I'm nearly speechless. If you aren't not the exemplar of impassioned dedication I don't know who is. I commend you for all the work you've put toward this issue and hope you never give up the good work.

Yes Mr Payne that is really quite a story. I for one like your gray line plan quite a bit. Much more than the redline extension. Which to me is a racial politics boondoggle. Your plan would much better serve dense transit oriented parts of the city

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,3797671.story


Panel recommends mass transit for rebuilt Addams tollway
Special 'managed' lanes urged for cars, express buses

By Richard Wronski, Chicago Tribune reporter

May 25, 2012

The Illinois Tollway should include congestion-priced, "managed" lanes and mass-transit options such as express buses as part of its plan to rebuild the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, an advisory council recommended Thursday.

The group also urged the Illinois Department of Transportation to consider continuing those special lanes and transit options on the Kennedy Expressway all the way to downtown Chicago.

The recommendations were reached after nine months of ...

As part of its $12.1 billion, 15-year reconstruction program, the tollway plans to rebuild and widen the Addams from the Kennedy Expressway to Interstate 39 in Rockford.

The Addams work is estimated to cost $2.2 billion and is scheduled for 2013 to 2016. The Addams will be eight lanes from the Kennedy to Randall Road in Elgin and six lanes from Randall to I-39.

...

Later, the inside shoulder could be converted into an express bus lane. Longer term, the council suggests using the inside median for an unspecified rail option.

...

The proposals offered Thursday didn't spell out the rail option, but one possibility could be extending the CTA's Blue Line beyond its current end point at O'Hare International Airport.

The council also recommended that local governments along I-90 should plan for station areas, park-and-ride lots and other amenities to support transit options.

Tollway officials said they would work with transit and transportation agencies to evaluate the recommendations.

Didn't they just redo most of this?

Yes, I quess by the next spring start the new lanes would be roughly the same age and easier to add onto esp if they knew the expansion was coming they would have already made the roadway ready for this next phase.

maybe I am an idiot but I really don't see how mass transit options are viable at the density levels in that area of sprawlburbia. I just don't see it as being successful; can anyone explain to me how this can be pulled of succesfully given the geospatial realities and the cultural idiosycrarcies of people who live out there.

Thank You so much Bee, it is such a spiritual boost to hear words like yours; and I never plan to stop (until the trains start running) - even though some tell me "my ship has sunk".

You can BET there will be more happening in the future, and I will keep you updated.

These are the Fliers the article spoke of: http://grayline.20m.com/cgi-bin/i/im...lier_front.jpg http://grayline.20m.com/cgi-bin/i/im...flier_rear.jpg

Mike Payne

Thank You also lawfin, and you hit it RIGHT ON THE HEAD with that "racial politics boondoggle" riff; if you don't mind I will use that in discussions often.

Mike Payne

Well, the RER lines extend pretty far out into Parisian exurbia... but Ile-de-France is compact compared to Chicagoland. Aurora is a natural terminus for the BNSF, Illinois' 2nd-biggest city with a large and very urban core.

I think I'd pair BNSF (to Aurora) up with UP-North (to Waukegan), since both lines have the highest ridership. The other two lines in my scheme would be North Central (to O'Hare) blended with Metra Electric (to University Park), and UP-NW (to Palatine) blended with the South Shore (to Gary). Service to stations further out would be provided by traditional trains that end at downtown terminals, a less-frequent but geographically-larger version of the current Metra system.

I proposed a tunnel for BNSF east of Kedzie, running beneath Ogden and Polk to better serve the IMD and UIC, which would be huge ridership generators if they were directly on a rail line. The IMD station would also be a 1/2 mile walk to the United Center. There's also a tunnel under Fairbanks/Lake Shore Drive/Division that links Millennium with Clybourn. Make no small plans...

^ Probably through park n ride lots.

At least for now, I imagine that is the best way to funnel auto-dependent sprawl-burbia residents into the dense urban core while still preserving road space on the choked expressways.

