^Attrill,
Yes, when I say "predominatly 4-track line" there would still be a few points where trackage is shared (e.g. from the Airport Express station to around Chicago Ave., and again from Rosemont to O'hare). Using the MD-N or UP-NW ROWs is, for the time being, a pipe dream, becuase the railroads weren't consulted on it and have no reason to agree to reducing their own capacity to allow for Airport Express trackage. If they sold air rights for an elevated structure, it would be quite expensive as it would have to be high enough in most places for a double-deck trailer bed to clear. And for the portion from Jeff Park - Cumberland in the I-90 median, no one has gotten any sort of approval/agreement from IDOT that they are the least bit interested in losing their inside shoulder for the project.

The only proposed express trackage that doesn't have major legal hurdles are the passing tracks that would be constructed along the Milwaukee El near Damen and California, as they would extend over the alley which is owned by the city. Those alone would allow for airport trains to jump ahead of one local train, so could theoretically gain a travel time savings of about 1 headway (4-8 minutes).

I always liked using the NCS as the airport express route, with a branch into the terminal as it crosses I-190 and further developing the O'hare Transfer station by connecting it to the people mover and also rerouting the Milwaukee Hiawatha trains there....but for whatever reason, the CTA route is what CDOT seems to have decided on in the late 1990s. I think the primary driver was that Block 37 was the most logical location for an express terminal that would be able to serve both airports.

Brownline Reconstruction - Addison Stop
 

Looking North from the southeast side of Addison
http://wilbsnodgrassiii.smugmug.com/...86684230-M.jpg

Looking North from the southwest side of Addison
http://wilbsnodgrassiii.smugmug.com/...86684240-M.jpg
http://wilbsnodgrassiii.smugmug.com/...86684246-M.jpg

Two reasons, I think. First, having an airport terminal at Block 37 helps to reinforce the traditional Loop as the center of the CBD, while having it at CUS helps accelerate the trend for offices to move west.

Second, I talked with someone at one of the big transportation engineering firms (Edwards & Kelcey, maybe?) who said they ran simulations on both MILW-W and Blue Line, and everyone was surprised that Blue Line gave travel times just as fast.

It certainly seems like we need a downtown-O'Hare-Northwest Tollway rail corridor of some kind. I guess it seems a little shortsighted to cobble it together from the Blue Line, with the narrow ROW, tight turns, and close tunnel clearances. It's hard to see how that--with the restrictions on railcar size--will ever be suitable for any line running 30 miles or more.

via a Moving Beyond Congestion e-letter I just got....

Bloomingdale ROW.

Using the NCS always seemed to make the most sense to me though an endpoint of should it terminate at the O'Hare transfer station or split off and merge with the blue line into the T2 would be an open question? I am not sure how difficult or complicated it would be to construct the portals around the Fulton Dist. where they cross and could join or the issue of electrification but I would think long term it would be a lot cheaper and less obstructed then the blue line route. I do remember someone claiming that the NCS route has capacity issues (even though it is pretty underused by Metra as of now) or something which I am not sure is true.

If the city was insistent on B37 as the center wouldn't it make more sense for the it to start there join somewhere in the Fulton District where the blue line and the NCS cross?

Having two express stations at both Union and B37 would be nice eventually but I guess one has to work first before you go to two.

One of the only advantages I see towards the blue line route is if also made stops at say at an intermodal Jefferson Park station to pick up near north residents.

Blue Line could also stop at Cumberland to serve--and encourage office development there (inside the city limits).

As for Bloomingdale, I'm not really sure how that helps. If you route airport trains along the Red Line to North/Clybourn, then west over the Bloomingdale Corridor to Pacific Junction, it seems like you're just trading Blue Line congestion for Red Line congestion.

http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8...alecorrel9.png

The CTA should take care there infastructure
before spending all this money on other things.

I am really interested in this project -- it would establish downtown Chicago as a international business center with a density of professional services and transportation access without parallel anywhere around the world. Plus, it would be a great amenity for downtown residents, and folks near downtown that live near transit.

I had heard that there would only need to be two sets of passing tracks built along the Blue Line for the express train to have a 30 minute run time. That makes sense to me. With effectively train scheduling and if the headways on the Blue Line are every 4-8 minutes as someone said earlier, this seems doable if the typical run time is 45 minutes. Being able to check your bags downtown would be a big plus.

