Lunt? :haha:

The work will extend the lifespan of the stations for probably 20 years, and the elevated structure too. In the long run, the stations do not meet modern standards for spaciousness, platform width, or accessibility. I think the full rebuild is still worth it, Considering that the north lakefront is the densest corridor in the city and it will continue to be that way for the foreseeable future.

What is wrong...the name of the street is West Lunt Ave.

D. H.

Holy Cow - I thought these were just going to be a somewhat more aggressive version of the deep cleaning things they did, but that's some serious work they're doing. Almost like Rahm has found a covert way to get a big jump start on the North Main rebuild.

CTA's bus rapid transit won't be so rapid
City to start work Monday on BRT experiment that doesn't fully clear the way for buses

Read More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classi...2799509.column

Except, of course, that all the work they're now doing will have to be torn out for that project. I was pretty astonished yesterday to see the entire platform at Thorndale missing down to the ballast.

Seems like the Red Line project was conceived in response to the conditions in Washington, with little chance of funding for the full project anytime soon. Rahm doesn't want the north lakefronters to think he forgot about his promise to rebuild the line, so he had to get something done. Things improved a little bit now that Congress passed a bill, but I still think the chances of landing a Federal grant for the RPM project are slim.

Frankly, for only $80 million this stations project is very impressive. I don't think there are any other stations in this poor of a shape, except the Purple Line stations in Evanston, and I doubt Evanston can find another $80 million.

This. I think this, and the 95th Street renovations, are partly examples of Rahm showing he can produce results on a quick turnaround to key constituencies (north side whites and African-Americans), which help differentiate him from negligent-on-transit Daley and give him concrete accomplishments to point to in case if his reputation takes a beating in other places.

Plus, if he has the money in hand he may as well spend it. It’s looking more and more likely that the upcoming Dan Ryan and Wilson reconstructions will probably be the last major projects the CTA will finish in this decade, if not my lifetime—I wouldn’t be surprised if (nationally) transit just withers on the vine in the next few years, and without the odd infusion of federal and state money I wouldn’t be surprised to see the CTA’s ridership gains backslide as well.

I'm not nearly as dour on the prospects of transit as you are. We are definitely on the cusp of some sort of change, but I'm not ruling out a change toward progress, current attacks on Obama notwithstanding. The CTA's ridership gains will only dissolve if we see ultra-cheap gasoline again - which is unlikely anytime soon. And cheaper gas is likely to come along with a better economy, with jobs growth. Jobs growth will me more commuters. If we have more commuters and high gasoline prices, ridership numbers will be setting records every year. I think it's also likely that Rahm will start pushing for more TOD construction near under-utilized "L" stations, instead of allowing "whatever" to get built there. If he does, that will reinforce ridership, too.

I also think that calling Daley negligent on transit is not true. I think it'd be fair to say it wasn't his biggest priority, but he oversaw one of the fastest growth periods in ridership in the history of the agency, and he got the Kimball stations expanded, the Douglas Branch rebuilt in a time when, by the numbers, it could have been shut down, he got a lot of the downtown subway stations rebuilt. Most importantly, while he wasn't as visible on the issue as some may have liked, getting the sales tax increase passed just prior to the economy falling off a cliff is largely what has kept the CTA from extremely dire cuts and there's no way that would have happened without his support, even if it was mostly behind closed doors.

More details on Milwaukee/Wood/Wolcott:
http://gridchicago.com/2012/confusin...be-redesigned/

The textured curb cuts are the result of a court mandate.

It will be interesting to see the effect the Dan Ryan reconstruction project has on ridership and how quickly those displaced will return after the project is over.

Thats a little bleak to me... you forget that new stations at Cermak and Washington/Wabash are on the boards in addition to the Clark/Division rebuild. Even then, if expansion slows to a crawl I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing. Diverting funding to maintenance, providing a clean/safe/reliable service throughout the system could be just as beneficial as new capital projects imo.

And a +1 to emathias' suggestion of localized rezoning.

Toronto-style TOD is not something that's gonna happen quickly. Land ownership around stations is fragmented into small parcels with many owners, and most larger sites in good locations have recently been built-upon with low-scale residential or retail space. I'm thinking of the Irving/Sheridan Walgreens here, or the Whole Foods garage at Lincoln/Paulina.