Ultimately, I'm glad the tollway is beginning to give more light of day to alternatives such as rail row, express bus lanes, and other creative ideas.

When are they going to widen the Edens to 8 lanes? All the jobs are located along the edens in the northshore instead of the metra lines so your forced to drive. The reverse commute to the burbs is 4 times worse than the commute to the city from the burbs. I can't believe the edens is only 6 lanes or I-90 is only 6 for that matter.

I got a little crazy there , but marrying a heavily used line with another Heavily used line could cause some overcrowding and stress issues....

The Urbanophile proposed auxiliary lanes on the Edens... the congestion occurs not because the volume of traffic is too great for the road, but because certain entrances contribute massive volumes of traffic (Dempster, Touhy, Old Orchard) and the merging process requires everyone to slow down. Auxiliary lanes would give the entering traffic a much greater time to merge in (and they might allow the stupid ramp meters to be removed).

I doubt the Kennedy will ever be widened. IDOT has routinely been rebuilding the overpasses, which have reached the end of their lifespan. The new ones are exactly the same width as the old ones, with no provisions for a fourth lane. The massive structures at the Junction and Jefferson Park are also immovable obstacles... really the only way to widen the Kennedy is to move the Blue Line somewhere else.

Huh? Your service frequency and train length is determined by ridership levels. If you don't have similar ridership levels on both ends of a "crosstown" line, then you're either wasting a ton of money by providing too much service on the weaker end, or you split the difference and then you don't provide enough service to the busier end.

I'll redo the list...

City Hall releases blueprint for upgrading Union Station


May 23, 2012

By FRAN SPIELMAN

Read More: http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhal...n-station.html

I really appreciate your comments, but on the other end of the spectrum.

If you ask very nicely, some others on this board will tell you what a COMPLETE IDIOT I am, how this Project has NO CHANCE IN HELL, and how "my ship has already sunk".

I realize we are all talking in fantasy, but what are the logistics of combining separately owned routes, especially ones that currently originate from different stations? Are there agreements in place stating which ownership can operate out of which station?

I would agree that this would be the preferred combo, but said MD-W since both are owned by Metra and both operate out of Union Station.

Delete

Right. There's currently no way to merge those two lines. But doing any through-routing at all is gonna require some sort of new tunnel, so my plan includes a tunnel spur to the rail line near Grand and the river. From there, there's already a grade-separated line leading directly to UP-N.

Operationally, it would require some interesting stuff. UP operates the Metra service under contract, but in other parts of the country UP has been loathe to operate any commuter service. I'm guessing UP would agree to surrender operations on UP-N and UP-NW so long as UP-W remains under their control; the West line is the busy cash-cow freight route, while the other two see relatively little freight traffic, only nights and weekends if at all.

With UP out of the way, I suppose BNSF could operate the combined line through a trackage-rights agreement. Presumably BNSF would want control of any commuter service on their line, which is also a major cash-cow freight route.

This makes no sense at all. They already have a mail line that connects north concourse from the BNSF south concourse in Union and is the only through way why would they not just connect to the Milwaukee lines at Union instead of spending on a ridiculous project to connect to UP-N. Plus technically you could link to to both MD-W and MD-N since they share the same lines up until right after Western where they spur off.

On RER lines connecting RATP and SNCF suburban services, trains actually switch drivers in the middle. Conceptually, something similar could be done with through-running Metra trains, although I definitely prefer your idea of BNSF running things further up.

There are some daytime freight moves on the UP-NW/UP-N lines—I now live off of Blackhawk west of the Kennedy, and I sometimes see freight movements across the Kennedy along the UP-N/NW lines around noon (based on what I’ve read online and what relatives in Evanston say, these seem to be coming from the Northwest line); alternatively, they could be shorter maneuvers within the small yard facility there, though they don’t look like that to me. I’m pretty sure these could be easily rescheduled or scheduled around, though.

Anyone know how much it would cost to buy the UP-N/NW lines outright? I personally doubt it would be worth the investment—UP would almost certainly demand some rights to continue running along the line as a condition of sale plus coverage for liabilities, but it might still help clear things up. Even though buying the Worcester line from CSX was a major headache from the MBTA, from what I understand it was the only way they could accomplish what they wanted to along that route.

