A Metra gallery car is 15'10".

If the engineers can actually build a viaduct with such a long span and slender deck, that's awesome. I don't think it's possible, though, at least not outside of the Netherlands.

This is a relatively new rail flyover designed to American standards in Kansas City. The ratio of column to deck to train-car length is correct in the rendering, but the whole thing is only about 60% of actual size. That little rowhouse seen under the flyover in the rendering could fit under the lower of the two flyovers in the KC picture.

http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/railro...C05/UP6855.jpg
source

Chicago regional rail passengers to be hit with sharp fare hikes


Read More: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/no...metr-n09.shtml




http://www.wsws.org/images/2011nov/n...r-plat-480.jpg

About fucking time
 

CDOT will put back the crosswalk at Queen's Landing. From the Tribune:

The Lake Shore Drive pedestrian crosswalk between Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park and the lakefront that was removed in 2005 to speed up traffic flow will be reinstalled, city transportation officials said Thursday.

The work to restore the crosswalk and the traffic signal at Queen’s Landing, one of the city’s most popular visitor attractions on the lakefront promenade, will begin Thursday, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.The Lake Shore Drive pedestrian crosswalk between Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park and the lakefront that was removed in 2005 to speed up traffic flow will be reinstalled, city transportation officials said Thursday.

The work to restore the crosswalk and the traffic signal at Queen’s Landing, one of the city’s most popular visitor attractions on the lakefront promenade, will begin Thursday, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Story here.

FYI, they are doing a lot of construction at the Clark and Division stop. Have they already started the rebuild?

NO ONE wants to confront Metra (and CTA) on how they waste money - so let the fare hikes fly!

They may be prepping utilities, but I don't think they're slated to begin actual construction until 2012.

That would make sense. The have the road torn open on the southeast corner of Clark and Division and the lanes are diverted around that coming from the north.

Halsted Street Bridge

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6120/...ac575c75_b.jpg
flickr/Alvarez

Great shot. OT,but wasn't there supposed to be a development right along the river there a while back? Will that ever come to fruition?

I cannot wait for that bridge to reopen, Im getting really tired of fending off motorists on the Division bridge as I bike over to Hooker.

Yea, there was a development planned there. IIRC it was a fairly fly-by-night proposal, though (ho-hum architect, unproven developer).

I think we'll see some stuff along the river eventually. The Kingsbury Park and North/Clybourn areas are slowly merging together and healing over the wound that was Cabrini-Green. In fact, half of that large green block in the upper left will soon become the new Target.

Also, the new bridge design includes 34-foot wide tunnels through both abutments for a riverwalk to be built later. My guess is that they're gonna wait until the Division bridges are rebuilt, then extend the riverwalk right on up to North. There are some tricky properties to bypass along Kingsbury, including the new Whole Foods, so we may get a snazzy new pedestrian bridge over to Goose Island that connects to the Cherry Ave bridge further up.

Great shot. That entire square block taken up by parking for the police station is unfortunate.

Preckwinkle wants to cut Cook County's CTA funding
 

http://www.suntimes.com/8770713-417/...a-funding.html

Updated: November 11, 2011 10:05PM

Citing a looming financial crisis in Cook County government, Board President Toni Preckwinkle wants to slash the $2 million subsidy the county sends the Chicago Transit Authority.

Risking a battle with both Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and her political foe Forrest Claypool, the CTA president, Preckwinkle is behind an effort — symbolic for now — that seeks to reduce the county’s contribution by $1.3 million to $675,000. At the same time, she’s also calling on the city to make up the difference by boosting its funding to the transit agency.

“I think there’s a possibility for the city to up its commitment,” Preckwinkle, a former Chicago alderman, told the Sun-Times on Friday. “When I was a member of the City Council, I consistently argued that the city needed to contribute more to CTA on an annual basis — and city riders are the principal users of CTA.”

For several decades now the city and county have agreed, under a provision in state law, to pay the transit agency a combined $5 million annually, officials say, but a smattering of county commissioners will introduce a Preckwinkle non-binding resolution at next Tuesday’s board meeting that states it’s an “agreement … not statutorily required.”

And no such “agreement” has been reached for the 2012 budget, even though the cash-strapped CTA is clearly counting on those dollars, according to the resolution, made public last week.

Commissioner Joan Murphy, a Democrat whose district stretches across the far south suburbs, is among four commissioners sponsoring the resolution, saying “we’re sending them way too much money.”

