Thanks alot!

Not really pressing news, but for anyone with a spiritual bent observing Easter:

http://cta2013.tumblr.com/

This guy is a teacher at Cristo Rey and a devout Catholic, and he is doing a pilgrimage to various churches/sacred spots around the city via the L, passing all 145 stations along the way. Taking the train is a key part of the devotion:

The city can be a poetic, spiritual place as well as a mecca of consumption and sin.

No mention of the Green Line in that snippet, by the way. ;)

This year's Burnham Prize competition will be to design BRT stations for Chicago.

Maybe we should have a betting pool for how many of the entries will incorporate wind turbines, urban farming elements, or bamboo.

When is Chicago's bike system going to actually happen? Originally it was to be LAST spring, and here we are already into this April and nary a peep about it.

NY's system has been in incubation for quite awhile as well, although partly that's due to Hurricane Sandy. I was there last week and saw them pouring some footings for the kiosks.

Chicago seems to be moving ahead, though. Here's an article (from today) claiming that all of the initial 400 kiosks will be installed by June's end.

http://northcenter-roscoevillage.pat...-share-program

Just got notice that the Congress Parkway LED lighting will be unveiled tomorrow evening.

http://i.imgur.com/9w71TdF.jpg

Chicago's Complete Streets Plan is out (lengthy complex PDF):

http://www.cityofchicago.org/content...Guidelines.pdf

Interesting. . . I'll have to take a look. . . seems to me that it's taken them a long time to get this project done, but maybe not?

. . .

^Oh, many months longer than was predicted. But last night didn't seem the right time to ask Janet Attarian about it.

As I looked up-close at the laser-cut trellises, I was struck by how much richer and visually rewarding they would have been if there were two layers (the grasses and the vertical pickets) sandwiched together, rather than having everything on one layer like a simplistic silhouette. At 40 mph it makes little difference, but the new streetscape is also supposed to be rewarding to pedestrians.

I would need to see it in person to form a final opinion, but I would say that from the photos it's looks disappointingly underwhelming. I had envisioned something more like you might see in an Asian city, not something that looks like a lightly updated 1950s display.

You don't want garish and distracting. Remember the inspiration/tie-in is Buckingham Fountain, not the Ginza.

I'm not talking about advertising, but a few lit poles and rectangles isn't much to look at. Incorporating larger light displays would be a much better reflection of the scale and flow of the Buckingham Fountain.

All those lights appear to be maybe 12 feet high - Buckingham Fountain's central basin is 24 feet high and the central fountain shoots up to 150 feet in the air! How can you possibly defend a light show as being "inspired" by that when it's a bunch of static, small features? That's like saying a ladyfinger was "inspired" by a stick of dynamite - they're both explosives, but anyone who's seen dynamite doesn't consider a ladyfinger to even be in the same league. Such appears to be the case here.

And judging by the paltry press coverage of the turn-on, it would appear that most people agree that it's small and uninteresting. I think Burnham would find it embarassing.

This is a lame request but can somebody please take a picture of the construction of the Englewood Flyover? Just a drive by from the Dan Ryan is fine (if you can see anything that is.) Of course if Joe Zekas wants to go for another spin on a helicopter and snap some photos I wouldn't complain. :)

If you like squinting, you can look from this traffic camera.

Not much to see, I'm afraid, except some equipment sitting near the tracks.

CREATE article
 

Interview with CREATE Program Director....

Read more at DC Velocity

Transportation April 17, 2013
thought leaders | The DC Velocity Q & A
Creating a better rail hub: interview with William C. Thompson

As Chicago goes, so goes the country's railroad network. It's Bill Thompson's job to see that the region's historically clogged rail system doesn't go to hell in a hand basket.

By Mark B. Solomon

By the turn of the century, Chicago, the nation's busiest rail hub which today accounts for one-fourth of the nation's rail traffic, had become intolerably sclerotic. Rail lines built in the mid- to late 1800s were inadequate to meet modern-day demands, let alone any future growth. A train that took 48 hours to travel 2,200 miles from Los Angeles to Chicago was, by 2003, taking almost that long just to get through Chicago.....