We've talked about this before, but for the benefit of newcomers:

Bion J. Arnold's 1914 scheme for through-routing steam road commuter service is online here. It still makes a lot of sense to me:

http://i.imgur.com/BOU12EI.gif
Hooker, George Ellsworth. Through Routes for Chicago's Steam Railroads. City Club of Chicago, 1914

1. IC to C&NW North Line via a new subway under St. Clair and Ohio
2. Rock Island, NYC, and C&WI to C&NW Northwest Line via a new subway under LaSalle and Ohio
3. Alton, Wabash, and Pennsy to Milwaukee Road lines via Union Station
4. Burlington to C&NW West Line via Union Station

Though I'd probably put the new subway under Clark and Chicago rather than LaSalle and Ohio, I still think that would be a useful and farsighted way for us to spend a billion dollars. Arnold took a lot of trouble to avoid crossing lines, which might not today be so essential. It might make sense to reconsider his threading, so that the Burlington, for instance, would link to the C&NW North Line rather than doubling back west. Or, since every line basically goes through a throat near Kinzie/Desplaines, a big transfer station there would allow any possible transfer. Of course, my first move would be to put all the Metra lines on half-hour non-rush headways, so the system could work as true regional rail rather than commuter rail.

Would love to see this come though. Electricity, still modern after 300 years.

Thanks... the through-routing plan shows how Chicago's city fathers anticipated the needs of the rail system 60 years before Paris started to connect its terminals via the RER (German cities had through-running from the start).

I think crossing lines with transfer stations are essential to the whole venture. The regional rail system needs to work as a network, so that riders on one line have easy convenient access to the stations on any other line. Efficient transfer stations require crossing lines or, if you wanna go whole-hog, cross-platform transfers.

Philly is the only American city to even attempt something like this, but that experiment seems to have failed. I wonder if there are any good accounts of how the reform happened originally and why SEPTA back-slid.

RTA seeks consolidation of some services between CTA, Metra, Pace
 

http://www.suntimes.com/news/transpo...etra-pace.html

Updated: May 29, 2012 2:10AM

Ever see a Pace bus pass you by while you’re waiting for a CTA bus?

The Regional Transportation Authority calls that a redundant service route and an example of just one way that combining parts of the CTA, Metra and Pace could save taxpayers $150 million a year.

Streamlining service between CTA and Pace buses could save up to $50 million of that total, the RTA says.

The ideas are detailed in a memo written by RTA Chairman John Gates and addressed to RTA board members. The memo also was sent to the CEOs of Metra, Pace and the CTA on Friday.

Combining purchasing, personnel, marketing and maintenance departments will save $100 million a year, Gates wrote in the memo.

“There is a need to make this a priority to more quickly allow for interagency travel and realize increased taxpayer savings,” the memo said.

Each agency has its own executive staff, administrative personnel and headquarters. Gates is asking to consolidate services and contracts, such as lobbying and legal work. He’s also urging the agencies to combine maintenance facilities, warehouses and contracts for fuel services.

“In this year’s budget process the RTA will demand more information on streamlining and maximizing resources,” Gates’ memo said. “I plan to ask each service board to provide the specific steps they are taking to make these cost-saving initiatives a reality.”

And he wants CTA President Forrest Claypool at the RTA Board meeting Wednesday to hear his views.

Universal fare card on way?

Among the cost-saving ideas is fare coordination, which the CTA and Metra have been discussing for months. But the CTA says it’s already doing something similar with Pace: the new Open Fare system, which they call the “gateway to a universal fare card.”

And the CTA already has agreed to restructure overlapping bus service, according to CTA spokeswoman Molly Sullivan.

Also, the three agencies have renewed the Link Up pass, the only fare instrument that works for all three agencies. It’s the closest thing to a universal pass that Chicago area transit has. It’s accepted at all times by Pace and during rush hours by the CTA. Pace said there were about 220,000 rides by Link Up passholders last year.