She said the Preckwinkle administration provided her a study showing about 3 percent of suburbanites use the CTA’s bus system while roughly 11 percent use the trains.

“I think we’re sending them way too much money for the amount of ridership we [suburbanites] enjoy — in the south suburbs especially,” Murphy said.

Commissioners Deborah Sims and Jeff Tobolski, both Democrats representing suburban stretches of the county, are also backing the measure.

But Commissioner Peter Silvestri, a Republican whose district straddles the city’s Northwest Side and neighboring suburbs, says he’s backing off his sponsorship for now, concerned about the ripple effect of withholding the money and how it might hurt his constituents.

“There’s an argument out there that if the city can’t come up with this money or the CTA can’t, it could jeopardize federal funding coming in to the system,” Silvestri said, noting that he also hates the idea that the whole thing creates a “city versus suburbs discussion.”

“I also don’t know if something like this might mean a fare increase,” he said.

The resolution is non-binding, but eventually the county could pass an ordinance to discontinue the practice of sending money to the CTA, Silvestri said.

.

Preckwinkle and Claypool, both Democrats, have had a chilly relationship, especially after she criticized him for jumping in to the county assessor’s race last year as an independent. She backed the county’s Democratic party leader Joe Berrios, who won the seat.

The cost-saving proposal comes the same week as Preckwinkle and the 17 county commissioners finalize a $2.9 billion 2012 budget package, two-thirds of it paying for operating a health and hospital system serving the poor and uninsured as well as the courts and jail. To erase a $315 million shortfall, Preckwinkle is calling for layoffs as well as proposals to hike and expand taxes on everything from alcohol and booze to parking.

Some of the $2 million in motor fuel tax revenues the county directs to the CTA could be used for back-burnered county road projects, Preckwinkle said.

But whether the city can kick in more money, as she’s suggesting, is a big question as officials there hammer out a $6.3 billion budget and work to erase a $635.7 million shortfall.

Asked whether this could cause a serious divide between Preckwinkle and the mayor she said “that’s not the point.”

“It’s about the allocation of resources. The city has a budget that’s twice ours and our principal responsibility is criminal justice and healthcare.”

A message left with the mayor’s spokeswoman wasn’t returned on Friday.

Preckwinkle’s staff insists the administration is working with the transit agency.

Officials from the CTA are balking at the proposal and may even raise it Tuesday’s meeting when they make their already-scheduled pitch for the 2012 budget and ask for the county subsidy.

“This resolution would violate a 30-year-old compact between the city, county and state to support mass transit in the region,” CTA spokesman Brian Steele wrote in an e-mailed statement. “Reducing this funding could possibly lead to some reduction of bus service in suburban Cook County.”

Was there a decision about, or at least significant support for, preserving any of the remaining Division bridges?

Also, I think the Cherry bridge has a few jersey barriers blocking usage of it now. Have there been discussions so far indicating that it could be repurposed as a ped and bicycle bridge - or would it need to be rebuilt? Also, if there is not enough clearance under the suspension-cablestayed North bridge for a trail to continue, there would be a pretty unpalatable crossing with North Ave.

AFAIK, there's no support for preserving the Division bridges. Under Daley, CDOT was gung-ho about turning Division into a massive auto sewer from the Kennedy to the Gold Coast as relief for the Ohio Feeder, as well as a link from the Goose Island industries to the expressway.

I'm guessing Klein's CDOT isn't so enthusiastic. Still, recent comments indicate that the Division bridges will be replaced with new structures similar to the Halsted bridge.

The Cherry Ave bridge isn't blocked IIRC. There are gravel patches north and south of the bridge, so it's probably advisable to walk your bike. Also, the North Ave bridge has enough clearance beneath it for pedestrians and cyclists. It's a closed deck, so a bike path would not need any kind of roof structure.

You're right that North is a rather undesirable ending point, but there's no easy way to go further north. Ideally, we would get the $60 million project to extend the path to Southport, with direct links to Cortland and the Bloomingdale Trail. But there's a lot of stuff standing in the way of that. In the interim, you could probably remove the parking on Marcey and stripe that for bike lanes, connecting it to the Riverwalk via Willow.

It was rebuilt for exactly this purpose in 2009. Perhaps for funding source or landmark reasons, the project pretends that it is still a railroad bridge, though it's now owned by the city.

