elk Grove Village, and the other communities that will see billions in investment due to the Elgin-O'Hare-West Bypass project. I love this idea... why should drivers on 88 or 294 have to pay the full cost of an expressway that doesn't really benefit them, when a feasible alternative exists to place the costs more squarely on those who benefit?

The inside baseball, of course, is that the EOWB project is a bone thrown to those communities in exchange for their support of O'Hare expansion. They'd be kicking and screaming if they had to give up some of that juicy tax revenue to pay for the road.

I'd be more interested in space for a Metra line (probably connect from the MD-W line near Big Timber) in the restructured Addams into Rockford than bus lanes.

Aren't they talking about running 90 six lanes all the way to Rockford? After getting caught in fourth of july traffic that was bumper to bumper all the way from Chicago to Madison when going up to WI, I tend to think that is a necessity.

Also, I disagree, as someone who works along the I-90 corridor (and takes the train to work) 90 is about the most congested freeway in the city. It's almost constantly slow or completely jammed. It should be four lanes all the way past O'Hare if only to encourage development around O'Hare and connectivity to O'Hare. It makes no sense that 294 is eight lanes and 90 is six lanes... And you all know I rarely support road widening at all.

The 53 extension however is a load of shit. We don't need to encourage development any further out than it already goes. Widening a road will simply intensify use along the route in this case, but adding new freeways will only encourage people to move further out along the freeway.

:previous: My instinct is you are right about 53. Though I understand your point about 90 I'm not sure if there is a practical way to widen it to four lanes (one of which I would hope would just be turned into a HOT lane. Perhaps it could be done if the Blue Line was shifted over to go under Milwaukee/Higgins for the north end of the route as well perhaps it could be done which would then open up the extra lanes on 90. Good luck finding funding for that though.

This particular summer, the traffic was much worse due to the resurfacing project and the tiny lane width. Also, some Wisconsin-bound traffic probably switched to 90 in recent years because of the aggravation of the recent Tri-State project and WisDOT's 94 expansion. Once that finishes, traffic on 90 should lessen as drivers move back to the 294/94 route.

It makes sense when you consider the constrained nature of the Kennedy south of the Junction. The Edens and northern Kennedy (6 lanes southbound) both have to merge down to the five southbound lanes of the Kennedy.

I suppose you could widen the northern Kennedy if you turned the reversibles to always-inbound, but that creates a massive headache in the afternoon and evening as 100,000 downtown workers try to cram into five lanes outbound. I like the Urbanophile's solution... put in auxiliary lanes to ease the congestion caused by the frequent exit/entrance ramps.

It's all a huge problem because they never built the Crosstown Expressway... which would have segregated the downtown commuters from the regional and national traffic, and prevented desirable neighborhoods near downtown from having a huge 12-lane auto sewer shoved down their throats, placing the heavy traffic instead in a wide band of industrial areas along the Belt Railway.

Lake County is already suburbanized. Except for an pocket of cornfields between Grayslake and Libertyville, the area along the expressway route is already built-out. The goal of the 53 project is not to drive development into the hinterlands but to decongest existing surface roads that date back to the farm era by pulling regional traffic onto the new expressway. The northern segment of 53 is the most important missing link in the second Chicago ring road.

The real load of shit is the Illiana, which will quite literally run through cornfields all the way. If they can build it based purely on the tolls it generates, then by all means they should build it... But there's absolutely no reason Chicago drivers should pay a thin dime towards that road unless they're actually driving down it.

^ As a student who constantly uses 90 to get from Madison to the 59 exit or O'Hare for the bus I definitely think it should be expanded to eight lanes for the city until 294 or 59 or at least 6 lanes throughout. Even before the traffic from the construction from the past two years, it was still always crowded at most times of the day all the way to Madison. Even the past few summers on Sundays when all of the Dells vacationers make their way home it is packed until the Randall Rd or 59 exits. The only relief is Rockford where they have recently expanded it.

Also, is the portion between the Wisconsin border and the end of the tollway scheduled to be redone anytime soon? That is the worst part of the road now.