And CREATE has updated the Project Status Map

CREATE LINK

Mr. Thompson has a good name for somebody trying to get things done in Chicago.

I didn't know about the AEI tags; that's really cool. Chicago is like some vast mixing bowl... if a railcar with my container of widgets enters the terminal area at 5:12am, I can count the seconds until it exits the terminal on another train.

I'm guessing that Thompson is speed dial buds with Lipinski,...

Lipinski Chosen for Exclusive House Committee Examining Transportation of Freight

Lipinski Home Page

Ashland BRT
 

CTA has updated their Ashland BRT page. It shows new conceptual renderings of stations, center running lanes with elimination of a travel lane, and an initial route running from Cortland south to 31st St.

http://www.transitchicago.com/ashlandbrt/

This all looks excellent if it is followed in full and eventually finished to run from Irving Park south to 95th st. I think the stations look fairly similar to Cleveland's Health Line which would be great.

I wish they would plan on electric trolleybuses for this BRT. That way the electric infrastructure would already be there if it was upgraded to light rail in the future.

^^^ To be honest, I really don't see how light rail is an upgrade to BRT. I'm not trying to be smart, I don't know much about transit, but I've seen people say that over and over again and don't understand. What is the advantage of LRT or BRT?

From what I see light rail is radically more expensive, but has the exact same advantages except maybe a little more capacity and a little more reliability (though who knows with the damage from Chicago's salty winters). I see BRT as having some of it's own advantages besides just cost as well. For one thing it would make it much easier to reroute buses for construction or emergencies and also would, crucially, allow buses to clear the stupid motorists that always block intersections during busy traffic. If there is an accident in the intersection or some motorists blocking it, the LRT would be stuck until the obstacle clears, while the BRT driver can just do what CTA drivers do best and force his way into the other lane(s) and clear the obstacle.

I'm absolutely thrilled that BRT seems to have momentum and think it's exactly what the city needs to finally address the issue of connectivity in the periphery. Hopefully the NIMBY business owners won't be able to water this down and will realize that having a BRT line at their front door will greatly increase foot traffic on their street and actually bring them more business in the long run. I think if we can get one BRT line built we can put it in all over the place because people will see the boon it brings to the neighborhood as it is essentially like having a new El installed right down the middle of the street.


I'd love to see the day where BRT runs the length of Ashland, Western, and Cicero as well as East-West on a few corridors (which are much harder to pick out because E-W roads, for whatever reason, seem to be much more cramped. I'd say probably Belmont, North Ave, and Irving Park on the North side and maybe Cermak, 35th, Garfield/55th, 79th, and 95th on the South Side. I could even see the implementation of BRT as the savior of the West and South sides, opening up large swaths of the city to development by encouraging people to spread out along BRT lines causing more North-South movement in gentrification.

I think this right here is the benefit light rail has over BRT --> light rail attracts greater investment because its perceived as being more permanent / reliable.

Question: would the Ashland BRT operate only during rush hours, or the same hours as the normal route?

LRT offers greater capacity on each vehicle and a smoother ride. If you're willing to run larger trams less frequently than small buses (while keeping overall capacity the same) then LRT is also cheaper to operate.

There are drawbacks, though. The long platforms would interfere with turn lanes and cross streets, and obviously the LRT can get stuck behind something and gum the whole line up.

If built, it would operate full-time. You don't pour so much concrete to run a rush-hour only service.

Not to mention it would cost about twice as much (according to some reports).

I'd encourage you to check out Metropolitan Planning Council's report on BRT from 2011: http://www.metroplanning.org/multimedia/publication/524

They recommend routes on Ashland, Western, King/Cottage Grove/Stony Island, and portions of Pulaski, Cicero, and Halsted running N/S. E/W They have Irving Park, Fullerton, Garfield, and 95th.

Light rail can have significantly more capacity than buses. It's also smoother, quieter, and generally cleaner although you could do trolley buses. It's not necessarily that much more expensive than BRT, the biggest expense for Chicago would probably be the need for a rail yard to hold and service the light rail vehicles. Compared to Chicago's biggest buses, one driver of a 3-car version of Portland-style light rail could haul at least 4 times as many people. That's a big difference. Even if you used Portland-style streetcars, which are smaller and lighter, you'd be capable of hauling twice as many people with one conductor if you used 2 coupled trolleys.