I don't like that the timeline and funding sources on this project are so hazy. Maybe the Central Area tax increment financing district can take care of that.

There are a couple short sections (one between Damen and Western and another between Western and California) where the alley could be used for 1 extra track, but that leaves about 90% of the rail shared with the Blue Line. I'm sure a construction company can put together a report that shows how one or two small passing areas could allow for fast express service, but I'm skeptical - even before the the slow zones were instituted there were plenty of slow downs on the Blue line just to keep the cars spaced apart at rush hour. I'm not sure how they could incorporate one or two slow zones to offer a serious express train.

I think the Blue Line has to increase it's capacity just for regular commuters. Currently on the inbound morning commute you can't get a seat after Logan Square or California, and after Western or Damen you may need to wait for two or three trains before you can even force your way on. Adding an additional express line running on the track seems like a nightmare.

I really like the NCS as well. I'm not sure of why the freight lines aren't being looked at more seriously. I've talked to a friend who works for CDOT and he thinks that the plan has never even been seriously presented to the freight lines or Metra, and Kreusi saw it as a big money maker for the CTA if it ran along the Blue Line. Other options were proposed but never seriously considered. I find it very hard to believe that the Blue Line is the best option when there are so many freight/commuter rail lines running from downtown to within half a mile of O'Hare.

From what I've heard all plans for this are basically dead. Kruesi pushed the privately run express service for a few months before he got canned, but no one else in any trans authority backed him on it. The official line on the Blue Line plan is that it's "shelved" - but since Kruesi was canned it is pretty much dead. There needs to be a serious push for a true express line using one of the existing rail lines - however it happens there needs to be real express trains between O'Hare/Downtown/Midway.

The Bloomingdale line won't really add anything to this, it could be great for the proposed Circle Line, but it looks like it is well on it's way to becoming a park/bikeway. I'd prefer to see it in the Circle Line, but the bikeway and park is a great use for the ROW as well.

^I never bought the idea that the Airport Express was a money-maker....I suppose it's only a moneymaker in the Robert Moses sense, e.g. somehow convince the taxpayers to cover the massive capital cost of building the thing, and then let you keep the revenue from operations instead of just using those to pay down the bonds to build it. There's no way at the fares they're talking ($7-15) they could come anywhere close to covering the capital cost of this beast of a project. But Kruesi always seemed more interested in grand visioning (Circle Line, Airport Express, Line Extensions, increasing frequencies, new bus routes, etc) and the political side of things, and less in the nitty gritty details like financials and labor law, the very things that Huberman has focused alot of effort on tackling (e.g. the new union agreements that restructure the pension and health care, and reducing overtime labor expense).

Since (I've heard) this thing can't qualify as a New Start program, it will basically fall on CDOT to come up with any capital money for express trackage and for the new airport terminals (a vital component, especially at Midway). It also depends on the airlines giving a damn (which they don't) to at least invest in installing ticketing and baggage-tagging stations at the downtown terminal.

In a semi-related note, I noticed the flight departure information screens are up and running at Clark/Lake. Pretty useless, but kinda cool.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...i_tab01_layout

Of course, in 1983 we were told we'd be able to check our bags in the lobby of 203 North LaSalle (originally called the "Transportation Center" for exactly that reason) and then hop on the O'Hare Extension downstairs to go to the airport.

Clark/Lake is a slick transfer station, no doubt about it. There's nothing like it anywhere else on the CTA system, since our rail lines don't cross each other. The Roosevelt station in State Place is also pretty cool, but it doesn't integrate into the building so well.

Why Chicagoans aren't raising hell about possible transit fare hikes and service cuts:

Because they DON'T really believe it's going to happen. They think that the state and the city are playing their usual game of tit for tat and, ultimately, somebody will come to the rescue. This is almost identical to 2005, at least reading the press. Everybody makes headlines about looming cuts for weeks and weeks and then finally somebody coughs up some cash.

I just think it's sad and pathetic, but perhaps some day leaders won't suck so damn badly. But then again, I'm sure they've been saying that since the time of Mesopotamia, 8000 years ago...