We've seen modest densification with 3-4 story buildings along the Milwaukee corridor, but not nearly enough to impact ridership.

The TOD ordinance removes the parking problem, so developers who want to build a transit-oriented product can go very high without worrying about how to configure parking. On the other hand, it doesn't totally eliminate parking because it requires car-sharing spaces or some vague "alternative" beyond the extensive options already available to Chicagoans. There's also a 250' radius limit on the TOD (1 block, going the short way). This needs to be doubled.

This needs to be quadrupled.

What about TOD along the Metra lines or South Shore line?

Interestingly, the radius applies to any rail entrance, so stations with multiple entrances can have overlapping circles of TOD potential. It also applies to Metra stations, although it's hard to say where you can find the "entrance" to a faregate-less Metra station.

I could see a developer agreeing to install an auxiliary entrance to facilitate the development of a TOD parcel.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of TOD on lines that have plentiful capacity for increased ridership. Sure, it'd be great on the north side, too, but I'm thinking more along the lines of the Pink Line, the Orange Line, the south Green Line, even the Forest Park branch of the Blue Line.

From a urban renewal standpoint, couple increased police presence along west 63rd with a re-opening of the Racine stop and construction of a number of moderately-dense midrises and that would do a lot more for getting Englewood to turn the corner than current strategies. Sure, it's not nearly as simple as making the statement is, but simply containing crime isn't a viable solution if we want the city to resume growth. I'd actually start by building highrises or dense midrises on vacant lots near Orange Line stations. There are enough large, vacant lots near Orange Line stations to probably add 20,000 units within walking distance of stations without even getting creative, and that would probably translate into 40,000 residents. With a 25% daily ridership figure, that would add over 3.5 million annual riders to the Orange Line, and probably more than that as it would result in more destinations for people to travel to. 3.5 million additional riders would be somewhere around a 40% boost in ridership for that line and an extra 3.5 million dollars pouring into the CTA's annual operations budget.

I'd vote for quadrupled. Even quadrupled, it would still be less than 1/4 mile, and I think 1/4 mile from a station is a distance anyone would be willing to walk.

In most of the literature I’m familiar with, walksheds for metro rail tend to be a half-kilometer to a half-mile, though there’s obviously a drop off with distance. Quarter-mile seems best to me too, at least in terms of offering incentives.

The idea of adding a lot of housing along the Orange Line is interesting—in terms of ridership, it’s really a light-rail line with metro infrastructure. Much of the land use there is pretty low-intensity or stuff like auto-repair with the odd strip mall, and it seems to me that most riders get there via bus transfer and park-and-ride. Turning land adjacent to the Orange Line into a denser housing corridor would probably be a worthwhile long-term project, but it would have to be done in a way that assuages fears of higher-density housing leading to gentrification and more industry fleeing the city (I think the efforts to keep industry in the city are somewhat misguided—most industry today takes up a lot of space and employs few workers/unit area, but I get the impression that it’s still a popular policy).

But who would be the intended tenants? Mexican families prefer houses to apartment buildings. And it's not a lack of apartments that keeps childless yuppies from choosing Brighton Park over Wrigleyville.

I'd argue that it is partly a lack of new construction near rail transit that keeps yuppies from the area. The key is to keep it inexpensive but not "cheap".

Also, while Mexican *families*, like American families, prefer houses, there are plenty of non-family households who would be happy to live in the area if there was more modern housing close to rail transit downtown, in developments that drew in additional businesses and serviecs. No all Latinos are part of a large family - or any family at all for that matter - but there are also Latinos who like being in a latino area, but also like having access to modern housing and good transit. There are also people who like modern construction and rail transit, but don't want to pay what it costs to live downtown or on the north lakefront. If something was constructed that could be priced like Prairie Shores, but in a true urban, walkable format, it'd be popular despite being away from the lakefront. Logan Square and Bucktown are popular despite being away from the lakefront. The areas near Orange Line stations lack historic building stock within an easy walk of most of the stations, so putting modern housing there - more of an LA or Miami or Euro look could be just as popular as Wicker Park, but with a different demographic.

The biggest resistance to this sort of change would probably actually come from the anti-gentrification forces, because if it succeeded (as it succeeded), it would force up valuations and price out some of the existing renters in older buildings.

CTA has released a "plan" to reconfigure routes in an attempt to reduce crowding. There is an article about it from the Tribune but I will allow someone else to post it. I will post a link to the pdf of the plan's presentation however.