From an expenses standpoint, once you build out BRT like Chicago is proposing, the costs of putting in light rail rails actually isn't that big compared to the other changes. That's why light rail is cheaper than heavier rail - because you don't need as much rail support. If you used 3 light rail cars, you'd have to extend the platforms, but the spacing would be there, and add rails. I'm not sure what adding supported full light rail rails takes, but if you went the trolley route, you could add the rails for about $2 million per mile, which is really not that much to double capacity.

The biggest expense would be procuring and building a maintenance/storage barn for the trolley or light rail cars. I'm not sure what that would cost.

^ Perhaps, but if the BRT comes with lane markings, traffic signal priority, and dedicated boarding platforms, then that is a significant investment in its own right ($10 million per mile, according to the article) that cannot be easily duplicated by just moving the route elsewhere.

This needs to be extended to the end of Ashland, to connect with Andersonville. It doesn't make sense to stop at Irving Park.

I agree, but I believe Ashland narrows a bit north of Irving Park to a point making BRT unfeasible/difficult. I can't find the source right now, but there was a petition put together by a number of Andersonville businesses asking for the extension and the response was generally that.

It would actually be nice if they hooked east to connected to the Red Line via a turn-around designed as part of the Sheridan stop reconstruction. They could even procure that lot at Racine and Grace and the section of Kelly Park between Irving Park and Byron to route buses to/from there. If they wanted to convert to trolley service, that might even be big enough to house trolleys. Definitely if they bought that cemetery they would have enough room for trolleys - I know that cemetery was for sale some years ago.

The more I think about it, the more I like that idea. The stretch of Irving Park between Ashland and the Red Line has very few businesses that rely on parking, so there wouldn't be much complaining if you wanted to eliminate parking. The biggest impact might be that private buses serving Wrigley games wouldn't be able to line up on Irving Park anymore.

Ashland BRT is quoted as $10 m per mile. Recent light rail projects have ranged from $43 m (Hampton Roads) to $204 m for Portland’s Milwaukie Line. In a city where two concrete platforms and a roof cost $20 m (at Oakton), which end of the scale do you think more likely?

As for cheaper to operate, here are the actual operating costs per hour from the 2010 NTDB:
As you can see, operating costs per hour are more than double (average 220% of bus costs) but crush capacity is only 50% greater.

The Milwaukie line includes a major bridge, is that factored into your numbers?

Even Hampton Roads has considerable variability along the route as far as where it runs and has a number of transitions that add to the cost. By comparison, a straight shot down a straight street has a decent possibility of keeping costs low. The only big question in my mind would be whether existing bridges could handle the weight of light rail vehicles without extensive modifications. I don't know if you've been to Oakton (I have), but it is considerably more extensive than you make it sound and certainly more extensive than a light rail or brt station.

You also don't show any numbers for trolleys, which are lower capacity but also even lighter than light rail, so can run on rails that are just set in a 10-inch concrete slab over normal road foundations.

1 light rail vehicle has 50% more than 1 bus, but a light rail train could consist of 3 vehicles and fit within Chicago blocks. IF (and it's a big if) the route became popular enough to justify that sort of capacity, running 3-car light rail trains at 5-minute intervals would probably yield better service and better integration with cross-traffic than trying to run a bus every minute along that route, regardless of cost. Also, for that corridor, bus costs are y=x(n*d) where n is the cost of bus maintenance and fuel and d is the cots of the driver, while light rail costs are y=x(d+(n*{1,2,3})), where d is the cost of the operator and n is the cost of maintenance and energy for 1 light rail vehicle, so the cost per hour grows somewhat more slowly as you expand a light rail train and the crush capacity *per scheduled arrival* can end up being 450% higher comparing a light rail train to a bus.