Great day on the CTA today. I don't know what exactly was happening, but it sounded like the northbound brown line trains weren't able to cross the northside mainline tracks onto the Ravenswood branch. I guess something with the track transfer stopped working? Anyway, I got on the brown line at the Washington stop in the loop and proceeded to ride it the entire way around only to find out they were going to send us around the loop again! So I got f&cking pissed and decided to switch to the Red line. Once I got off, I noticed a purple line train was directly behind, so I decided to take that up to Belmont instead. I hopped on and we headed north, only to stop and sit on the tracks for at least 20 minutes without moving at all between Sedgwick & Armitage. The rest of the trip up to Belmont crawled at an excruciatingly slow pace. I've never seen so many people rolling their eyes & bitching on their cell phones at one time before. People were pissed. In the end it took me over 1.5 hrs to travel just 7 miles from the loop to Lincoln Square on what is supposedly "rapid transit." The CTA should probably just remove any mention of "rapid" for their El lines on the north side of the city. It's just plain false advertising. "Rapid" my ass! I can't remember the last time I've been on the El where I haven't had to deal with delays. My experiences on the NYC subway & DC subway have never been even remotely as poor as the CTA is on a daily basis. And the f&cking state politicians just let it get worse & worse. I think they should all have to spend at least a week riding it to get an idea of just how pathetic it is right now. I was so close to choosing Metra at Ogilvie & taking it north to Ravenswood, but opted to use the CTA instead. Obviously a bad decision. :brickwall:

-OhioGuy (letting off steam that was buildling & building & building while sitting & sitting & sitting on the El today) :(

^Hey I hear you.

I took the Purple Line Express[http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com/smiley-faces-75.gif] to Evanston last night from Belmont.

What a joke.

At least a little good news coming from transit in Illinois..

On right track, Amtrak ridership soars in Illinois
08/23/2007

Train service between St. Louis and Chicago might just be a hit with travelers.

Passenger train ridership in the St. Louis-Chicago corridor is up more than 40 percent since October, when Amtrak added two trains to the three that already offered daily round-trip service.

Amtrak also added one train each to its Chicago-Quincy and Chicago-Carbondale corridors, and those routes also have seen big ridership gains. The expanded service was made possible when the Illinois Legislature almost doubled the state's Amtrak funding to $24 million.

"The additional frequencies give passengers more opportunities to ride," Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. Before the trains were added, he said, passengers were sometimes turned away.

Three friends from the Bloomington, Ill., area who arrived in St. Louis via Amtrak early Wednesday afternoon for a brief vacation said the train ride was an appealing part of their holiday.

"We just came down to spend a few days," said Carolyn Conn, 63, of Leroy, Ill.,

"And ride on Amtrak," added Evelyn Johnson, 69, also of Leroy. Beverly Hamblin, 72, of Downs, Ill., was the third member of the party.

The women said they had taken the train to Chicago or Springfield before, but it was the first time they had visited St. Louis together. Conn said it probably would not be the last. She said the train was comfortable, arrived only five minutes later than scheduled and the round-trip fare was only $25.

Magliari said the strong rivalry between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs helps boost ridership during the baseball season. And, with the additional trains, "You can get to Chicago or St. Louis in time for a game and get back home the same day," he said.

Amtrak stops on the Chicago-St. Louis route are in Alton, Carlinville, Springfield, Lincoln, Normal, Pontiac, Dwight, Joliet and Summit.

The ridership gains have exceeded the optimistic expectations of Illinois and Amtrak officials but have not been without a downside. Trains are often late and it is usually because Amtrak shares its routes with freight trains.

"We had some teething problems in the beginning," Magliari said. "The service was initiated without any additional infrastructure."

But on-time performance has improved steadily, and officials of Amtrak, the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Union Pacific railroad are discussing improvements that will make it easier for Amtrak trains to pass the freights, he said.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...2?OpenDocument

^ The strong storm around 4pm really messed things up at Clark Junction and also the Blue Line. There were several downed trees on the right of way throughout the system (power shut off, single-tracking until it's cleared), and they were throwing switches manually at Clark Junction since something in the lightning storm fried their indications at the tower. Trains were backed up significantly on Red, Brown, and Blue today. If it's any consolation, traffic was a disaster too, and I saw alot of angry people standing outside their cars on the phone with their insurance agent since fallen branches had smashed their roofs and/or windshields. Further consolation could be the fracas in New York every time there's significant rain, when the shallower tunnels flood and literally hundreds of thousands of people pour into the streets simultaneously hoping to get on a bus or taxi. Maybe TUP can speak to that...