Goose Island is still served by rail. The Chicago Terminal Railroad still gets onto the island via the Cherry Ave Bridge. I recently had to make way for ILSX 900 tugging a few cars of lumber and hoppers down Kingsbury and onto Goose Island.

I'm surprised nobody here noticed that the CTA's new 5000-series railcars went into service on the Pink Line on Tuesday.

http://www.cityofchicago.org/content...wrailcars.html

I don't think any of us actually rides the Pink Line.

CTA Wilson Renovation

This is listed as "unbuilt" in the AIA contest, but this was a serious commission by CTA done a few years ago. I imagine Architrave and Ross Barney will pick up where they left off now that funding is available.

Notably, it restores the entrance to the corner, complete with the original thermal arch and clock. South of Wilson, a new glassy modern entrance will be built. Platforms will be in the express-local configuration and 24' wide, with length for 8 cars and room provided for later extension. Skylights in the canopy provide light to stairs and escalators.

http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/9...teriorview.jpg

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7968/wilpic3.jpg

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/1804/wilpic6.jpg

Nice! That does look pretty modern. I never go up there, but improvements to the line are improvements to the line.

This isn't my own opinion, (because I don't ride the Red Line that far north) but I've heard from several people that the Wilson stop is like a "mugger's paradise". So many degenerates creeping around the corner up there that it's like a cesspool for them...

Yes... the very first time I got off at the Wilson station, I saw a guy snatch a girl's iPod on the train and sprint out of the train and down the stairs. By the time I realized what had happened, he was too far away for me to stop him.

Stuff like that is partly why the station needs a top-to-bottom renovation that opens up sight lines and creates safe spaces. Hopefully the new design will address these issues. If the space doesn't feel run-down and dangerous, it may attract enough traffic to deter much of the crime that currently takes place.

Yeah...that's the biggest problem with the CTA. The designs of every single station are flawed. They are conducive to crime and vandalism by their very architecture. The only way to really solve the problems would be to entirely rebuild the whole system from scratch:

Build stations deeper underground to allow higher ceilings
Vaulted ceilings with column free platforms.
Floating platforms
Floating mezzanines

Elevated stations would also have column free platforms with monitor pavilions displaying train arrivals news, and security footage of the station so people know they are being watched.

The Belmont and Fullerton stations are definitely a big improvement. But they still have a lot of blocked sightlines.


Anyone know the extent of work that would happen to the Clark and Division station. I'd like to see it entirely removed, and rebuilt from scratch. Maybe this the opportunity to completely open up the station.

Yup. Wilson and Broadway is the epicenter of Uptown thuggery/drug dealing/shootings/panhandling/muggings... if you could just wipe that area clean Uptown's image would turn around in an instant.

Hopefully this will be a good start.

Crime is now the fault of the building? And the example cited is a guy waiting until the train doors are about to close to snatch an item and escape? How would that be changed by spending $3.7 billion to rebuild every station in the system without any walls or columns or stairways?

Should we also reconstruct the streetscapes of Wilson and Broadway so there are no doorways or corners to hide behind?

I never went that far. But the main entrance to Wilson is a narrow corridor with an awkward layout and odd corners, because CTA chopped the space up to cater to the demands of the retail tenants and their ventilation systems, without really thinking about the passengers. In a high-crime neighborhood, this is a recipe for disaster and neglect.

I understand that CTA needs the revenue from retail tenants, but a better-functioning, safe station will attract more paying riders, and more traffic allows for higher-volume retailers to open up. Since high-volume retailers can afford a higher price/SF, CTA can claim more of the space for transit functions without reducing their rental revenue.

The entire building should be converted to transit usage, and retailers should open up food-court style to the interior spaces. Since the Red Line is open 24 hours, there's no access concerns. It's a far more efficient arrangement, since each food outlet wouldn't require its own seating area, and they could share storage areas and ventilation stacks.

Crain's is reporting that CTA is seeking a $40M TIGER III grant to renovate Damen and California on the Blue Line, and renew track between Belmont and Grand.

This also includes $10M to increase by 75% the size of the upcoming bike-share program, by adding 230 additional 10-bike stations.

Nice to hear—we have a good track record with TIGERs.

I could easily imagine spending the whole grant on Damen, though—it’s a pretty heavily-used station and I’d lvoe for it to get a thorough modernization. I used to work on the south side of North Avenue and would have loved to have had a secondary entrance there. A big rebuild would probably require some track shifting, though, so it’s probably too big an item.

