Different initiatives - the BRT project was tied to downtown off-street parking fee increases, while the meter lease was an asset privatization deal.

I think they're waiting to see if the Feds reconsider after the inauguration before they declare the money actually lost.

I personally think it was dumb to be willing to accept BRT money by agreeing to raise the cost of driving to downtown. I think limiting parking spaces and enforcing bus lanes in and too downtown is about the limit of what government should do to limit driving downtown. Like it or not, congestion and traffic are legitimately symbols of success if an area has a built-out infrastructure. If you have a two-road town and those roads are congested, you build more roads. But in a place like downtown Chicago or London or Manhattan, where all the logically necessary roads are in place congestion is just the price of success. In order to do more than that, you have to have so much inertia and so much resistance to companies relocating that charging fees will just be absorbed. Apparently - for now - London has that. Manhattan might be able to sustain that for a while, too. But I don't think Chicago has that - it's too spread out and while there is some premium on locating in the Loop it's not high enough to justify active discouragements from doing so. Keep the drivers coming AND find a way to bring in even more people. Easiest way to do that is increase densities near existing "L" and Metra stations. Second easiest way is to keep building out - with both offices and residences - the Central Area. Final way you do that is by improving the grade-separated transit options in the Central Area and adjacent-to-central-area neighborhoods so that the whole central area is tied together. Residential is cratered right now, which makes it the perfect time to work on the TOD zoning since there won't be any immediate impact to scare NIMBYs.

The Federal Requirements made it impossible for NYC to get the money and now it looks like it made it impossible for Chicago too. I don't really see this as a big loss at this point tho'. We went for the money when it was hard to get any funding for transit, now we're expecting massive federal spending on infrastructure - we should just let this go and look at bigger plans.

When has the press EVER taken Daley to task for his screw-ups? There's a reason he continues to get re-elected without formidable challenge.

I've never seen anybody raise taxes the way he has and offer nothing for it, and still get re-elected without incident.

Eh?
 

CTA chief: Bus rapid transit 'not dead'
Recommend (1) Comments
January 14, 2009
BY MARY WISNIEWSKITransportation Reporter

CTA President Ron Huberman said the agency’s plans for bus rapid transit is “not dead” despite the recent loss of $153 million in federal funding.

Huberman said the CTA is continuing to lobby the U.S. Department of Transportation to get the funding, which was lost after the federal government refused to grant the city a 13-day extension to approve “congestion reduction” fees for downtown parking and deliveries.

Huberman said staff planning continues for bus rapid transit, which would give buses their own designated lanes during rush hour on certain streets, though the agency is not spending money on engineering.

“There’s a truly unique opportunity here in Chicago to get this done,” said Huberman. He could not provide a time table as to when the new administration may reconsider the grant.

Mayor Daley last week said he had tried to salvage the federal funding for Chicago but “inflexible” federal bureaucrats would not allow it.

So a Metra train derailed?

What general taxes has he raised? The most egregious tax increases of the past few years have been from other agencies, not the city.

It was an Amtrak train that derailed:
Amtrak derailment at Union Station severely delays 3 Metra lines
The derailment Wednesday afternoon of two cars of an Amtrak train while departing the south side of Union Station severely delayed three Metra train lines during the afternoon rush and could have a major impact on Thursday morning's rail service, officials said.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,6518214.story

He’s raised property taxes, and the end all be all of all real estate taxes, the “transfer tax” associated with real estate sales, which are now paid by both buyers and sellers. He’s given his blessed approval of the county’s increase to the sales tax, and the city eventually added to it.

^ this is not the general "let's bitch about how high taxes are" thread. if your comment does not in some way directly relate to a transit issue in chicagoland, then it doesn't belong in this thread.

and no, general bitching about mayor daley because you don't like his policies is not a directly related transit issue in chicagoland. please keep your commentary specific and on-topic

I'm surprised nobody has posted this yet:

http://www.transitchicago.com/news/d...ArticleId=2274

I wonder what numbers were like for November and December when oil prices tanked? They would be the best indicator of what we can expect going into '09, I think.

So anyway...

The SB Brown and Purple lines are still backing up during the morning rush hour. A guy in my building got off at Merchandise Mart and I got off at Clark/Lake on the Purple line. We both walked to our building at Lake & LaSalle (200 N LaSalle). He had time to get coffee and held the elevator for me. What a time saver the Purple line reroute has been…

That's not a Brown Line problem per se, I don't think - it's more of a Loop problem. The CTA has an ongoing project to replace the signaling system with something modern and computerized; this should wrap up sometime in 2010, according to the CTA website.

The current signaling system on the Loop was installed in the 1970s, a period of declining ridership.

^ They often back up at the peak of the peak south of Clark Junction all the way to the loop, as well, particularly in the outbound direction. The combined headway is now very short, and it's very difficult if not impossible to evenly space the trains on their way out of the loop now that the two lines are coming through Tower 18 from different directions with 3 other lines also vying for space through the junction. I don't know any details about the loop signal project; I imagine it will help somewhat, but the only way to really ensure smooth operations all around would entail reducing the number of trains going through the junction, particularly those making the slow 10-15mph turning movements (straight movements can be taken at 35 mph). This could be achieved either by simply reducing the number of trains on all loop lines to the minimum possible to meet demand, or by creating some new through-route lines e.g. connecting Midway-Kimball, which would probably introduce a whole other set of problems.

It really wasn't a problem until the Purple line started running on the inner track in the loop, which happened on Dec 28th. At that point, CTA did two things that I think caused the problem. They started running brown line and purple line trains more frequently, and rerouted the purple line trains. Obviously, it's going to take a train longer to hang a left at tower 18 than it would to go straight. That's half the problem. The other half though, is the frequency of trains. The trains seem less full in the mornings too.

As long as we're discussing potential re-alignments, what if the Green Line used the Douglas Line instead of the Lake Street Line? The Brown Line would then use both sides of the Loop, crossing itself at Lake/Wells and continuing on to Oak Park. Orange and Purple would continue to make the full circuit of the Loop.

^Ardecila, That would make more sense if the Brown/Pink lines merged. Both use the elevated tracks around the Loop.

I think the main problem with that is the lack of ridership on the pink line compared to the brown line. It would likely substantially over-capacitize the current pink line.

I've always thought the best option would be to through route both the pink and orange lines to the brown so alternate trains on the ravenswood branch would go to either midway or douglass. the brown (kimball-douglas) would still make the full revolution around the loop but wouldn't have to make a turn at the clark junction and the orange (kimball-midway) would run the south and west branches (opposite the green; again running straight through the junction). that would certainly help congestion in the loop and add connectivity to the system.

^^ That actually makes sense. Instead of alternate trains, though, it should be only every third train that uses the Douglas Branch. Pink Line has about 30,000 riders per day, Orange has 60,000, and Brown has 90,000.

The downside is that
a) your Kimball-Midway route wouldn't serve the whole Loop,
b) it's confusing, and
c) that would be an absolute terror to render on a map.