^The second 40 percent is a line item in a budget that Congress refused to even hold the usual courtesy hearings on. So I don't really see the point of discussing it as anything other than fan fiction.
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I don't think that really matters. The president's budget is a suggestion, yes - Congress will determine funding levels through the appropriations process.
However, the Core Capacity program was already authorized by Congress and Obama has already signaled his intention to give all or most of the FY2016 appropriation for Core Capacity, whatever that may be, to the RPM project. Unless Congress appropriates no money at all to Core Capacity, CTA will get some money. |
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This again?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...213-story.html
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Is it clear whether there is enough demand for an express train to O'Hare? Toronto's new express train to Pearson hasn't fared well so far.
How Toronto got a ‘world-class,’ gold-plated, half-billion-dollar empty train |
its deja vu all over again
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does the current administration not realize that Uber will take you downtown (exact location in fact) for the same price as the ticket theyre proposing? anyone relying on public transit would just as well pay the 2.50 for an extra 20 minutes on the blue.
and even better to see that Block 37 terminal is off the table...lets see how many more white elephants we can build! lord knows we have plenty of extra money sitting around. |
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All it takes is 1 mugging a year on the Blue Line to scare away tons of potential ridership from using the existing option. No way can you expect the majority visitor families or businesspeople with expensive laptops or other gear to risk the el. And regardless of whether you're from out of town, if you have any amount of luggage, a 45 minute clattering congested ride on the el becomes a non starter when taxis or on-demand private vehicles are so easy to get. If you read the comments to the Tribune article, it's as though nobody gives a crap about pollution or comprehends that as the city grows in future decades the Kennedy will only get worse. |
For it to make sense it needs to be fast. Period.
Even 25 mins seems too slow |
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Assuming this is a mainline rail solution like Toronto's and not some half-assed thing in the Blue Line corridor, this isn't actually that difficult or outlandishly expensive.
-Add a fourth track to MD-West, or passing sidings to support 15 minute service levels (the ROW once had 4 tracks out to Harlem or so, and Metra owns the railroad) -Build a downtown terminal somewhere around Halsted (the old Pickens Kane building was actually built as a C&NW freight terminal, so it's already set up for platforms and only ~500' from a Blue Line connection). -Buy some DMUs The difficult part (politically) is actually at the airport end. You need to find a way into the terminal complex, or get CN's cooperation to go up their tracks to a People Mover connection at the new rental car facility. |
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Emanuel tries to resurrect O'Hare express train plan
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...213-story.html
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to resurrect Chicago's long elusive plan for an express train from downtown Chicago to O'Hare International Airport..... |
so i heard
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Maybe I'm crazy, but maybe they could axe the segment of the Blue Line from Rosemont to O'Hare and have the express train take over that segment? You could reroute the Blue Line to the new rental car garage with transfer to APM. If the express is designed carefully, maybe it can have decent connections to CTA and discounted fares for airport employees... at that point, the only people left riding the Blue Line to O'Hare will be a handful of city-dwelling folks who want the absolute cheapest trip to the airport, so they deserve an extra 5-10 minutes trip... Another off-the-wall idea: fully automate the Blue Line and with the savings on motorman pay, increase all-day headways to between 2-5 minutes, around the clock. The Blue Line, being completely divorced from the rest of the CTA network, is ideal for this. With higher frequency, you can shorten trains to 4 cars or even 2 cars and still meet demand while alleviating the crush-loading problems that make the Blue Line an uncomfortable choice for air travelers. Travelers would still have their butt in a seat the same amount of time vs today, but could save almost 10-15 minutes of waiting, especially at off-peak times. |
How do you spell "White Elephant": http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...service=mobile
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I don't have any problem with the city exploring and implementing if it can be done at a less than ruinous cost and actually stands a good chance of attracting ridership but I don't think it's a must have at this point. O'Hare and Midway's rail access is already better than our domestic competitor cites with maybe the exception of Newark since it has NEC access. I'd much prefer a solution that integrates with Metra and Amtrak in some way for more intermodal opportunity. |
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dp
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I fly out of O'Hare twice a month for work and I will still use a bus/cab connection to the blue line because I leave from my neighborhood and not the office. I personally like riding the CTA and find it very efficient, especially on the way home when cab lines are packed.