The direction without the reversible always seems to be worse-off. The traffic appears to be fairly well-balanced at this point between commuters and reverse-commuters.

If that's true - or even if it's close to true - just turning the reversibles into 2 extra lanes for each side would be a good choice - you'd end up with the same capacity as with the "express" lanes, but for both sides, all the time. You can actually end up with more capacity overall doing that because of the shoulders associated with the express lanes would become unnecessary.

Between Kimball and the Eden's split would be complicated by the Blue Line, but I would think there could be some creative solutions to deal with that - it might be as simple as shuffling it over 1 track-width. Might even be able to figure out how to add a passing track in that stretch if the CTA ever thought that would actually be useful (I'm not sure it would be, but I'm not a transit engineer).

The main part of the Kennedy is in pretty good shape right now, good enough it's probably not worth spending tons of money to reconfigure it. But the next time it needs a total rework - like the Dan Ryan got recently - they should seriously consider eliminating the express lanes and just having even capacity both directions.

Update on construction of the new Morgan St station on the Greenline from the CTA Tattler
http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...-taking-shape/

Below, some construction photos from the project.

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-011.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-029.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-005.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-008.jpg

http://www.chicagonow.com/cta-tattle...tshade-044.jpg

Photos James Connelly. Originally posted on CTA Tattler.

I don't think it will. The construction zone was actually one of the few places that traffic was flowing freely, probably because everyone slowed down and merged less.

I don't see this as an issue. Most of the reverse commuting traffic is found in the northern segment of 90/94 and is caused by people cramming to fit into 90. It's strange to inbound reverse commute and see the traffic get progressively lighter the closer you get to downtown. I think 90/94 is fine with it's reversables but gets fucked by the traffic that feeds into it off of 90.


The Crosstown would have been almost as big of a disaster as the completion of the LSD- 90/94 interchange spur would have been. All non-local traffic takes 294 or 355 as it is, the crosstown would have just draw more of those people further into the city and wiped out huge swaths of neighborhoods. The real solution would have been to not build any freeways at all and only build LSD style parkways in which case everyone would still live in the city and take our once massive transit network.



I know it's already suburban, that's not the issue, the issue is it getting even more developed. Encouraging more people to move out there and more people to drive will only bring traffic levels up in the long run whereas the status quo encourages people to build TOD in Arlington Heights and Palatine and take Metra in to the city.

Actually I disagree. The Illinana is actually hugely important to the re-integration of Gary, Southern Chicago, and NW Indiana into the Chicago area. There is huge industrial demand down there right now that could potentially start to revitalize NW Indiana and Southern Chicago but it's largely hampered by the fact that the entire area is bottle-necked. Having a third E-W road down there will open up not only new land to industrial development, but relieve the issues that discourage companies from moving back into the ChicaGary industrial wasteland.

All the industrial brokers in my office got silly-excited when they heard about the funding proposal as they've been trying to make redevelopment plays in that area since the 90's.

Ugh!!......just imagine what 12+ billion $ could do for the CTA if it was used / spent responsibly; I'd like to know traffic numbers versus ridership numbers for the highways in question versus CTA

Hard to know where to start with such silliness. For one thing, our rail transit network is the largest today that it's ever been—in part due to line extensions made possible by the expressways. Second, how would you have kept any industry in the city in the 60s-70s-80s with no truck access?

Not building the Crosstown was a huge mistake that unbalances the network all day every day. Look at the thousands of trucks with Wisconsin registrations creeping up the Ryan and the Kennedy and tell me again how they all bypass the city on the Tri-State. As for neighborhood destruction, the Crosstown would have taken 326 buildings in the 75th Street corridor. The north-south part was nearly all industrial land or to be built above the Belt Railway. The final SOM/Passonneau plan was a pretty innovative piece of urban design, featuring skillful integration of the highway with the city fabric.

How the hell does conversion of cornfields 30 miles south of Gary into new distribution centers help to revitalize South Chicago/Hammond/Gary/East Chicago? It's yet another way for the region to move off and leave the poor people behind. It's Merrillville Phase Three.