I take it to mean there weren't any announcement made? I took the Red at about 5:40 and it wasn't too different than usual (e.g. quite crowded). Huberman recently named a new General Manager at the Control Center, so I'm anxious to see if there is any review of and improvement in real-time communications.

The regular disruptions in service piss me off a lot - but I'd give the CTA a pass today due to how severe today's storm was.

All Metra lines were shut down for a few hours due to trees across tracks, traffic lights were out all over the city, trees fell across streets (Logan Blvd. had at least 5 or 6 trees down and blocking at least one lane of traffic) - you couldn't get anywhere using any method of transportation today. I couldn't even walk outside wihtout being knocked down at 3:30 this afternoon. It was crazy ass storm.

Driving didn't work so well today either - Oak Park - 7pm

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1068/...b0eed3.jpg?v=0

Green Line - Bike - No problem ( other than very wet )

( car was parked, nobody hurt )

i love how metro pols promote mass transit as an avoidence of weather related problems ,when it is most susesptable to weather.... false advertising, but its the Government so no one can sue.

Mass transit is the most suceptable to weather?!?!?

:koko:

Highways are much more affected by weather - Try taking the Ike on a day when it's drizzling or when there are snow flurries. Yesterday the roads were hit just as hard, if not harder, than mass transit. It took me 1.5 hours to get from Andersonville to Logan Sq. (it usually takes me 20-30 minutes). Traffic lights were out on Western, California was flooded in areas, and trees were blocking Logan Sq. Blvd.

^

Yesterday the weather affected transit MORE than the roads. If you checked out GCMTravel the only highway that was having trouble was Lake Shore Drive (61 minutes from downtown to Foster!). All the other highways were worse than your average day but not by much. Very much unlike the complete chaos on the El system I witnessed.

Considering that when the power is out the entire road does not dissappear or remain totally and utterly functionless unlike portions of the El, yes, I would say that mass transit is at least as susceptible to the weather. Besides roads are multimodal. If a tree falls along the El or the power runs out, you can forget riding on that train for a while. With roads you can just try and find another one.

The more and more I live in Chicago the more I realize that getting our roadways working properly is the main priority. I live right by the Belmont station and it is faster for me to take Ashland->Ridge up to my job at the Evanston Northwestern Memorial Hospital than it is to take the Purple Line express, which doesn't stop all the way to Howard, and drops you literally within 50 feet of the hospital. If driving is faster than THAT we have a serious problem. And that stretch seems to be working just fine with no real slow zones.

Last week I decided to be adventurous again and take the El up to work. I literally waited for the Purple line for *45* minutes, only to be 42 minutes LATE for work. And I'm in Pediatrics and need to see patients. You could say the CTA lost a customer for a LONG time. I was incredibly pissed. It took me over an hour and a half to take the Purple Line express up to Evanston from Belmont because I was waiting so long.

I know we all want transit to work but the longer I live here the more I realize that cars are the best way to get anywhere. They are the only multi-modal door-to-door solution in 99% of the cases and the road grid we have is unmatched compared to any transit network. Cars are also becoming much more efficient. I spend less money in gas going to and from work now than I do for a month long CTA pass. I mean where is the incentive? Am I supposed to ride it because it "feels" warm and fuzzy, yet it is slower and more expensive for me? Bullcrap.

But the good news is transit doesn't have to be trains. It can be buses.

But the thing is I want to like the El and I keep giving them these chances. But the system is BROKEN. Same with the highways in this city. They are BROKEN. There is no reason why this afternoon Friday inbound on the Kennedy I noticed that GCMTravel.com was reported 128 minutes from O'Hare to the Circle. That is a BROKEN system. And it is because it is poorly designed. With express lanes configured outbound you have 6 lanes going into 4 inbound which creates a mess. Same with the Ike. The Ike is not the problem, it is the Avenues. 4 lanes goes into 3 goes into 4. And of course it is always backed up BEFORE the Avenues each direction. Same with Western/Lincoln/Lawrence. You have Lincoln dumping onto Western and then going off again at Lawrence. Always a complete clusterf*ck not because of cars, or roads, but because it is poorly designed.

There are horrible bottlenecks in this city that are not being addressed. Express lanes are garbage in a city where there are just as many reverse commuters. There is no reason the Ike should be 4->3->4 lane configuration. Etc.

