More cow bell please.....

As much as we all love to see shiny new train lines, BRT is the path of least resistance of getting more rapid transit options to folks in the city.

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The IMD is floating plans to add protected bike lanes, curb bumpouts, remove curb cuts, and close short sections of streets for pedestrian plazas. This would go a long way towards improving the streetscape: https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/04...ians-cyclists/

Metra is equalizing BNSF's Saturday and Sunday schedules and adding additional trains starting April 29th. This now means roundtrip weekday service is hourly or less, and roundtrip weekend service is almost hourly! I've been impressed, and honestly proud, with Metra the past few years. They've been serious about becoming a regional rail agency

New BNSF schedule: https://schedules.metrarail.com/pdf/...ative/BNSF.pdf

Maybe they've been sending an executive or board member to Toronto to ride GO and come back ashamed?

Great news..... Chicago has a major benefit of having rail infrastructure already in place that we can ramp up without the need for super expensive new investments.

The real travesty are the lines that don't run on weekends at all, IMO.

The 2 hour gap in the inbound weekend schedule between the 12:05 and 2:05 departures from Aurora still doesn't make sense to me.

It seems like it would be so easy to just fill those gaps by running one more train on Saturday and another on Sunday. Are those two, 2-hour gaps each week, somehow ESSENTIAL for BNSF's national freight operations? Or is it just the vestiges of "Old Metra" acting like a commuter railroad, where keeping schedules regular is not all that important during mid day? But it seems like they are taking strides to break away from that past - so why? What is it with the 1pm gap on weekends? From a passenger perspective that seems like it could be a fairly busy time for the train. So why don't they just run another train?

^Not sure exactly, but you don't just "run another train." It has to be staffed.

It could be that BNSF feels it serves more people to have the afternoon crews stay later into the evening, or it could be that the midday crews both take their mandated lunch breaks at that time because they're at terminals rather than out on the road.

The RTA is applying for a grant to purchase MORE battery-electric trainsets for the RID, UP-N, and MD-W/NCS. The goal is to run more frequent local service to Blue Island, Wilmette, and O'Hare. Metra is slowly becoming Chicago's rapid transit service, while the CTA is decaying into a commuter rail service

https://i.imgur.com/VDi991L.png
https://www.rtachicago.org/uploads/f...ectSummary.pdf

I find it interesting the NCS doesn't run more often, and maybe this is a move in that direction. It makes sense 15 years ago before we had a multi-modal facility with a people mover at O'Hare that can take you to the main terminals, but if Chicago is serious about a rapid option to O'hare without building new infrastructure on the Blue Line, this would be the path of least resistance.

Any new word on when State/Lake will close to be rebuilt into a modern station?

According to this video from the CTA at the beginning of the year (at 39 seconds), work is supposed to begin on State/Lake this year. However, I haven't seen any additional information (including any updated renderings of the station design) since the announcement back in 2021.

• Video Link

Ohhhh!

A more frequent early morning schedule on the UP-N could possibly persuade me off the brown line.

^ Since I live along the MED, it's been faster for me to get up north by taking the line to Millennium Station, walking or Divvying to Ogilvie, and taking the UP-N before my ticket expires, than relying on the CTA. It's a ridiculous setup, but the weekday schedules are reliable enough that I can get from Woodlawn/Hyde Park to Uptown/Rogers Park in just under an hour. If Metra and Amtrak can finally get funding for CHIP, then hopefully the MED can access Union Station and make the journey to Ogilvie more reasonable

^ the UP-N is faster than the brown line for my Lincoln Square to the loop daily commute.

But the current early morning schedule sucks.

There's one train that gets into ogilvie at 6:25 am and then the next one gets in at 7:25am.

My workday starts at 7:00am.

Brown line it is.

I do the same thing except from South Chicago. UP-N is so much faster. I can get up to Evanston in about an hour total, which is not much longer than driving. This only works because I sprint on my bike from Van Buren to Ogilvie in 10 minutes or less. It's pretty stressful especially because the "or less" is because the train is usually behind schedule.

All of that to say, I can't wait for the day there's a connection to Union Station.

Fellow transit geeks:

I’m hosting another transit+urbanism salon: Friday evening, April 19. 6 pm, 899 S. Plymouth (9th & State). Details at https://chicagoinmaps.com/salon.html

The formal bid opening by CDOT is coming up in a few weeks in May. After that, CDOT will work with the winning bidder to finalize the contract, get subs on board, etc.

Probably won't see shovels in the ground until next Spring though, and it's a 6-year construction timeline that must be coordinated around major downtown events, marathons, parades, etc.

This is basically two projects in one, not only are they rebuilding the elevated station with an ambitious world-class design but they are also expanding and renovating the underground Lake/Randolph mezzanine on the Red Line.

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg...vic-federation

Is the moment now? Fold the CTA into the RTA?