“The transit agencies that actually deliver service each day are working together more closely than ever to better serve their customers,” Sullivan said.

That also includes a joint purchasing agreement between the CTA and Metra for common supplies such as spikes, plates and other track components, Sullivan said.

And as for getting rid of those high-paying administrative positions? The CTA says senior-level position cuts and management initiatives were projected to slash $117 million from the $277 million budget deficit.

Blast from the past

In June 1992, RTA Chairman Gayle Franzen began his campaign to combine his agency and the three agencies into a single transit board: a superagency.

It didn’t work. Few legislators expressed support, while Metra and Pace said it was a bad idea. The CTA at first said it would be difficult, then called the idea “botched.”

So what was the problem? Suburban leaders feared consolidation would mean their dollars would be going to city services; while city leaders thought their money would be filtered to the suburbs. Another problem: A partisan struggle for control over the contracts and jobs.

By November 1992, Franzen dumped his own idea, saying it created far too much distrust among the agencies.

The first idea of a centralized superagency came in 1973, at the time of a mass transit financial crisis. That’s when the RTA was created.

Duplicative costs ‘riddle system’

The RTA says a 2007 audit of the transit agencies found “duplicative” administration costs, redundant service routes and inefficient use of resources that “riddle our system.”

And in 2008, the RTA began to research coordination and fairness in spending for the agencies.

Ultimately, Gates says he wants the three agencies to pick up the pace on coordination to save taxpayers’ money.

“Because taxpayers and customers suffer when these inefficiencies go unchecked, the RTA has worked tirelessly for several years to identify opportunities for system-wide improvements,” Gates wrote in the memo. “Unfortunately, though we have presented plans to eliminate the inefficiencies identified in the 2007 audit and identified other opportunities to streamline operations and maximize resources, the service boards have not implemented any major joint steps toward this end.”

Pace spokesman Patrick Wilmot said the RTA held several meetings with senior-level management last year about consolidating services, but “no specifics” were laid out.

Room for innovation?

The battle over money and consolidation might be leaving something out: innovation.

“There’s still the battle of the turf that crops up about the new Pace Express bus services, how those can be lengthened to create a better-coordinated bus system for the city and suburbs,” said Joseph Schwieterman, a transportation expert at DePaul University. “And that’s been a hard battle because Pace has had difficulties fighting its case for express bus routes when it comes to” sharing routes with Metra.

There’s a barrier between the agencies, he said. And breaking that barrier will benefit customers.

“In this region you have such limited Metra service on Sunday. . . . If we could just bring some energy to this process, have more freedom to use Pace, Metra and the CTA seamlessly, without any one agency looking over the other shoulder, the region would be better off.”

I don't get why they distrust each other so much, I mean they have 3 completely separate markets and roles that don't really impede on each other. There's no real fighting for "turf" which would seem to me the biggest motivator and factor and by working together they can only grow.

Also, what are people's thoughts on this so-called "Superagency?" Would it actually work better than what is right now or should they just try to be more cooperative?

"Turf" isn't the real issue, it is, as with much in life, all about the Benjamins.

If you have two agencies (PACE notwithstanding), one representing the suburbs and one representing the City, they can battle it out, but they both essentially have to get something out of it just by virtue of existence.

If you have one agency, then how the rules get made to decide where the money gets spent scares the existing two agencies. The City has the density requisite for transit, as well as a much higher percentage of transit-dependent riders, so they can claim a much bigger section of the transit funding slice from a rational planning basis. But the suburbs have (over) twice as many residents, so they can try to claim a much bigger slice of the transit pie just on democratic appeals. The City probably needs the suburbs money more than the suburbs need transit, so it's a really scary proposition for the CTA to mess with a system that largely still works for the City.