But this falls on deaf ears here. People have literally taken it up the ass in Chicago both with the horrible CTA and the horribly designed freeway system and are just used to being screwed over either way. Funny thing is our Governor seems to not be doing anything about it. Instead we are getting plenty of expansions out in the burbs for the Tollway system that was never that congested to begin with RELATIVE to the horrible Kennedy-Edens junction and Ike-thru-Avenues.

I agree, it does feel like those who want efficient transit are not heard. And the CTA does have a lot of work to do. But I feel that the key to public transportation in the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois is the 2016 Olympics. If we are actually going to make a real run at this event we will need to demonstrate that public transportation is viable. And if we want to demonstrate to the world that Chicago is indeed "world class" we will need excellent public transportation.

I actually don't disagree with much of what you said, as much as I wish it were otherwise. I tend to use the CTA when needed to get to the Loop; for those without regular destinations at regular times each day, I just can't see the system being workable in its current state.

However, I do disagree with the above. The tollway junctions were the worst thing I have ever witnessed traffic-wise in my life. Seriously. I used to reverse-commute to Schaumburg, and the junction at I-90 and I-294 at the toll plaza, prior to I-Pass, was the quickest way to despise your life I could imagine. I used to sit there dreaming of the I-94 junction.

The I-Pass makeover was a very wise thing, because it has helped a lot of these situations, and in the process reduces pollution from idle cars, etc.

I live car free and take the L on average 4 times a day (2 legs for each trip to work), about 1000 times per year, and rarely have problems, my commute varies from 25-35 minutes which I think is reasonable given I have a transfer. I probably have a "disaster commute" (e.g. more than 45 minutes) about once every 2-3 months, which compares favorably with when I drove every day for a previous job location.

I think it's a question of where you choose to live and work. If either of those are in less than ideal conditions for transit, chances are that driving will be the more logical choice. Only a small fraction of the massive Chicago area is truly transit friendly, yet people have this expectation that transit service will be convenient and high-quality everywhere despite the region funding transit at about a quarter of the rate per capita as world class cities like Paris. It's worth noting that our transit funded with a 1% sales tax is comparable to the funding of other cities like LA, Atlanta, Houston, etc, and yet, which agencies provide more service per capita with the same tax revenue per capita? Exactly.

45 min for a purple express is too long, especially if they never gave an announcement. I think CTA's biggest deficiency that is in their control is customer communications, particularly real-time. When they went to 3-track operations for Belmont and Fullerton, they cut the frequency of Purples to every 15 minutes, which is actually longer than the travel time savings Belmont->Howard, so I'd generally recommend taking the first thing that comes (Belmont->Howard on Red averages about 25-30 minutes, which is 7-10 minutes longer than it should due to slow zones....)

And the reason we need trains is that traffic in Chicago sucks. It's practically impossible to provide reliable bus service on Chicago streets during either peak period or Saturday afternoons. It's impossible because even the best schedule becomes meaningless because of the unpredictability of the timing and locations of many traffic backups. And once a bus gets significantly off schedule, it has a ripple effect that leads to bunching. The only solution would be to have many more buses and many more drivers on duty at all times so that you ensure no matter what, that every terminal departure is on time. But of course that would require a massive budget increase to provide basically the same level of service.

Yeah I should have been more clear. With "tollway expansion" I was speaking more about how they are adding lanes out in the burbs but can't fix the Edens-Kennedy junction and the Ike at the Avenues which are both BROKEN and a MESS. The I-Pass idea on-the-ther hand is a fantastic idea. I'm all about efficiency and getting people moving, and I-Pass definetly excels at this. It reduces bottlenecks.

I am REALLY hoping that we get the Olympics and get a huge influx of funding for our transportation network. This means highways AND rail. I mean it is Saturday afternoon right now and GCMTravel is reporting the Kennedy inbound as being red, and I've driven on red. Red is BAD. Red is you are basically barely crawling. On a weekend there is no excuse. Couple this regular traffic with what we will see in 2016 by natural increase, and than add on top of that the OLYMPICS, and Chicago's transportation network could reach the breaking point.