Okay now, let's not be silly. I'm not advocating for a complete rebuild to solve the problem, rather considering better design strategies when station replacement comes along as opposed to a baseline design where there's lots of obscured sightlines and hidden places. Eventually all stations will have to be rebuilt from scratch one day, and you might as well not perpetuate station designs of nearly a century ago unless there's some historical significance, to which you would need to employ other strategies.

I should also probably clarify myself that "every single" was a bit of exaggeration. There's some successful stations like Chicago on the brown where there are virtually no obstructed sight lines. I also mentioned station lobbies of Fullerton and Belmont are nicely done, but the station platforms are still full of columns and alcoves. Imagine if the entire station could be sheltered under a canopy spanning all the platforms.

But yes, there's mountains of evidence where good design and public safety go hand in hand. Public safety is just one of the important considerations in architectural design to discourage crime and vandalism. There's not one project I've ever seen or worked on where this hasn't been brought up. Avoid dark hidden corners or recesses where people can camp out or hide. Imagine entering a station mezzanine and seeing the entire platform in full visibility. In Washington DC Metro, two police officers can monitor an entire transfer station....that's very impressive.

$30M can go a long way on an elevated station. The entire Cermak-Chinatown project they finished recently only cost $15M, and it added an elevator, reconstructed a whole station house and a new auxiliary exit while renovating a third (existing) exit.

As another comparison, Armitage, Chicago, and Sedgwick were collectively rebuilt for $46M, although there were probably some economies of scale as part of the Brown Line project.

At Damen, it would be great to get a new exit to North from both platforms. They could purchase some of that parking lot and build a little stationhouse at grade, then use the new entrance while the original stationhouse is closed for renovation and new elevators.

California isn't as heavily-used as Damen, true, but it still has a decent amount of traffic (1.2M riders/year to Damen's 1.7). I don't see the need for a secondary entrance (to St. George Court??) but elevators should be installed.

Do you have a picture of new railcars? I would love to see it. Thanks! What about Blue Line hasn't gone replaced new railcars yet.

^^ Not much to see. They look just like the old 3200s, except the seating is configured differently and the destination signs are LED. Most of the changes are under the hood.

Yes, but that might not be the case for long as Logan Square is growing very fast right now and already has those numbers despite numerous developable parcels within a small radius of the California and Western Stops. I could see the Logan Square stops quickly catching up with or surpassing Damen as the building stock around Damen has a whole lot of single family homes and townhomes compared to the potential for large blocks of 6-8 flats and the existing high density apartment blocks in Logan Square.

What I really want to see happen is a complete rehab of the Belmont Blue Line to provide an auxiliary exit at Wellington and Kimball and one on the NW or SW Corner of Belmont and Kimball. I don't know why Belmont was ever built with a single entrance and can't think of another stop on the Blue Line that is like that. The Wellington exit especially would make a lot of sense as it would provide another point of access for the extremely dense cluster of buildings around Diversey and Milwaukee.

As someone who lives under the Pink Line, I think the new trains are great for the noise factor alone. In my opinion, it seems like the new trains have a relatively quieter electric whoosh instead of the loud steel rumble of the el we all know and love.

I agree pretty much 100% I was going to say pretty much the same thing

Do the trains have a new suspension? I would imagine a smoother suspension could reduce noise in this way. Then again it might just be due to the fact that all the parts haven't rattled loose yet on the new ones...

^I think the 5000s are substantially heavier because of the DC conversion gear. And the wheels are still trued; in fact I understand the wheels have to be trued frequently which is why they're only on the Pink Line for now.

Why’d they put them on the Pink Line, anyway? It’s not like they need the extra capacity.

Shakedown cruise?

As Mr. Downtown stated, the wheels on the 5000s apparently require frequent "truing". This is a new twist, and required new machinery and techniques to be implemented at whichever shops the 5000 belonged to. I'm guessing the Pink Line was chosen because it has a similar operation to the other CTA lines (6-car trains, runs around the Loop, etc) but only 44 railcars. That means it's relatively inexpensive to purchase the machines and do the training at the 54th Avenue shops, because the workforce there is relatively small.

Plus, as soon as CTA has 44 new 5000s, they can send the Pink Line's 2600s over to the Blue Line.