Hmm, good points. Well as a suburbanite, I see things from the side of the suburbs (but recognize Chicago's end too), and the way suburban sees transportation is that they will use it IF and Only If its extremely convenient to use. For instance, I live in Bartlett, and my cousins live in Hoffman Estates. Just for a fun daytrip, I would take the Metra into the city but they would rather drive since they live off of 90 and the nearest Metra station is Schaumburg. Once in the city, both of us would use CTA to get around as it is much more convenient than driving (trips to the Museum of S & I notwithstanding). So I guess my point is that in order to grow the whole metro area system, you have to spend more at the suburban level to connect them better with the city at which point lazy suburbanites will see the value in using the transit over driving.

So in sum, in order to change suburban consumer's minds about transit, it has to outweigh the benefits of driving. This means that transit needs to have access to everywhere suburban consumers would want to go, and ultimately that would increase the amount of "Benjamins" for all agencies.

When it comes to suburban buses I might move the opposite direction of a heavily coordinated, all-seeing planning agency.

I have to think that some of the larger suburbs that have horrendous coverage, such as Arlington Heights (where a lot of my relatives live) could do a lot better if they had more local control over the routes... Are there currently any suburbs that run their own buses independent of (or in addition to) Pace? Are they prohibited from doing so?

Kamin's review of the new Morgan stop:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,7433092.story

And you've just illustrated why the city considers one agency rule to be a threat.

Providing the level of service necessary to make it easy for very-low-density surburbs to use transit would be an ENORMOUS net cost. That cost would drain transit dollars, even if not directly from the City's tax roles, from the State sources of revenue, which would hurt the City.

The only rational stance is that in order to enjoy transit service above just commuter-level, people need to be willing to live in areas above a certain density. Most of the suburbs that are at that density level have transit, but it would be a waste of money to try and provide transit to areas where people can't walk to things. Transit is best when it's viewed as a supplement to walking, and not as a car alternative. That's why the "L" running in the middle of expressways is a fundamentally flawed design. Putting it in the center of expressways is fundamentally inconvenient for walking, and it puts it in direct competition with cars, where cars are most efficient.

I am a huge transit advocate, and I think there needs to be better integration of the existing systems. But the only way I'd support a super-agency is if it had, in the charter, that it would only provide service in areas that maintained a density of either population or jobs or some combination of the two above certain levels or, at the least, maintained zoning that would enable such density (this would help protect some of the Green Line stops in bombed-out parts of the South Side. And if the cities in the agencies accepted some subservience in zoning around existing transit infrastructure. Allowing new single family home construction next to "L" stations is absolutely moronic, and any super-agency should not only have the power to tell a suburb that it won't get frequent bus transit in areas that require 1 acre lots, but the power to tell Chicago it will lose "L" stations if it doesn't start allowing appropriately dense development near its existing rail infrastructure.

The ONLY suburb(s) that could theoretically support their own bus line would be Aurora-Naperville, but even then I'm not sure the overall density would justify it.

Regarding the through routing plan. It is a thing of beauty but needs some updating. Here is my modification and attempt to balance things out based on modern (annual) ridership figures.

UP-N (8.7 million) <-> Metra Electric (9.7 million) via new tunnel - unchanged
This route has the greatest potential for ridership growth on both ends with new in-town stations and increased frequency

UP-NW (10.8 million) <-> Rock Island + SWS (11 million) via new tunnel - unchanged

BNSF (16.2 million) <-> MD-W, MD-N, NCS (15.3 million) via new tunnel under Clinton or Canal Street
This tunnel is already planned.

UP-W (7.8 million) <-> NICTD South Shore (4.2 million) via Union Station through tracks + SCAL
South shore comes up short for now but has a lot of potential for growth with branches to Valparaiso/Lowell capturing extra ridership from the rest of northern Indiana.

All intercity trains would terminate at Union Station.

The biggest problem I see is the huge number of new underground stations that would need to be built. Digging tunnels is expensive but not impossibly so; it's stations that really blow the budget. Could any stations be eliminated (or deferred) without impacting the plan's effectiveness too severely?

A "Superagency" obviously has way too much potential for misuse.

"Should they try to be more cooperative"?