Seriously, I know not many people read this forum but we as Chicagoans need to demand that we start fixing our infrastructure instead of expanding government services. Getting people to and from work efficiently is utmost priority and our system lately *IS* failing. On a day with great weather and no major accidents there is no reason why O'Hare to Downtown should be 128 minutes like it was yesterday. That's OVER TWO HOURS. And the answer is not to have all of these people park at Cumberland and ride the El in. Cumberland probably holds what, 1000 cars at most? And there is also no reason why taking the El should be significantly slower than driving. Luckily they seem to be working on the El and I'll reserve judgment for a couple years, but it just amazes me the amount of traffic that the Kennedy is expected to hold with just three lanes. I'm not saying we need to become an Atlanta, but we should at least be LOOKING to solutions to get rid of needless bottlenecks.

The express lanes were a good idea at one time but now the city is HOT and people love coming downtown and LIVING here (and reverse commuting). Yesterday you had this amazing situation, and it is NOT atypical: Outbound downtown to O'Hare was 34 minutes. Inbound O'Hare to downtown was 128 minutes. This was yesterday around 6PM. And whoever was running the system was asleep at the controls because there was no congestion outbound, but TWO HOURS worth of it inbound, yet the express lanes stayed configured for outbound only.

I'm just glad I wasn't caught up in it, but I looked at the data on my computer in absolute amazement. Can you imagine being a visitor and going downtown and sitting through that absolute hell?

^^ Congestion is easy to criticize but difficult to costly to correct. I really don't see a solution to the Edens/Kennedy junction mess unless you're willing to plow through a couple dozen city blocks. The big dig thing will never happen and there is too much opposition to a truck route through the west side (which I'm all for). If there's any specific solution you can think of, please point it out. Same goes for streets like Cumberland.

Big dig stuff only needs to be done if you want to go underneath downtowns.

No reason to widen and plow through blocks of housing when you can build up. Double decking highways is popular in California and it's just a matter of time before we'll need to do something similar for the Kennedy junction. The Kennedy already splits up the neighborhoods and it already single decked/raised for most of its run, so there really is no aesthetic reason to not double deck out there. The other solution is to get rid of the express lanes altogether, or double deck the express portion. I've seen this in Houston I believe.

Either way by 2016 that junction will be a parking lot 24/7 if something is not done. Chicago has just too many visitors and sits at too much of a crossroads for something not to be done long term.

I agree it is easier said than done but there needs to be someone to step up who has some clout and at least admit that there is a problem and that they are at least looking into a solution for it. Unfortunately, and I hope you don't take offense to this, I've noticed all too many Chicagoans have the same attitude as you, and that is that nothing can be done and since there is no solution we should just sit back and allow it to get worse. And it has gotten *much* worse just in the last 5-10 years.

So I got an email from the Illinois League of Conservation Voters about a rally to support transit tomorrow in at the Thompson Center? Anyone else heard of this? anyone going?

^whyuhwhy,
Traffic is bound to be a nightmare on Saturdays: it's the big shopping and recreation day. That means everyones origins and destinations are scattered every which way; it's nearly impossible to plan an efficient transportation for such a situation. At least during the weekday peaks, there are obvious traffic patterns, even including the reverse commutes. The job centers are still highly concentrated in the Loop, I-88 and I-90 corridors, and the north Tri-State/Lake-Cook area. Tons of cars and transit head to these locations in the morning, and leave at night. In the weekend, it's just a giant jumbled mess.

The obvious answer when trip density reaches a certain level is transit. One freeway lane can carry between 1500-2000 cars per hour. Let's charitably say it's 1.5 people per car (I suspect its a bit less these days). So, 3000 people per hour per lane. One rapid transit line can carry 20,000-30,000 people per hour each direction. The capacity of real rapid bus at olde tyme service frequencies like in the good old days (e.g. 2-5 minutes) is comparable to a freeway lane, 1500+ passengers per hour, e.g. you could theoretically give arterial roads freeway capacity with real rapid bus or streetcar.