I'm very confused by your cost equations, could you provide units and a source? Are 'n' and 'd' in $/mile or $/hour? Why would you multiply the cost of the driver by the cost of maintenance for a bus but not a light rail vehicle? Addition definitely makes sense in this case, assuming 'x' is whatever the divisor is for 'n' and 'd'. Wouldn't you pay the driver in $/hour and the maintenance of the vehicles be $/mile?

Basically the argument comes down to a capacity vs. cost trade off. If you will look at the MPC source I provided earlier, they estimated that the avg cost/mile for BRT is $13.32 million while for LRT it is $35 million. If capacity needs are great enough 5-10 years in the future, the line can be upgraded for a fraction of the cost. Why not prove it works then upgrade? The buses they will buy have 100 person capacity (non crush) which is already a pretty big upgrade over the current 40 foot buses (source: http://chi.streetsblog.org/2013/04/1...rt-on-ashland/).

Let's see them do BRT right, at a cost of $10 million/mile (their current estimate). Then, when investment appears (as it did in Cleveland on an inferior line), the discussion about upgrading it to LRT can happen.

Personally I'd rather see a network of BRT before investing in LRT. Ashland and Western N/S lines, and then a 2 E/W lines on the North and South sides of the city.

The maintenance argument is a big one. We already have an infrastructure to service, store, and maintain buses. LRT would require a whole new servicing facility and training for new employees.

LRT, I think, will make sense down the road. But as Mr. D mentioned, why spend more money than we need to when transit dollars are scarce and construction costs are at an all-time high? As you mentioned, installing streetcars later is simply a matter of coming in and installing a track slab and traction power system (unless there are manholes in the way). It can be done incrementally while the buses are operating. Meanwhile, the exclusive lanes and high platforms will already exist. By the time we reach that point, we may get to a Toronto-level of congestion where the transit line needs to go underground at certain intersections.

It's too early to tell, but I hope CTA officials carefully consider the details of how rail-BRT transfers work. There will be three of them in the initial phase, maybe more if they decide to build connectors at Polk, 18th, or Congress. Certainly at Ashland/Lake I think it makes sense to build a direct stairway from the stationhouses to Ashland's median (which would, coincidentally, restore the original design). At Division a median stair would be awesome, but it might be cheaper to simply move the platforms to the curbs. At 31st I assume the bus will simply end in the existing turnaround facility, but a more permanent solution on Ashland will be needed eventually.

In most corridors, I think the higher capacity of LRV works against it as a mode choice, because you're forcing people to wait longer for the privilege of riding a rail vehicle. They'd generally prefer a bus every five minutes to an LRV every 15.

If you have the ridership where bus capacity becomes a problem, it's time to get off the street entirely, into a subway.

It gets tiring to hear some people complain that this should have been Light Rail, to be honest. It's kind of time to get over that fantasy. The numbers are all out there, it's way too expensive, and as others have argued, would at best have a mild benefit over the much cheaper BRT. In addition, as others have said, BRT can always be upgraded to LRT in the future.

In my opinion the focus right now should be how the BRT should be implemented, as opposed to whether it should be BRT or LRT.

The bigger mistake, in my mind, would be to do a BRT-light system. If it's perceived as just a glorified bus, it won't achieve its goal and people will be pissed that they lost a driving lane. They need proper lane markings, proper branding, well functioning TSP, good enforcement of the bus-only lanes, well designed transfers to heavy rail stations, elevated boarding platforms that are fairly well designed, and prepaid boarding.

The fact that they are already waivering on prepaid boarding has me concerned--do they just not see the big picture here? You need to make this thing smooth and convenient for people, and FAST, if you're going to get people out of their cars for these types of crosstown trips.

THANK YOU.

Its not going to be light rail, its not going to be electrified buses, its not going to be a trolley system and it will not be a subway. So lets just get on with it and discuss how this can be a proper, highly functional and integrated BRT system for the city of Chicago.

In the interview with StreetsBlog Chicago, Kevin O'Malley (CTA's general manager of strategic planning and policy) stated that this will be the fist Gold Standard BRT system in the US. You can take a look at the scorecard here: http://www.itdp.org/microsites/the-b...013/scorecard/ . They will have to maximize those points from the "BRT Basics" if they really want to get the Gold Standard, so I have some measure of faith that those will be met.