True but the effectiveness of having those lines in highway medians is of questionable utility vis-a-vis line that followed arterials or were under them.

Merrillville pahse three......:jester::jester: that's funny but what is phase 2...chesterton?

Emanuel to hold two budget hearings next week
 

Chicago Tribune | Clout Street - Aug. 25, 2011: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/p...,4185603.story


Mayor Rahm Emanuel will hold two public hearings on the budget next week.

By John Byrne

Clout Street

4:45 p.m. CDT, August 25, 2011

Mayor Rahm Emanuel will host two meetings next week where Chicagoans will get a chance to tell him how to close the city's $635.7 million deficit to balance next year's city budget.

The open houses will be held Monday at Kennedy-King College, 740 W. 63rd St., and Wednesday at Malcolm X College, 1900 W. Jackson Blvd. Each will begin at 6 p.m.

“My administration is committed to fostering a free and open discussion about our financial situation with the goal of working together to address our fiscal challenges for 2012 and beyond,” Emanuel said in a news release.

The neighborhood budget hearings are a page out of Mayor Richard Daley's political playbook. Daley annually sat for several public meetings at which people lined up at microphones to offer budget advice but also complained to him about more prosaic problems like potholes and rats in their alleys.

In addition, Emanuel has set up a Web site, chicagobudget.org, to accept budget suggestions.

The mayor is scheduled to present his first budget in October. The City Council must vote to approve a spending plan by the end of the year.

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

I definitely plan to attend the Wednesday meeting at Malcolm X - and give a
Statement on Waste in Public Transit Operating Costs, and Major Capital
Projects.

Isn't that sort of like saying "just imagine how many Grant Park Symphony concerts could be funded with the ticket sales from Lollapalooza?" The Lollapalooza attendees are probably not going to buy tickets next year if they go inside and there are no bands playing. It's kind of tricky to say "we didn't actually build the tollway you're paying to use; we sent that money to CTA."

St John–Crown Point

In Chicago, a Massive BRT Plan Could be the Best Bet for Inner City Mobility


Read More: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...city-mobility/

BRT Report PDF: http://www.metroplanning.org/uploads...10817_reva.pdf

189 Technical Report PDF: http://metroplanning.org/uploads/cms...cal_report.pdf




http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/w...hicago-BRT.jpg

^ I wish they'd actually do that! I feel like every two years in Chicago we get fed things like the Circle Line, Star Line, Grey Line, this BRT stuff - and then it all just goes away.

So how are left turns set up with BRT? Does the one lane of traffic get to cut over into the BRT lane for left turns where there isn't a station (when it expands out and you can incorporate a dedicated lane just for cars while keeping the lane for buses)?

It looks like they have a raised piece in the street to separate the BRT from the traffic lanes. Does that mean from a side street entring the BRT street you can only turn right if there isn't a signal?

I'm sure that and just about everything else is covered in that mountain of documents.

Granted; but I don't think I was trying to suggest that toll funding in this instance should be shuffled to CTA. I was just making an observation about societal priorities and political cowardice. That being said I am unclear if the toll increase fully funds that 12 billion $. I didn't think it did. If that is the case then the toll expansion is not fully user funded.

Does the map include stops? In particular I am looking at the ashalnd and the western and to a lesser extent the IP lines. Is there a stop at western & IP should be how about western & blue lines etc. How many stops are considered in the western and ashland line & I wish the ashland line went further north

No, the status quo encourages people to continue colonizing far-off places in Kane, Kendall, and Will Counties where they can continue the traditional suburban lifestyle, but without the high-quality train service of Lake County.

Explain to me how a road running east-west between Peotone and Manteno will revitalize the area between Chicago and Gary?

I'm not sure whether to be satisfied or disgusted. As I said, if industrial concerns want the road, they should pay its entire cost through the tolls charged on the road. I'm not opposed to industrial development but I don't want my dollars subsidizing it. Hell, let a private company build the road, charge the tolls, and operate it.