Part of the problem is that the Chicago area has basically committed to preserving the rail network that was laid out 100+ years ago, despite the fact that it doesn't really serve and interconnect the key destinations and traffic generators in the region. This puts newer systems like the WMATA in DC, planned after the drastic development changes of the 50s-80s, in a much better position to capture auto trips than the Chicago rail system (CTA and Metra). Where's the rail in the I-90, I-88, and N-S Dupage corridors? Where's the rail along the north lakeshore south of Montrose? Where's the rapid transit connection to the commuter and intercity stations? Why are there 2 rapid transit lines a half mile apart running through low density areas on the south side? Why are there 3 parallel west side rapid transit lines within 2.5 miles of eachother serving the west side when traffic demand justifies one (combined ridership is still less than the Howard branch alone, and is comparable to the Dan Ryan branch)? Why is there no park n ride facility on the Dan Ryan branch to give inbound drivers from I-57, I-90, or I-94 a transit option? etc. etc. The point of this rant is that in many/most cases, auto and transit don't compete with eachother, and that fact puts transit at a huge disadvantage right off the bat considering the dearth of transit-oriented development in the region.

The obvious answer to start fixing the problem would be a regional effort to match land uses to the existing transit infrastructure, but such an effort is almost nonexistent outside of a few progressive suburbs like Arlington Heights, Palatine, and Des Plaines.

Double decking is an interesting idea and I never really thought of it. I'd be all for it. Especially if it's paid in tolls. As you pointed out, the Kennedy is already there dividing the city so we might as well make good use of it. Certan asthetic measures can also be taken. Unfortunetly though, even if construction started today we may have a workable product by say 2014 and have construction hell in the years leading up.

I think an excellent, doable idea is the west side truck route. Semis make up a huge part of the edens/kennedy traffic. They are responsible for a large part of the damage to the roads. As they sit idle through the local lanes on the Kennedy, they emit a disproportionate amount of nauxious fumes over neighboohds and waste gas. A toll-based truck route through the low density mostly industrial west side where semis can steadily travel at 35-55 mph would provide some much needed relief. It can also be accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Through tolls, the route can be entirely funded by users and may even some day turn a profit for the city that can be pumped into the CTA (see skyway privatization). Semi drivers can't use mass transit anyway so it won't siphon users off.

Well, since they're there now, the city should be doing everything in its power to encourage very high-density, smart (i.e. sensitive and non-destructive) in-fill development along these routes, to bring them closer to their potential. I do support the "subsidy" of these routes rather than reducing the system's size and potential. With decent connections such as the Circle Line, the West Side might actually be navigable on a neighborhood level without automobile or bus.

Handled correctly, this could be the engine that kicks the West Side's rebirth into full gear.

I'm assuming IDOT will be taking care of the "Avenues" problem next time the Ike is due for rebuilding. But the bigger problem is that you have 3 lanes of traffic dumping into an existing expressway with 4 lanes in each direction reduced to 3. I think the Ike extension was completely unnecessary and only built to serve the then (and still now) wealthy suburbs of northeastern DuPage County. That road is redundant and needs to go, especially with the planned O'Hare Ring Road.

The Stevenson needs to be widened to 8 lanes all the way to Joliet. They have the room to do it, and IDOT chose not to back in the 90's, ridiculous.

The Edens Junction can be fixed by doing away with the express lanes and adding two lanes in each direction, bringing the total on each side to 6, and they have room to do it, considering the amount of shoulder room express lanes require. Each of those is like already adding a 5th lane to each side, then the 6th comes in by way of shoulder work.

As for transit, I don't think you can equate Chicago's L to newer systems such as the Washington Metro or MARTA. The L has to work with what it has because building new rail lines in such an exisiting developed area is almost counterproductive. It's better in the long term to preserve current ROWs.

.....fully agreed, at least in theory. Part of the problem transit has on the west and south sides is that in these areas, transit riders are largely captive; those that can afford to drive, do so, because frankly these aren't great places to be out and about on the streets. Nothing is forever, and ideally these neighborhoods are redeveloped and the perception of safety is dramatically improved. If these happen, then of course having such great transit service will be an incredible asset. Another problem is that right now, the size of the RTA subsidy, CTA's statutory 52% operating recovery ratio, both combined with a large underutulized system means that service quality and frequencies suffers systemwide. I would agree with you in subidizing these low-performing rapid transit routes for the long-term good if that meant that they were actually subsidized at a rate that wouldn't lower the quality and quantity of transit in the areas that not only support it, but require it.