Okay, so the demographic for this high speed rail is not residents who live in the neighborhoods except maybe people in West Loop or River North (depending on terminal location). Now how about we consider convenience. Most people at my company just cab or uber to the airport because everyone gets company reimbursement and they like someone picking them up directly outside of their door. I cannot see business travelers selecting a high speed train to save their company $10-20 or going out of their way to some new connection terminal more than 4 blocks away from their office/hotel. We need to consider door to door connections. How often will this rail system move (every 15 or 30 minutes)? How many hotels are within close proximity? Do people arrive near security? Or do they have to travel another 10-15 minutes from the entry point? Even if people do take a high speed train, hotels are scattered all over the CBD. If a business traveler is staying at a hotel near Aon, BCBS and the Prudential buildings, would they really walk many blocks to a West Loop or River North terminal? The blueline is still a closer distance from this area and people will most likely take a cab/uber anyway. And if people were not getting reimbursed by their company? I am sure they will still select the cheapest option (blue line) if it is coming out of their pocket. I recently rode the blue line with the CEO/Founder of Trunkclub.com sitting adjacent to me. Clearly he rather save the company money with a $2.50 ride than spend $30 on a uber. The city is better off stimulating new residential development by creating better CTA rail access in growing neighbhorhoods. |
Spend all that money on better maintenance of the tracks and more trains / frequent service. You have far more to gain from the more frequent reliable service. Just seems like this project would cost way to much for little benefit.
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The number one issue I see with the Toronto example is the price of the ticket is way to high. I think it has to be $20 or less to start to be an attractive alternative to a cab. Especially since taking an Uber to the airport now has substantially lowered the price out the airport at certain times from what I've seen/heard.
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Have two of the cars have suspension upgrades, luggage racks, electric outlets, work desk, drink offerings, premium seating etc. Have it so that their doors only open at a limited number of stops that have enough room for 10 car sets (maybe just downtown/O'Hare). Make the price $10 or $15 tops. Again, you aren't getting there any faster but you removed from squishing your luggage across the aisle and having polar air gush into your face in the winters. It would surely be the cheapest option to implement. |
Thinking about it a little more if you did heavy rail under or directly adjacent to the central terminal, rerouted the Hiawatha Service, connected Union Station to the SCAL so an airport shuttle could serve McCormick (using DMUs) the effort might be worth it.
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So, this stinking pile of pork is back on the table. Just to save 20 minutes when anyone who isn't close to the CBD terminus would need to get to the station somehow, probably adding 20 minutes, when the Blue line has stops all over the place and still takes only 45 minutes. Add a stop at Jefferson Park - um, no, From JP to ORD is like 15 minutes on the Blue line and a stop would add what, 5-10 minutes to a high-speed train that would need to slow down, stop to pick up pax and then get back up to speed - taking away half the advantage.
Compared to the cost of this, how much would it cost to increase the frequency of the Blue line, install luggage racks, and clean the cars a little better. I'm guessing a lot less. |
There are MUCH better ways to spend what little transit money we have. Anything other than more upgrades to the blue line is a colossal waste of money.
If we had an extra $15 billion laying around to complete all our pipe dream transit projects then yea, let's blow a billion or two on this. But we don't, and until we do, there are more pressing transit improvements needed. I don't understand why people here are endorsing some of these ideas. :shrug: |
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Yeah, based on the latest round of news, it seems like they've more-or-less already ruled out the Blue Line corridor.
I don't see how they could accomplish this without using Metra. Who knows, maybe this study will include a detailed professional analysis of the CrossRail proposal, or at least the section from McCormick-Union-O'Hare. The high fares envisioned by the city RFP, though, do not bode well for a transit solution that commuters can actually use. |
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Crossrail seems sucky at the airport end of things unless they do something with the terminals.