CTA Presentation

In short, the plan would add service on 48 bus routes and eliminates, truncates, or decreases service on 15 others. The plan would also add rail trips during weekday rush hours (17 new trips) and increases service on weekends on the Blue, Red and Brown line trains.

Routes proposed for discontinuation
#X28 Stony Island Express (send #28 downtown during peak instead)
#64 Foster-Canfield (Alternative #90 and Pace #209)
#69 Cumberland/East River (reroute #81W)
#122 Ill. Center/Ogilvie Express (extend #120 into Streeterville)
#123 Ill. Center/Union Express (extend #121 into Streeterville)
#129 West Loop/South Loop (Alternative #1, #29 and Green Line)
#144 Marine/Michigan Express (Add service to #148)sic
#145 Wilson/Michigan Express (Add service to #146)sic
#17 Westchester (Alternative Pace #317)
#49A South Western (Alternative Pace #349)
#56A North Milwaukee (Alternative Pace #270)
#90N North Harlem (Alternative Pace #423)
#N201 Central/Sherman – Owl service (1:00 a.m. to 5:15 a.m.)

Route segment truncate
#1 Indiana/Hyde Park (Discontinue south of 35th)
#11 Lincoln/Sedgwick (eliminate service between Western & Fullerton)

Contract service that could see cuts
#10 Museum of Science & Industry
#33 Mag Mile Express
#X98 Avon Express
#132 Goose Island Express
#169 69th-UPS Express
#170 U of C/Midway
#171 U of C/Hyde Park
#172 U of C/Kenwood
#192 U of C/Hospital Express

You're right, the Orange Line is a great candidate intuitively, but you'd need to seek zoning changes. Any Toronto-esque TOD would probably come as a PD, since the TOD ordinance only applies to C and B zoning, I think -4.5 to -6 FAR. Industrial parcels do not fall into these categories so they'd need aldermanic permission both for the zoning change and the PD.

The idea that is being discussed has more to do with higher density, minimal parking developments allowed under the recent ordinance that is letting 1601 Division get built. I dont think that similar proposals could exist along Metra lines outside of the CTA's network. Fact is that living in the suburbs is extremely difficult without personal transit. Metra essentially only offers transportation to the city core and even then runs on an extremely limited schedule.

Compare that to any site near the 35th/Archer L station (for example), which offers immediate access to a city wide rapid transit rail line, Archer Ave bus, 35th bus, Western bus (hopefully soon to be true BRT) along with local retail, dining, open space and typical amenities all within walking distance. Providing a dense development with near zero parking is much more feasible in such a setting.

Everybody keeps talking about this 'TOD ordinance'. I never heard of such a thing. When was it passed?

Can somebody point me to some details?

Maybe I am all alone on this one, but I dont think that Toronto-ish TOD should be the goal here in Chicago. The economic factors needed to create such large scale developments would prevent it from happening anywhere in the system other than the Howard Red/OHare Blue, neither of which really needs much more traffic...and where such large scale development is nearly impossible. I think 1601 is about as good as things can get for medium/large parcels... and that additional density could come from smaller parcels used as 6-12 flats

But for most of the city, I feel that even a development such as 1601 would be overkill, and completely necessary. Boosting ridership along the Pink/Orange/Green lines could be as simple as focusing development of dense four to six floor structures either on single, double or corner lots in these underused areas. Going straight to the 'shock and awe' of large development seems counter intuitive... these areas must first be made attractive to the market before drawing in the masses and larger projects.

I havent been able to find it... only the June 27th City Council meeting that changed the site to RM6.5 and a handful of mentions regarding Moreno looking to propose a minimal parking variance around the beginning of July and then the ArchPaper story August 16th saying:

I'm not sure what the obsession is with Toronto TOD is here. Sure, some highrises outside the core our nice, but last I checked those places are largely devoid of humanity and scale. Think Le Corbusier’s The City of Tomorrow and its Planning. Also, not to rag on Toronto, but what area are you thinking of?

I'm not the one who mentioned Toronto, and it's not what I had in mind. The central part of Toronto has good use, but outside of the central area, it's not that much more dense near the stations than Chicago is. I'd be more interested in TOD the way Portland or LA has done it. Or New York outside of Manhattan for that matter.

Here you go.