These are A L L grown-azzed people - who should S T O P acting like 3 year old kids (sorry - no offense meant to 3 year old kids).

"It's M Y ball, and Y O U can't play with it" "ttttthhhhhuuuuupppppp"

"I don't want to play with Y O U R stinky old ball anyway" "ttttthhhhuuuuuppppp"

Oh Yeah - r e a l "Adult" of them.

Alternatively, (but still for a massive cost) what about returning the UP-N to 3-4 track service? The ROW is still there for it well past Evanston and it would allow for uninhibited freight and passenger movement through the corridor. Has something like this ever been brought up in transit/freight circles?

Your plan works well from a ridership perspective but doesn't offer the most convenient transfer opportunities.

In terms of stations, I think the network would need to reach as many regional-level destinations as possible - this is why I proposed rerouting BNSF into an Ogden-Polk tunnel, to serve the Medical District and UIC while avoiding Global One and the Union Station yards.

There should also be stations at NMH/Streeterville and Water Tower. My plan actually takes that subway line all the way up to North, with a station at Lincoln Park Corner and North/Clybourn (which allows direct link to the Red Line). This could be reduced to a Chicago subway, with the Water Tower station offering the Red Line transfer and a second station at Chicago/Larrabee. Either way, there's a total of 7 underground stations, plus a variety of infill stations at surface level or on viaducts.

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1033/rerf.jpg

I don't think you should put that under North Ave - there's very little office space up there, and commuter rail is not the kind of enhanced transit service that Lincoln Park needs anyway.

Run it under Chicago Ave, and at the same time build the Clinton Street subway so you can put a transfer point near Chicago and Kingsbury so north shore people can get to their jobs in the West Loop.

There's also virtually zero benefit to run the southwest line along Ogden and Polk like that. Keep it on the existing tracks. Add a connection to the Pink Line, build the Circle LIne, increase frequency and make all trains stop at the Halsted station and you add a lot of benefit without having to do expensive and disruptive work just to get to the medical center.

You also don't have any cross-Loop connections, and not a single station in the Loop. I think both of those ommissions are less than ideal.

The basic history is covered well in the wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_...ter_Connection

In what days do you consider it failed? While the Reading viaduct is still there, of course the Penn viaduct ("Chinese Wall") which formerly fed Broad Street Station are gone, so ultimately there is minimal required land to serve railway terminals in the business core, which is the primary benefit of regional rail through-routing...

Several suburbs did run their own RTA-subsidized transit after the predecessor private companies failed, but these operations were all subsequently absorbed into Pace when it began operation in 1985 as mandated by the 1983 State legislation that reformed the RTA.

Offhand, such suburbs include Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, & Wilmette. Also there were some agglomeration operations, specifically West Towns and Nortran which served self-explanatory regions.

Evanston also ran bus service, but as it failed in the 1970s, those routes were assumed by CTA.

North/Clybourn has serious potential as an office/residential node, while Lincoln Park (the park itself, plus beaches) is a popular destination for people around the region. As you note, though, a Chicago routing might have equal ridership potential with less tunneling.

Wait... building two stations and a tunnel through the Medical District is disruptive, but building the Circle Line isn't? I was envisioning the regional-rail system as a more flexible, less-costly replacement for several CTA expansions, including the Circle Line. Northsiders would get one-seat-ride access to the IMD via regional rail; they'd just have to ride Metra to get it. A less costly option might be to use the extra space in the Eisenhower median, but this is much less convenient as well, since most of the jobs are 1/2-mile south.

The transfers at Clybourn and South Loop obviate most of the need for cross-Loop connections. Two lines run through the West Loop (via Union) because that's where most jobs are, while East Loop-bound pax can make a quick transfer to the third line. I figured any kind of Loop tunneling would be complex and insanely expensive, especially the large-diameter tunnels used for regional-rail systems. Streeterville/Water Tower have the same problem, but since they currently have no rail transit, the expense is worth it.