An Illiana built as part of a sensible second ring road for the Chicago region would get my support... something at the latitude of Crown Point/University Park would make sense, and it could tie into 355 with a future segment. But the current plans call for a much more southerly alignment that ties into the Prairie Parkway, which makes it just as bad as that ill-fated boondoggle. That's not to mention the third airport plans, which are equally bone-headed and rapacious.

It does. ISTHA receives no tax money of any kind. Everyone who drives on an Illinois tollway pays gas tax money that funds other roads and transit, sales tax on the gasoline that funds other social needs, plus a toll sufficient to pay for building, repairing, and expanding the tollway system.

The Tollway doesn't receive any Federal funds?

^No, it doesn't. (Well, they may have gotten some silly little post-9/11 grant to train tollbooth attendants to look for terrorists or something).

A lot of people think that Interstate or US highway numbers are related to funding sources. But the numbers are assigned by AASHTO, a non-government organization, and have no relationship to funding.

Second Public Meeting for the South Lakefront Transit Study
 

Not to nitpick but that is not true: http://www.illinoistollway.com/pls/p...OK%20FINAL.PDF

Wow, I didn't know that. So basically the entire massive construction program the Tollway just completed was done without Federal funding?

Does Chicago EVER get Federal funding for things? Apart from the pipsqueak CMAQ grants and some stimulus, what has Chicago gotten in the last 15 years?

Wasn't the brown line reconstruction funded at least in part by the Feds? I seem to recall hearing something about it receiving "New Starts" grants, which was a bit unusual since "New Starts" is generally moreso for actual new transit rather than rebuilds/renovations.

The newest funding for the O'Hare expansion is almost all federal since the airlines reneged on their commitment.

Can you be a bit more specific than just blindly linking to a 128-page annual report? What are you disputing and what page is the refutation on? As you see on page 36, for FY 2009 the tollway authority's total income of $640m consisted of $629m from tolls and $11m in investments and concessions.

The postwar era was much like our own era in that political infighting was making it impossible to build the new highways the nation needed to handle the dramatic growth in truck and cross-country auto traffic. The Pennsylvania Turnpike had been a dramatic success from day one, so after the war all the states facing heavy cross-country traffic created turnpike authorities to build these facilities, with the costs entirely paid for by future tolls. Illinois was no exception, opening two radial links and a bypass around Chicago in 1958. Meanwhile, a compromise struck in 1956 had allowed a big increase in gas taxes to fund the new Interstate Highway System, but Chicago got screwed a little by the timing, having already built the tollways and Skyway with user fees and the Eisenhower and Edens with state and local money. The reason the South Expressway was named for Dan Ryan was that he had figured out a way to kickstart the county's expressway construction program by selling bonds against the expected future gas tax revenues that would come back from the state.

Not all the money, of course. It's not like people stopped using the Triborough's bridges and tunnels after a portion of their revenue was redirected to the new MTA umbrella transit agency, instead of simply going to continually build ever more bridges and tunnels.

And in fairness, there is a very indirect subsidy to transit from the tollway --- in recognition of the extensive user-funded system, IDOT gets "tollway credits" from the US DOT which in turn act as the local match to support the bond issues for a variety of transportation projects, including occasionally some transit capital projects.

It's not big money of course, but it's something.

Over 1/3 of the tollways interest expense on its bonds was paid by the federal government in 2009......is that specific enough?

And beyond that the last time I checked the tollway does not have its own police patrol perhaps they reimburse the state for that I do not know; if they do not then there is another subsidy

Like other units of state and local government—including Metra or CTA—ISTHA is able to offer tax-free "municipal" bonds. Because they are tax-free, ISTHA can sell them for lower interest rates than for-profit corporations must offer, and in normal economic times this is sufficient to make the bonds attractive and saleable. As part of the stimulus package during the current recession, the federal government created "Build America Bonds," which offered a direct federal subsidy to revive a moribund municipal bond market by making such bonds more attractive to foreign investors, mutual insurance companies, and others who can't make use of the tax exemption. The subsidy allowed local governments investing in infrastructure to offer higher interest rates than they normally would. ISTHA thus issued 2024 securities at 5.3% that only cost the Tollway 3.4%.