The only shops with wheel truing machines are 54th (to serve the old Blue Line/West-Northwest) and Skokie (to serve everything else), although at least one more will be installed in the coming year or 2.

would transferring the pink line's 2600s over to the blue mean that they can FINALLY get rid of the "scissor door" 2200s still operating on the blue line? i can't for the life of me fathom why the CTA still operates those rolling anachronisms on the one train line serving the city's busiest airport, where people frequently have large and bulky luggage to get on and off the train.

it makes no freaking sense, but i suppose that would be par for the course for the CTA.

Thats essentially the plan. According to chicago-l.org and ChicagoBus.org the order of dispersal will be Pink, Green, Red, Orange Yellow, Purple... 2400s on Green and Purple will be retired, the 2600s on Pink/Red/Purple/Yellow will replace the 2200s on the Blue Line and the 3200s of the Orange Line will be dispersed to both the Blue and Brown lines based on compatibility.

No. The Pink Line only operates 44 2600s, while the Blue Line has ~130 2200s. Additional 2600s will need to come to the Blue Line from somewhere else.

Alternatively, CTA could just directly replace the remaining 2200s with 5000s. The Blue Line is self-contained, since it does not share track or maintenance sheds with any other line. CTA could send the new wheel truing machine to Forest Park or Rosemont yard.

Personally, I think the 2200s are the best-looking of any CTA railcar, past or present. The lines of the 2200 were specifically designed to complement the International Style stations of the Kennedy and Dan Ryan. They are quite literally a Miesian railcar, and pretty slick-looking even if the doors are outmoded.

EDIT: just saw the post above me. That seems like the most complicated way to phase in the 5000s... since it requires virtually the entire fleet to be reshuffled. I'm guessing there are reasons to do it that way, though... the 2400s do need replacement within the next decade, and running the 5000s on the Red Line will provide great photo-ops around the time the Billion-Dollar Project is completed.

As I understand it, the phasing is something like:

1. 5000s to Pink Line. 2600s from Pink Line to Blue Line. Retire 2200s.
2. 5000s to Green Line. 2400s from Green join their brethren at Howard for Red/Purple/Yellow service. 2600s from Howard to Blue Line. Retire remaining 2200s, begin retiring some 2400s.
3. 5000s to Howard. Retire 2400s.

The short answer is that, if you take the following mathematical constraints as a given:

1. Minimize the number of different railcar series operating out of each terminal, for the purpose of efficiency in mechanic training and stockroom inventories.
2. The 2200s must operate in train consists that also have at least one pair of another series of car, because the 2200s are not ADA compliant. So, 2200s can't make up the entire fleet at any terminal
3. Each line has a given peak car requirement based on its schedule, more or less determining exactly how many cars must be assigned to each terminal*
4. The 2200s are the oldest cars in the system and thus there is an interest in minimizing their mileage, so a line with a high differential between peak/off-peak vehicle requirements is ideal.

...then it becomes clear that Blue Line is the only reasonably viable option for the 2200s.

The 2200s look like a smashed an unraveled food can to me. Maybe I have poor taste in rail car design but comments I hear from outsiders is our new and old rolling stock looks vintage

I wonder if the track/tie work on the Purple line express will allow for 70mph speeds since the line will be operating the 5000s? I would venture to guess that they wont due to any instability of the walled embankment they ride on... that we would need to wait for a complete rebuild. Maybe we can at least see a return to 55mph speeds?

Just take a look at Bombardier's Metro Rail products and you will see first hand how antiquated our rail stock (along with NYC's) looks compared to the rest of the world.

Not that it matters for me... long as it works I could care less what it looks like... but we all know that for the general public, the 5000 series cars are not going to excite anyone or attract flocks of new riders... they just look same old, same old.

I didn't particularly like them either until I knew that they were designed by SOM. When you view them in the context of a modernist station, it all starts to make sense. Plus, the front end seems far more integrated into the overall design. From the 2400s forward, you can clearly tell the front end is some sort of fiberglass or plastic while the rest is metal.

http://www.chicago-l.org/trains/gall...00/cta2292.jpg
source

But there in lies the brilliance. The simplicity of the design and materials means that it won't ever be in style but it will never be out of style either. They look the same 40 years ago, 20 years ago, today and 20 years from now. Same goes for the Metra bi-levels. The 2200 cars were built 40 years ago and look better than BART and WMATA cars built merely 20 years ago. The 5000s will be mundane but practical long after those Bombardier stylish cars seem old and out of style.

Color notwithstanding, I think the Metro Series HK will hold their own when it comes to design longevity.