People coming from O'Hare on the MD-W or from Aurora on the BNSF would not have the option of transfering, so cross-Loop is still needed in some form - this is perhaps a better job for a CTA expansion (bus subway?) As I noted above, the locus of jobs has been moving steadily towards the West Loop for years now, so cross-Loop is becoming less of a concern.

Thanks, those articles are markedly better/longer than the last time I looked. I guess I'm more interested in the process of implementing regional rail, from an organizational perspective... running trains on short headways, switching to ticket machines and turnstiles, making tough decisions about which stations and branches don't have the ridership to merit regional-rail levels of service, etc.

It seems like SEPTA's biggest issue was not a lack of ideas, but severe difficulty getting the existing commuter-rail personnel to accept new ways of thinking (made worse by funding crises that seemed to hit at the worst possible times). If Metra's ever gonna change, the people driving the change will encounter the same stiff resistance that SEPTA did, from "rail" workers who seem themselves as diametrically opposed to "transit" workers and who seek to maintain the same operating practices that railroading used in 1900.

Even the Illinois Central, which had some unusual operating practices as they essentially ran rapid transit for the south side, slowly began to lose its best features as Metra took over with its traditional-railroading mindset. Many urban stations were axed, while the rest were left to deteriorate into a shameful set of flag stops. It's absolutely essential for the continued growth of Chicagoland that Metra adapts and embraces a more flexible, broader view of railroading - this is my biggest beef with the Gray Line, which basically admits defeat and claims that the only way for Metra Electric to get reasonable service is to hand the line over to CTA.

I most have certainly N O T admitted defeat, and the line would N O T be "handed over" to CTA.

CTA would have NO ROLE WHATSOEVER in Operating the Gray Line trains, only forwarding schedule requests to Metra; whose trains would be operated ONLY by Metra crews (with NO on-board Fare collection).

CTA Customer Assistants would man all the Gray Line stations during all train operating hours (just like on the 'L').

But again: CTA would have NO ROLE in the actual operation of the Metra Gray Line trains.

What? Septa doesn't have any ideas , they rather shrink there network. They lie about the condition of some lines saying they were falling apart or some bridges , when in truth the lines are in decent shape and the bridges needed some work. If my Employee friends were running Septa it would function... Alot of the Septa employees are disgusting with management at Septa which is very backwards buses over Rail hench why they suspended the Trolley 56 & 23 which Penn Dot has rebuilt but Septa hasn't restarted the line yet... Yes Septa doesn't get fair funding , but that doesn't excuse the shortcuts they take and ending service. They've even sold lines or renting knowing they'll have to restore them over the next 2 decades.... If Metra were to follow another Railroad it should be Metro North over Septa or NJT.... But not Septa or the LIRR which are both run by morons who keep destroying the RR then expanding and enhancing it.

Your proposal duplicates existing service (with the exception of the Tri-Taylor stop, your stations are less than 1/2 mile from existing Blue or Pink Line stations), and most of the Circle Line is just routing changes. The Tri-Taylor stop is hemmed in on three sides by industrial uses and freight train tracks - the ridership potential for a station like that wouldn't even come close to justifying the cost. Tunnels and underground stations like that would in no way be "less-costly replacement" for CTA expansions, and unless you run trains at CTA-level frequency - probably not cost-effective - it would be penny-wise, pound-foolish to spend nearly as much with a small fraction of the overall benefit. The IMD is important, but because of the nature of the work, it will always have a large portion of people driving, and it is fairly well served already, and with the addition of the Circle Line plus planned BRT service on Western will become increasingly better-served without very expensive specialty tunnels.

A good solution would help transit within downtown as well as transit outside of downtown. That's why a cross-loop solution is preferred to one in which you can only cross sides outside the Loop. Any sort of big rework like this would require changing the trainsets to electric, which would mean smaller cars. Not as small as metro-style trains, but nowhere near as big as current Metra locomotives. Tunnels wouldn't need to be insanely big. Monroe has ROW preserved and should be able to accommodate such a thing.