The more general situation is given on p. 26 of the annual report you linked to: "The Tollway does not receive any State or Federal Funding for operational uses."

See page 72 of the document you cite (but apparently didn't read): State Police. ISTHA paid $23m in 2009 for its own group of state police, known as District 15. Fine revenue from citations written on the tollways, however, goes to the state general fund.

Lol, you are completely contradicting yourself. First you say that industry would not have been able to survive in Chicago without the construction of freeways and then you say that completing the 355 ring road would do nothing to spur industrial development in Chicagoland. Hint, the Illiana isn't helping truckers get to the farm fields it passes through, it is helping them get in and out of the 4 or 5 other freeways it ties together without getting stuck in traffic. Where do those freeways all lead to? The south side of Chicago and NW Indiana.

I suppose next you are going to tell me that 294 has done nothing to help industry in Chicago despite the fact that almost all of the largest industrial markets in the metro lie along or are closely linked to it by other freeways. Oh wait, you already claimed that no truckers use it and that they all prefer to sit in Traffic on the Dan Ryan. Most of the trucks you see on the Dan Ryan probably aren't thru traffic. They are probably headed to the various industrial areas that lie along the Dan Ryan and connected Freeways (like 55 or 290) and, in any case, you are offering completely anecdotal evidence like "oh yeah, I see tons of trucks with WI plates that are probably passing through on the Dan Ryan".

... How on earth do massive traffic jams encourage people to move as far away from transit and work as possible?


I suppose you are unaware of the fact that industrials concerns do pay for the costs of such roads. The amount of tax revenue generated as a result of industry is huge. It's a lot harder to dodge taxes when you are physically making something and not just providing an intangible service. Also, I would love to see private individuals build the freeway, but they wouldn't be able to because they do not have the powers of eminent domain that would be necessary for such an undertaking. I guarantee you that all the people lying in the path of the road would hold out for as much money as possible and make it financially unfeasible and that's not to mention the ridiculous legal challenge of getting approval for a private road that would link into public freeways, not to mention the massive liability concerns of operating such a piece of infrastructure.

Your response post claimed that the tollway received no federal funds. Period. That was your claim. Your claim was wrong. Perhaps it is you who cannot read or do not recall your own posts?

I never made the claim that the tollway did not fund the police; I said I did not know and if they did not then that too would be a subsidy. I did not see the reference as I perused the document and never even claimed that the tollway was in fact receiving a subsidy for it.

Bottom line your initial claim that the tollway receives no federal funds is false. Which the document I linked to shows.

I'm just telling you what the status quo is. The last ten years saw a gigantic building boom. That growth was heavily concentrated in greenfield locations and the North Side. The TOD you see in suburban downtowns is a token that was heavily pushed by planners and often subsidized in some form.

These places don't work very well because they're just islands of an urban environment in the midst of a anti-urban one. You still need a car to do most things and the only link to other areas of urbanity is an commuter system where trains are heavily concentrated at rush hours and very infrequent at all other times.

As always, there are a small few exceptions (Des Plaines has seen lots of multi-family development, mostly market-driven) but these are not typical.

I suppose you're unaware of the many, many foreign toll roads that are privately owned? Or, closer to home, the Skyway and Indiana Toll Road?

I assume that any company interested in the road would be a lot shrewder than Macquarie when negotiating the contract.

If the Illiana is really such a slam-dunk, then it should be able to pay for itself with no outside subsidies. Otherwise, I don't think it's a worthy use of limited public resources.

Regarding the eminent domain issue: they could either form a public-private partnership to acquire the land and transfer it to the private company (after Kelo, this should be a breeze) or they could keep the alignment flexible and negotiate for the best deal by pitting landowners against each other. These are cornfields we're talking about. Apart from environmentally-sensitive areas, they can build the road pretty much anywhere.