They need 85 points for Gold Standard. Points that I think will be lost are: secure bike parking (just not enough space), Bicycle Lanes (the bike lanes will be on Damen as opposed to Ashland probably), Docking Bays/Sub Stops, and Passing Lanes at Stations. That is already 9 points lost so they are going to only be able to lose another 6. It'll be close.

I dunno, it seems like they might be pretty flexible in how the points are applied. Bike lanes on Damen would get them 2 points, since it runs parallel to the corridor. It doesn't say how far away "parallel" means. CDOT might also do a bike boulevard on Paulina.

Metra urges CTA riders to try its trains when Red Line closes May 19
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...ves-20130426,\
0,5631621.story

By Richard Wronski, Chicago Tribune reporter

9:02 p.m. CDT, April 25, 2013

Attention CTA riders: Metra has its eyes on you when the Red Line shuts down the
South Side branch May 19 for major reconstruction.

The commuter rail agency is cooperating with the CTA to accommodate customers
left scrambling during the five months when the 10-mile Red Line stretch from
Cermak-Chinatown to 95th Street will be rebuilt at a cost of $425 million.

Metra said Thursday it would modify its schedule and ticketing to help the South
Side branch's 80,000 weekday Red Line riders during the shutdown. But — no
surprise here — Metra also wants to hang on to some of those customers.

"There's a great opportunity … to get (CTA) riders to stay with us," Metra
marketing chief Robert Carlton told board members at a recent meeting.

In addition to the CTA's previously announced plans for alternative service for
Red Line riders, Metra's Electric and Rock Island lines would be good options,
officials said.

The Metra Electric line runs east of the Red Line and serves Van Buren and
Millennium stations.

The Metra Electric line stations that can be used by Red Line riders include
63rd Street, 75th Street (Grand Crossing), 79th Street (Chatham), 87th Street
(Woodruff) and 95th Street (Chicago State University) in Chicago, plus the
Harvey station, Metra said.

Metra said the Chicago stations will become regular stops for two inbound and
two outbound rush-hour trains that normally stop only at customer request.

The Rock Island line runs to the west of the Red Line and serves LaSalle Street
Station.

Rock Island stations that can accommodate Red Line riders include 35th Street
(Sox park), Gresham, 95th Street (on Beverly and main line branches) and Blue
Island/Vermont Street, Metra said.

Most of those stations correspond with a Red Line stop and are located along
east-west bus routes that also serve those "L" stops.

The CTA, Metra and Pace also will offer a new fare package to accommodate Red
Line customers. It will include a special CTA/Pace five-day pass and a Metra
10-ride ticket.

The CTA does not normally offer a five-day pass, and it will be priced at a
discount, the agency said.

The five-day pass/10-ride ticket package will cost $52 for Metra Zone B riders;
$64 for Zone C; and $74 for Zone D.

Further information can be found at transitchicago.com/redsouth and
metrarail.com, officials said.

rwronski@...

Twitter @richwronski

Copyright © 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC


THE BATTLE BEGINS.......

Mike Payne

This sort of language is a regional embarrassment.

It shouldn't be a competition, it should be a holistic regional solution. Geez.

TOTALLY agree! RTA is a hopeless, backward mess.

From another Board: http://forum.chicagobus.org/topic/28...roject/page-21

If 53rd street continues to develop, I would think the green line will eventually expand and Hyde Park will finally get their CTA line. University of Chicago is working hard making Hyde Park more of a destination by pulling in popular restaurants like Longman & Eagle and Yusho to open up places in the neighborhood.

What is Chicago planning? Not nearly enough

Is good planning in Chicago as dead as Daniel Burnham?

That's the question effectively posed in a provocative new book by two veteran Chicago observers at Roosevelt University, D. Bradford Hunt and Jon DeVries. They cover a lot of territory. Mostly, they are right.

Their hypothesis in “Planning Chicago” is that a city that in many ways invented American urban planning and gained mightily from that experience has lost its mojo, dragged down by high debt levels, politics and a tax-increment financing beast that has become the proverbial tail wagging the Chicago dog.