St. Clair mainly.

DC's Friendship Heights and Columbia Heights are great models for how tower developments can be inserted into low-scale residential neighborhoods. DC has other good TODs, but most are way out in the suburbs or built on large tracts of vacant land.

New Jersey has been successfully pushing TOD since the Early 90s to boost Transit Ridership. The Hudson Bergen LRT Network has generated over 16 Billion in TOD since 2000 , and Regional Rail Station TOD has generated close to 10 billion since 1995. Each town has its own plan , its mostly infill with the Railroad towns in the Downtown area , while the Auto - sprawlly suburbs get the huge 1-2 SQ mile TOD's. There are currently 17 TOD projects underway in NJ that connect into a nearby station or stop. With Extensions of the Light Rail and Regional Rail further into the Urbanized Suburbs I can only see more TOD. Their are some Towns jumping the gun , and allowing TOD before the LRT or Rail Extension like Englewood,NJ and Kearny,NJ...there sites currently have bus service.

St. Clair? On the YUS Line? St. Clair West? The St. Clair Streetcar ROW?

Really, I'm not trying to "gotcha", or keep this thread off-track, I just do not think Toronto is a model for good TOD design. Look at the Bloor-Danforth line east of the Don, its been the same density around the stops since the day that line was built and the neighbors fight like heck to keep it that way. (gross generalization)

^ St Clair at Yonge is a good model for TOD... I've always thought such a center could grow along Ashland by the United Center.

Greg Hinz is reporting that USDOT has revoked the EIS for the Prairie Parkway, and has allowed IDOT to re-purpose some $209 million that was earmarked for the project by cheerleader Dennis Hastert. :banana: Now if we can just kill the Illiana or at least move it northward...

Unfortunately the Parkway money will still be spent on sprawl-inducing projects in the lower Fox Valley - river bridges, upgrades to IL-47 and US-34, etc. The Parkway opposition was a flashpoint for the battle against sprawl, but Kane and Kendall will continue to have massive suburban growth, and in lieu of a new expressway it will simply create miles of congestion on local roads. :koko:

Holy cow is right. When the Red North Interim Station Improvements project was announced, us riders and transit watchers were expecting the modest "facelifts" that the CTA talked about. But the work by Kiewit Infrastructure and its subcontractors has been extensive, including major rebuilds of concrete viaducts and columns, all new track and ballast near the stations, complete replacement of the old wooden platforms with new concrete foundations and decking, and, biggest surprise of all, complete gut jobs of the 90-year-old stationhouses.

At Morse, they tore out the glazed-brick walls and columns, ripped up the battered 90-year-old terrazzo floors and threw away all interior furnishings, then replaced them with new glazed brick, new terrazzo and plenty of durable stainless steel or galvanized fixtures. Riders are delighted.

We're following it very closely at CTA Station Watch, a crowd-sourced website covering work at 10 North Red stations. So far, very impressive reinvestment, though it must be said that the trains are running like molasses on weekends when two of four tracks are taken out of service and crews are working on three to five stations simultaneously. The good news is that it's fast-track work and the project should be done by mid-winter.

Keep up the good work Patrick, I really enjoy the site. Its nice to have another online option when following the CTA.

No. Toronto's "Corbusian" areas are far from subway stations. The areas with towers around subway stations are virtually all pedestrian-friendly except for Kipling Station, and arguably a couple of other stations. The areas around all the Yonge line stations for example are ped-friendly. You bring up the Danforth line east of the Don, and it's pedestrian-friendly every station as far east as Victoria Park.

Thankfully the Prairie Parkway dies a quiet death
 

Chciago Trib Link

It's the end of the road for proposed Prairie Parkway
With litigation, low funding priority, 'Hastert Highway' loses federal approval
By Jon Hilkevitch, Chicago Tribune reporter
9:34 p.m. CDT, August 23, 2012

The $1 billion Prairie Parkway, a proposed highway in the Chicago region's far outer-ring exurbs that lost momentum when former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert left office, was officially declared dead Thursday.

The Federal Highway Administration rescinded its approval of the parkway, which would have cut through miles of farmland, after it failed to receive a high funding priority in the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning's "Go to 2040'' land-use and transportation blueprint for the seven-county area.......