^^^ Okay, but explaining what the status quo is only shows correlation, not causality. Also, there is nothing to show that the large amounts of TOD along the UP-NW is only a result of city planners pushing it. There is simply too much development for me to believe it is all a result of a planners wet dream. And sure they offered subsidies in a lot of cases, but that is in their best interest as a lot of these communities are now fully built out and have no direction to go gain additional tax revenue but up.


Second, yes I'm aware there are many examples of privately owned toll roads, but very few (almost none in the US) were built privately. For example, the Skybridge was built with public funds and then sold off decades later when they needed the cash. There is no way a developer could just come in and rip an arrow-straight right of way (especially through developed land like the areas the Skybridge passes through) and succeed. There would simply be too many squatters to dodge. As everyone loves to remind me when I go on pro-privatization rants; even the railroads required government assistance in obtaining ROW and that was through largely empty territory.

^The Skyway was built by a public agency (selling revenue bonds), not with public funds. As lawfin is sure to point out, they were indeed municipal bonds, meaning that the Federal Treasury did not receive as revenue a small increment equal to the interest paid on the bond times the owner's marginal tax rate that year.

The reason those industrial brokers were wetting themselves was not over the prospect of revitalizing the Calumet region. It was over the prospect of churning the current users to fresh new spaces out in the cornfields of Newton and Kankakee counties, leaving behind the current spaces and many of the current workers. A region growing as slowly as ours does not need a new ring road every 20 years.

The Skyway is the only local example of a privately-owned toll road.

Illiana does not face those same urban-environment hurdles, as it runs through cornfields. The ROW does not need to be arrow-straight, it can curve and bend to accommodate farmers who are unwilling to sell or who demand high prices, as well as environmental and historical resources. These are the same farmers who sell out for housing developments every day of the week, except that the Illiana is only a narrow strip of 4-lane highway.

The third-airport discussion complicates things, because it's already been documented that politically-connected people purchased land in the Peotone area expecting a payout when funding was approved for airport construction. But that can easily be solved by moving the alignment away from the airport.

And, as Mr. D points out, I don't understand how shifting existing businesses (and residents) into Kankakeeland serves the goal of a more compact, revitalized Chicagoland.

Looks like the platform problems on the Brown Line is finally getting some press:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classi...6140513.column

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...ds-Repair.html

They're set to spend around $175,000 to fully replace the Francisco platform on top of the $350,000 already spent on piece by piece replacement, and are expecting costs to escalate from there on 7 more platforms that will probably need full replacement. There are 7 other platforms where the problem was identified earlier, and those have been treated and can probably wait a few years for replacement.

Unfortunately the CTA is left to foot the bill since the problem is their fault.

I got off at the Armitage Brown Line on Friday and my heel actually went through one of the platforms and I had to quickly pull my foot back out. I was going to take a picture, but I was already running late. I mentioned to the woman downstairs that there was a hole big enough to step into on the platform and she just thanked me and sighed.

I don't know why they didn't use the synthetic wood that you see all the time now on decks and walkways as opposed to pine.

Well, the designers were balancing both the desire to be historically-accurate and the desire to save money. As I understand it, the project was value-engineered down to the bone, and then cut some more (although there were some perverse incentives like the Arts in Transit stuff that were part of the budget).

However, they couldn't continue to use wood with the traditional creosote treatment because of the concerns about creosote's toxicity. Artificial products would have been too expensive, but like any high-grade building material, the cost savings are made up over time though a longer lifespan and lower maintenance costs.

As an agency that is continually wanting for operating funds, CTA should really be investing in building materials with some longevity. Every time something fails like this, it only exacerbates the budget issues, since the replacement cost has to come out of the already-strained operating budget. Skimping on the materials is penny-wise pound-foolish.

I still have a mixed opinion on the galvanized railings and fixtures... stainless steel wouldn't look right on the historic platforms, but the galvanized stuff will rust much more quickly, and all signs are that the rust won't look very good either. Cor-ten would have been awesome, but apparently I'm the only person in America who actually likes the stuff. (It rusts evenly, so it creates a fairly uniform appearance)