“Financing sources have driven choices and decisions,” the two conclude in the book. “When financing drives planning, rather than the other way around, decisions are made on a deal-by-deal basis that serves the needs of political actors more than the general public.”

As Chicago Plan Commission Chairman Reuben Hedlund is quoted as saying, referring to the Richard M. Daley years: “Comprehensive plans (have) given way to incremental efforts, one planned development at a time.”

Mr. DeVries in particular is concerned about the city's failure to improve public transit much in recent decades. The director of Roosevelt's Bennett Institute of Real Estate, he knows a fair amount about that subject, having worked on and off for decades as a city consultant.

The downtown circulator system designed to move commuters from West Loop railroad stations to Michigan Avenue and other points east died in the '90s, Mr. DeVries points out; a West Loop transportation center intended to allow further expansion of downtown's office district is moribund; and hopes of extending the Chicago Transit Authority's Red Line south have been delayed in favor of far more limited initiatives like the budding Bus Rapid Transit network.

CTA President Forrest Claypool responds that the CTA is boosting its capacity by spending big bucks on equipment and repairing slow zones. Still, he concedes, “I'm not defending transportation planning by any stretch; it's been poor.”

Read more: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...#ixzz2RnTKcERD

I've been reading this book over the weekend, and I think very highly of it. It pulls no punches about the sad state of Chicago planning, and cogently tells the stories behind Central Station, Block 37, Millennium Park etc.

Haven't read the book, but I'm obviously familiar with the issues. That said, is it really worthwhile to be planning castles in the sky, new transit lines, huge visionary parks, South Works proposals, etc? I want planners to deal with the immense challenge of reforming land use. Rewriting the zoning code would be a good start, and it would seriously help to place roadblocks in the way of downzoning. How about writing TOD plans for some of our existing rail stations? Not in the weak-sauce New Urbanist way that Arlington Heights and Elmhurst have pursued but a far more active role, with city-led redevelopment and private-sector involvement

I dunno, maybe not. I'll be the first to admit that plenty of great planning ideas are out there with serious transformative potential, and have been ignored because of a lack of even moderate funding and/or political turf wars.

The problem seems to be A) a lack of will to push for new solutions and B) a lot of under-utilized infrastructure that weakens the case for further investment.

But we just rewrote the zoning code in 2004. What we've never done is remapped the city in accordance with a comprehensive plan.

I guess I meant regionally, but obviously land use in the city needs reform as well.

Increased frequency on Metra lines and upzoning in suburban downtown areas can create a whole new swath of transit-oriented Chicagoland with almost no capital investment by transit agencies.

As I said above, the biggest stumbling blocks are not a lack of funding or a lack of will behind megaprojects but inter-agency disputes and a basic misunderstanding of transit-oriented regional planning. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but why are we planning to spend several billion to extend the Red Line when Metra Electric already has the infrastructure and frequent stop spacing to act as a frequent urban transit line? We forumers all know the answer by now, I think, but those are the problems we need to deal with; not some Burnham-esque lack of soul-stirring planning magic.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...-wilson-l-stop

Greg Hinz on Politics
CTA seeks bidder to rebuild Wilson el station
May 03, 2013

The Chicago Transit Authority today formally sought bidders for what will be one of the largest projects in its history and the most expensive station job ever - the estimated $203 million reconstruction of the Red Line's Wilson Avenue station.

Bids for general contractors are due by mid-June, with the CTA board scheduled to vote in August and work to begin this fall. The CTA wants 25 percent of subcontracting to go to minority- and women-owned firms. Construction is scheduled to take about three years, but the station will be open in the meantime.

One reason the job is estimated to cost so much is that it will allow the elimination of some of the support columns that adjoin the station and make the stretch of Broadway around the station dark and, frankly, dangerous looking.

Another is that the station will rebuilt in such a way as to allow transfers between the Red and Purple lines and to allow the circa 1923 terra cotta facade and clock tower to be restored.

...

With Lawrence so close, I kind of wish they just shut down Wilson for a period during construction to trim down that lengthy 3 year construction period.

There's a lot of track work involved. My guess is that most of the length of time is because they continue to run trains through the station, not because the trains are stopping in the station.