The West Loop has a lot of growing office space, however the Central Loop still has the most. Only dropping people in the West or East Loop areas continues the problem of dropping people outside of the center of where they work. While allowing people to transfer to the East Loop trains helps solve the issue of the East Loop losing offices due to poor accessibility for commuters, it doesn't help those in the center of the Loop.

It has only been moving westward because Chicago has done such a crap job providing cross-loop transit.

People *want* to work near the lake. If it were easy for commuters to get to Streeterville and/or the central Loop, those would grow. Streeterville could use more offices, and better transit would allow people to get there.

I do like the idea of the 1968 Central Area Plan's West Loop-Streeterville subway, but if you're building subways for commuter lines anyway, they make more sense. Ideally, though, perhaps redesigning things so both CTA and electric Metra trains can use the same rails and same tunnels would be the best solution.

You can't ride the Pink Line to Naperville. The goal is to bring the entire region to the doorstep of important destinations that are scattered around the city.

Ignore the Tri-Taylor stop... it's just a random idea to serve the far west end of the IMD, which may eventually reach some seriously high employment density, especially with improved transit access. With an alignment shift, it could be built above-ground anyway.

Partially, the network serves my long-standing goal of decentralizing the Loop into a handful of office nodes in the central area. This isn't fantasyland - it's already happening, as major institutions look outside the Loop for large areas of land and the private sector seeks out an ever-larger supply of cheap loft space. Who would have thought even 20 years ago that Chicago/Larrabee would be a huge center of white-collar jobs? In the same vein, who would have thought that the Central Loop would be going residential at an astonishing rate? The Loop shouldn't necessarily be the center of all things in 21st-century Chicago.

You can't ride UP-N to Naperville either. You can't provide one-seat rides to everyone - transfers are part of a good system. You could ride BNSF to the Pink Line and transfer, though, for a lot less than moving all that rail over 1/2 mile or tunnelling. That's my point. Fantasy maps are nice, but if you're actually trying to present something that is more than just fantasy relative costs have to play a factor. So what if the Central Loop goes heavily residential? They'll still need access to other places - perhaps one of your other nodes. Whatever takes hold in the central Loop is going to be dense, and worth of a station serving at least a couple different commuter lines. Ignoring the Loop would be like ignoring Midtown in New York. Sure, you need other things going on, but the Loop is still the economic nexus of the City and it would be unnecessarily risky to just ignore it and emphasize other parts of the city. We do need to have more than just the Loop, but we do still also need the Loop - it's a unique feature that partially defines Chicago

Almost 30 years ago, it was thought that the area around Larrabee and Chicago would become something similar to what it has become. It might be news to you, but you should check out some of what the City has published over the years (most of it prior to 2000 isn't online, though, so you'll have to put in some effort). 45 years ago, people expected Streeterville to explode, and the main thing that kept it from happening sooner, faster was the lack of good transit in that area connecting it to the West Loop commuter rail stations.

Central Paris plus La Defense, the areas best served by a mesh of RER and Metro, is about 45 square miles. That's like Irving Park to Pershing, the Lake to Kedzie. And, more or less, that's the area most strongly gentrifying right now.

Anyone know why Lawfin was banned?

Point taken. It's endlessly frustrating that Metra essentially ignores everything between the downtown terminals and the city line. I might have been compensating for this a little bit by intentionally downplaying the Loop.

Do you think a station with sufficient capacity could be built in the Loop? It would instantly become one of, if not the busiest station on the system. I'm trying to figure out where you'd put it... beneath Monroe from State to Clark? Then, how would you approach a Monroe subway from the various rail lines leading into the Central Area? Turn radii are severely constrained by the deep foundations of skyscrapers (a problem that Paris doesn't have).

For comparison, the curve leading into the north end of Union Station is roughly 375'. Shorter rolling stock might allow for tighter curves, but you don't wanna get railcars as short as the L, since they're not really comfortable at high speeds.

Hello again Bee, if you want to see what I'm up against - look at the article again (the Comments) and see how someone is trying to cut me (and the Project) to pieces:

http://chicagomaroon.com/2012/05/25/...n-a-new-metra/