This would be great, but unfortunately racial politics in the city will prevent it from happening any time soon. In addition, there is too much vacant and underutilized land on the south and west sides to make the supply/demand calculation for substantial density work out. We'll be lucky to get Skokie-level density.

The demand isn't for housing, it's for access to downtown at a reasonable price. It doesn't matter if you have 100,000 square miles of open space, if only 10 square miles are walkable to transit, then those 10 square miles will always and forever hold a market premium over the rest. If race factors in at all, it's racism against locating in certain areas, not racial politics.

Interesting tidbit resulting from the weekend track work in the Loop:

I would be interested to see how well this configuration works since it has always been considered a possible method of consolidating the two lines

Based on the 2011 numbers the Brown/Orange would make for 25.7mm boardings with a ton of room to grow along the Orange alignment and possible extended hours... not too shabby

The Brown/Orange combo would be the obvious choice for a third 24-hour line.

Isn't there an enormous disparity in ridership between the two lines? You'd have packed trains running from Kimball south to the loop, or nearly-empty ones down to Midway.

There’s also a frequency disparity, but I could see every other train going to Midway—you could potentially have a Kimball-Loop Brown and Kimball-Midway Orange Line. As is they’re already running near-empty trains to Midway during the morning peak (and vice-versa in the afternoon). There might be some advantage in giving the Ravenswood Branch access to the Midway Yards, too (I think they do store some Brown Line trains there now, actually).

Given the overlap with the Red Line until the Belmont, relative quietness of much of the Ravenswood Branch post-1AM, and near-complete quietness/pedestrian hostility of a lot the Orange Line route I don’t think more 24 hour service is necessarily justified at this point.

They're not well-matched. The Brown Line is evenly matched to the Red Line Dan Ryan. That's not gonna get matched up anytime soon, though.

Well, if we are going to think about it that way... lets compare it to the other big lines.

Howard Red 2011- 40.85m
Dan Ryan Red 2011 - 16.7m

Howard carries 2.44x the riders


O'Hare Blue 2011 - 23.58m
Forest Park Blue 2011 - 9.2m

O'Hare carries 2.56x the riders


so....

Brown 2011 - 17.53m
Orange 2011 - 8.22m

Brown carries 2.13x the riders... seems to be on par with the other big lines, maybe even moreso than these numbers indicate due to the 6 stations whose numbers are shared with the Purple Express.

<edited>It's not just an issue of total ridership; other considerations include but aren't limited to:

1. Demand at the peak flow point at each time period
2. Terminal to terminal running time, which in turn dictates the car/manpower requirements to meet a headway sufficient to accommodate point 1.
3. Yard/terminal capacity commensurate to 1 and 2. If one puts aside the terminal consideration, there is no need to "balance" the ridership demands of two through-routed branches, since it ultimately these pairings would have close to zero impact on your systemwide vehicle and manpower requirement. However, if the lines are heavily imbalanced in demand, then both terminals would need sufficient capacity to hold and perform light maintenance on cars to avoid major unnecessary deadheading.

Couldn't you solve the imbalance with a well-designed and precisely dispatched holding track for short turns?

The only problem is that you need some flexibility in the location of the short turn to allow for growth. Chinatown and 35th should really have the frequency of the North Main and State St Subway, and Medical Center/Western really should have the frequency of the O'Hare branch, but they cannot because of the short turn placement on the Red and Blue Lines.

I've always considered TODs near the Orange Line, but how feasible would they be? The stations are near some of the ugliest (not for us urban pioneers, but for the GP) areas in Chicago. There would have to be some serious investment in the area, with new greenspace, and new connections to the street grid. There are too many stations in which a commuter has to walk 20 minutes or so to the North just to get to the closest commercial area, and the Stevenson is a psychological barrier to the South.

However, if they were to build a theme park on the South Branch, I wouldn't complain. :D

The 6:17am weekday departure from Midway Airport already runs as a combined route, turning into a brown line train at Roosevelt. I ride this run occasionally.

The Orange Line also has been getting noticeably busier over the past couple of years. The rush hour runs in the peak directions are always crush loaded.

Rush Hour rides on the orange line are awfully crowded. Not as bad as the blue or red, but it's getting there.

Huh? Have you ever ridden the Orange Line and looked out the window? There are big grocery-anchored shopping centers at Pulaski, Kedzie, 35th & Archer, and at Ashland. And the Stevenson is to the north anywhere west of Ashland.