I thought I remember reading recently that IDOT is going ahead with widening I-55 from I-355 to Joliet?

yes
 

Yes they are. Last time I went through there it looked like they were going all the way to I80, which would make sense.

yes, there was to be a rally today for public transportation funding at the thompson center. (good thing i slept in because of jet lag, as i was thinking of heading to daley plaza for the rally.) i do not know how many showed up, but i think the most people can do now is have all of your friends and family contact the governor's office and their legislator's/senator's office in support of senate bill 572.

Since this project is getting absolutely NO attention, I took a few pics of the construction of the new South Loop Metra station.

8/28/2007
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...x/DSC01829.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...x/DSC01830.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...x/DSC01831.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...x/DSC01837.jpg

I paid attention! The last time I was down there (last Tues) there were no visible signs of progress.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...i_tab01_layout

Metra axpansion to Peotone
 

Metra officials expect to expand commuter line to Peotone
08/29/2007, 10:41 am
Comment on this story

By Mary Baskerville

If two future transportation projects materialize, they will have a great impact on Peotone, so the village wants to be involved with the planning at an early stage.

Speaking in informal session Monday night, Mayor Steve Cross said Metra officials expect to extend the Metra Electric commuter line from University Park to a spot near North Peotone Road.

The plan is to extend the new rail on existing Canadian National right-of-way.

Both a station and a maintenance yard are planned, Cross said. Metra needs the facility to maintain the new coaches that will be equipped with bathrooms, he said.

The project is estimated to cost $100 million and is expected to take five to seven years to complete, Cross said.

Metra indicated it will seek funding from the Illinois General Assembly, Cross said.

If the village wants to enhance the station, it would need to cover the costs of the upgrade, Gray said. The facility is expected to have less than 100 employees.


Read more...

http://daily-journal.com/archives/dj....php?id=401928

Hopefully Hamos HAS got the votes together to pass the bill. The representatives from downstate shouldn't give a hoot, since it doesn't affect them, and vote in favor.

Also, regarding the Peotone extension..... it finally comes out. It won't be long before the airport boosters are back, claiming that the airport would have transit access. It's total BS, and the airport isn't convenient to 99% of Chicagoland.

^ All 5 of them? :haha:

^ With a Metra station, YOU BET it's convenient, at least to downtown Chicago.

And to me, that seals the deal. My whole argument against Peotone and FOR Gary was the fact that Gary could easily procure a transit connection to Chicago, while Peotone is basically a giant, unconnected cornfield.

^Yeah, if the Metra Electric were given a speed upgrade, express trains could make it downtown in perhaps 45-50 minutes, which would be just fine.

^SB572 isn't a slamdunk, there is substantial opposition from the conservative western collar counties (DuPage, Kane) who think they will just be subsidizing CTA because heavens! CTA will get a whopping 48% of the sales tax revenue!

...despite providing 80% of regional transit trips.

I take the bike | El everyday and have a disaster commute maybe every other year - and that is still better than an average day in traffic.
The key to loving the CTA is to stay off of the buses.

During the recent storms the green line ran like nothing was happening.

For my work commute I bike or take the CTA to Metra 3 days a week (Clyborne to Ravenswood) and drive twice a week. I was driving last Thursday, and while I understand the frustration of anyone who was taking an affected CTA line, the roads were just as bad if not worse. The CTA was up and running fine within a couple hours while traffic lights were still out on Western for a couple days, Logan Blvd. wasn't fully cleared until Saturday, and the California underpass at the Kennedy was flooded. I took Metra to work the next day and saw traffic jams on Ravenswood from traffic lights that were out.

^ The key to loving any American transit system is to stay off the buses. I never use buses in New York's MTA. Buses themselves are of no use to me. If it doesn't have its own ROW, you'll never see me on it.

It depends on the route, of course. Bus routes work fine when they are quite frequent (e.g. 2-3 minute peak headway, 5-8 minute off-peak headway), as most of them were back in the day. But bit by bit the service cuts have eroded frequency, and when you're running a route on 12-15 minute headways with an imperfect schedule, unpredictable traffic, and a shortage of either equipment or manpower, you've got a recipe for unreliable service and the bus 'network' starts to collapse because using it to make connections becomes so frustrating.

People who use routes like the 22, 151, 20, 66, 79, 87, 49, e.g. the ones that still generally run on the headways a bus is supposed to, probably have a better experience at least in terms of their wait time. Some peak routes run with the right sort of frequency (the 156, 14, 134, and 135) but their overcrowding means the experience is still pretty negative since several buses will pass you up.