To me, it seems like a deep tunnel with only three (O'Hare, the Loop, McCormick) stations would be ideal. You could have one station under O'Hare, and design it so that future HSR could use the same tunnel and station if that ever actually happened, one station under the West Loop, and one station at McCormick ready to also connect to future HSR. Design it right and it forms a backbone for the West Loop Transportation Center that's been long planned but never any movement on. I mean, ideally you'd drop people under Lasalle at Clark/Lake or use Block 37 but I don't see anyone actually advocating that anymore so the deep tunnel, three-stop solution seems best. Deep tunnels with only stations at the ends and one in the middle wouldn't be all that expensive compared to "normal" subways. |
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"Gray Line" Advocate Mike Payne wants Rapid Service on the Metra Electric Line
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you could do some other things to make it attractive - similar to hong kong's transit direct to the airport - you could have people check luggage downtown at a station and it's automatically transferred directly to your airplane...that system works well and is cheap and fast
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LOL :haha: Oh man that's pretty funny :haha: :ack: :lmao: Are you guys all :koko: or just :fruit:? $140,000,000,000+ That's how much debt this state is DROWNING in, of which the City of Chicago is solely responsible for more than 60 BILLION. ...I'm reading through these comments and seriously wondering: do you guys have any clue how fucked this state is, or are you all really THAT delusional??? Quote:
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Do you read anything? Stop making a fool of yourself on a near constant basis |
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My response was to this retarded comment you made, aimed at a lot of us: Quote:
Had you spent the 30 seconds it takes to skim the article, we wouldn't even have had this discussion. Similar to your complaints about the 606. But whatever, go ahead and throw in the dunce emoji :dunce: |
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How much of that number is debt with a dedicated source of funding? How much is unsecured non-pension debt? How much is Pension debt, and over what timeline is it calculated? 10 years? 30 years? 75 years? Of the pension debt, how much of it actually needs to be paid in vs. how much could be grown out of with investment? What portion would a strong bull market eliminate the need of? How much bigger will it be if we have a sustained bear market? Of those questions, the "how many years" one is the most critical. I mean, Illinois has an annual budget of almost $90 billion. $140 billion, if we could take 30 years to bring it into balance, would require paying a little over 5% of that annual budget toward the obligations. Illinois' total GDP is over $600 billion. Over 30 years that's about $18 trillion dollars. $140 billion is less than 1% of that. $140 billion is about 2% of 30 years worth of payrolls in Illinois. So, basically, if the only thing Illinois did was re-instate the income tax to 5%, that debt would be manageable. If Illinois managed to cut spending by 5% and kept revenues steady, we wouldn't even need to re-raise taxes to get the debt taken care of over 30 years. In other words, the issue is not really a financial problem at the core, the issue is primarily a political one. |
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We're probably talking about a mainline rail solution - Metra tracks, not CTA, with little or no new grade separations. So are people in the communities along the rail line willing to deal with trains every 7-8 minutes (15 minute frequency, two directions) even if they are short and relatively quiet? Crossing gates closing that often? Will Metra commuters accept schedule changes and being (literally) sidetracked in favor of a few well-heeled air travelers? |
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There seems to be a convergence of several agency priorities which may mean the time is right for a larger project including the A-2 rail/rail separation. Really the A-2 is critical to all future intercity and intraurban rail projects on the northern tier of Greater Chicago and many in the northern Midwest. The following projects would use the improved A-2 interlocking :
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Don't forget "we have to be competitive, we have to be competitive..."... you know, with the poor right-to-work states that is.
As if it needs to be acknowledged, the whole country is in a race to the bottom in the name of "competitiveness"... code for being able to pay as little as possible for production (operating expenses) because shareholders demand it, or we'll just move to SE Asia. Occam's razor tells me the driving force is greed, nothing more, nothing less. |
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Of course, it would be great if we found public funding for this portion of the project... |
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Put those hundreds of millions of dollars towards something else instead. |
Not so easy. UP-N and UP-NW have to go into Ogilvie in any case. There aren't enough slots to be vacated by UP-W to make way for three other commuter lines plus Amtrak. Union Station would actually be well under capacity in this case and would not need a fourth track, while Ogilvie would need additional platforms and circulation upgrades.
Also, UP-N and UP-NW would lose access to their daytime staging yard at California. All that is not to say you can't go one level up to an Elektronik solution, though the slow acceleration of Metra's heavy diesels doesn't make things easy. Imagine a 4-way stop where you've got nothing but semi trucks lined up waiting... |
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Amtrak really should probably stay at Union Station for the sake of transfers and having a national network. But is a super expensive grade separation at A2 necessary for that or could an alternative be found? Another alternative would be to move only MD-N and Amtrak to Ogilvie, along with UP-N and UP-NW, while keeping NCS and MD-W at Union Station along with the relocated UP-W. |
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