Would bio-diesel be a more acceptable alternative to using the current diesel fuel? Has it ever been tried on a Metra train?

I tried promoting something like that a few years back, it went over like a Hang Glider made of concrete: http://regenerativehybridunit.yolasite.com/

A lot of trains, maybe even most, coming online these days do have regenerative braking. I'm a big fan, Mike, but that regenerative website of yours isn't exactly a work of marketing genius :)

It was put together in one day for a Transit Seminar at NWU in Evanston, so it is not very sophisticated; and I had forgotten it even existed until your hybrid question came up.

Viva, you seem to have a fairly good grip on municipal finance...

I don't know if you can comment or not, but can you make heads or tails out of the infrastructure bank? Why would a bunch of magical-fairy investors pop up to fund city projects when they wouldn't just buy bonds? What is the role of "user fees"?

in yellow line news:


Council OKs Asbury for Evanston Yellow Line stop
Tuesday, April 17, 2012, at 10:53 am by Bill Smith

Evanston's City Council voted Monday night to accept a report selecting Asbury Avenue as the preferred site for a new CTA Yellow Line station in the city.

The engineering feasibility study considered three possible locations for the new station -- including Ridge and Dodge Avenues.

....

Tom Coleman of the city's engineering consultant for the study, Parsons Brinckerhoff, said that assuming funding was found to actually build the station, the earliest it might be completed would be sometime between 2016 and 2018.


full article: http://evanstonnow.com/story/governm...llow-line-stop

Does anyone know if the Chicago River has ever been seriously considered for frequent transit service? I imagine something like the Khlong in Bangkok, where long boats run on the river at high frequencies and have regular stops. There is the river taxi, but it only serves a tiny area and is quite expensive. Routes going along both the north and south branches of the river could connect some of the train lines and provide transit to a large section of the city that goes without it.

At $2 per ride, the river taxis are the cheapest transit in Chicago. But patronage drops off dramatically when the temperature drops below 0, or when the river is frozen. That's less of a problem in Bangkok.

Long runs up the North and South Branches would be hampered by the fact that those were traditionally lined with industry rather than residential areas, and have paralleling rapid transit lines.

^^^ While freezing obviously is prohibative, the North Branch runs almost nowhere near transit unless you live in Lincoln Square. In fact, for much of it's length, the river is about as far as you can get from the EL on the North side of the city.

I wonder if a Yellow Line station at Ridge would be an acceptable trade-off for a closure of South Boulevard?

I’d think so, but based on what relatives in Evanston have told me (they live near Washington and South Boulevard) it probably wouldn’t be—a lot of the people who were upset over the proposed closure lived east of South Boulevard and weren’t necessarily willing to walk the extra couple of blocks to Washington (said relatives are around 70).

From an actual planning perspective, though, I’d say it would make an excellent trade for the CTA—about a quarter of the station’s catchment area is taken up by Calvary, whereas Ridge is not only better surrounded by housing but is within reach of the Howard Street strip and closer to St. Francis too.

Given the how close Ridge and Asbury are, though, I doubt we’ll see a station there.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird to have new stops added when almost every station in Evanston has declining ridership and there's like 100 people within walking distance of that station? I mean, it's not my money so I don't really care, but it just seems like a really odd decision to me.

Yeah, true enough about the weather. But I think if they could figure it out, it could provide quite an affordable rapid transit service to a huge section of the north side that currently goes without.

Heated boats with little wet bars on them, powerful engines to get you downtown fast, and very little traffic to block the way. Seems like a winner to me. :D

If Evanston is paying for this station I don't care but if the CTA is I be pissed. I'd rather see more stations built on the southside. Adding more stations on the south red would have ten times the ridership that this station would.

How exactly do you plan to heat the river such that the boat wouldn't be frozen in the dock every night? How would you even keep the dock in the water over the winter?

No part of the North Branch of the Chicago River (south of Devon, anyway) is more than two miles from an existing rapid transit line.

Yes, certainly there would be challenges in the coldest months, but the service does exist currently in a limited capacity. I imagine Wendella has figured out how to store their boats in the winter. Perhaps the boats would have to be dry docked for a couple months out of the year. I think it's an interesting idea at least. What could possibly go wrong? :Titanic:

I kind of doubt many people like walking more than a half mile to get to the train, and of course rush hour can make the train quite crowded, so an alternate mode may be appreciated. Some people might just enjoy taking a boat to work!

I like the idea, but boats are much slower than trains, especially given the time it takes to dock. On the North side, what would the stops be? The Diversey/Logan/Elston area might be good for access to the Costco and big box shopping there.

OMG! That was be so freaking cool to take a boat to work. Fullerton, Diversey, and Belmont are all pretty far from the L. Belmont at the river would be closer to Roscoe Village than the Brown line is.

^But what's the point of a transit line that runs where nobody lives or works:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1938060/rivercorridor.jpg

2010 census block groups, each dot represents 100 inhabitants

That only counts where people live, not where they work. The loop is incredibly sparse. Would blue-collar workers who work in the industrial corridor take the ferries?