This recent chatter has reminded me of something I've been wanting to bring up...

Why not drop the O'Hare Expansion thread and just start a new Chicago Airport Developments thread that would include anything and everything happening at ORD, MDW and GYY? News about the death of the Peotone airport project would also be welcome.http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/imag...ies/tongue.gif

^ Great idea.

Mods, let her rip!! :D

Yeah, but Chicago sprawl doesn't flow into Wisconsin yet, except maybe along the lakeshore a bit. There's still a large, rural swath between suburbs like Grayslake and Antioch and the Wisconsin border.

I live in the northwest suburbs, but I identify with NW Indiana a bit. I've ridden the South Shore a couple of times and I go to the Indiana Dunes at least once per year. While that does make me unusual around here, it wouldn't if I lived on the South Side or in the south suburbs. It's all relative.

As for the Newark thing - it's a roughly comparable situation. I would never expect Gary to have anywhere near the traffic of Newark, nor would I expect Chicago to generate enough traffic to justify a third airport like Newark. But don't you think Gary can take a page out of their book in terms of attracting city business travelers to fly into an out-of-city, out-of-state airport?

Never say never. Remember, NYC's total passenger traffic from LGA + EWR + JFK is only slightly higher than ORD + MDW (both totals are approximately 100 million per year). Midway is already maxed out for capacity, and after the O'hare expansion, it too will be maxed out. The inevitable new traffic will have to go somewhere.....really the question is Gary/Chicago (if Indiana can get its act together) or Peotone.

Not a bad idea at that. Ought to call it Illiana Airport. People who live along the border call the area Illiana, anyway. Or, better yet, bring back the name Calumet Airport.

I like "Calumet Airport".

Viva, I wasn't thinking so much of total passenger traffic as the amount of people COMING to Chicago. The huge numbers at O'Hare are caused by the fact that it is a transfer point for gazillions of air travellers per year. When you filter out the transfer people, I'd be willing to bet that the demand for Chicago visitors is adequately served by O'Hare and Midway.

But if additional capacity is needed, Peotone is a shitty choice. It's way too far from downtown Chicago, and chances for connecting it to transit are slim. Gary is definitely a better option if they can solve their image problems. It's convenient to both highway and transit, with substantially-sized runways.

That and add to the fact that it's downright inconvenient for most of North Jersey to even get to JFK. It requires bypassing Manhattan if by car or transfering trains at Penn. While O'Hare might be slightly inconvenient to drive to for NW Indiana and some south/southwest suburbs of Chicago, it's still reasonably close (usually within an hour) and the entire I-80 corridor outside Chicago has maybe 2 million people at most. That's a market for an airport the size of... *gasp* Midway. Compare this with the western and northern suburbs of Chicago, which have double the population the all suburbs south of I-55 have.

Yes Newark is in another state, but its very close to the City Center, in fact Newark Airport is closer to Wall Street that LGA or JFK, this is not true of Gary.

I say go with Peotone. All new Airport developments have to be in an less developed area. Plus it keeps the airport in Illinois.

that is the biggest thing for me, keeping it in illinois. mitchell in mke and gary can rot, for all i care. if they are putting in a new airport to serve chicagoland, keep that money in illinois. which reminds me, isn't rockford marketing their airport as a 3d chicago airport. (apologies if it was discussed above, i just kind of skimmed through the posts as the cta is my biggest worry right now.)

The problem with Peotone is that its about 45 miles from downtown. That's almost twice as far as Dulles, Mid-America, Intercontinental, etc are from they're respective city centers (and those are all airports considered quite far from downtown). I think certainly Chicago's southland will need an airport, especially as sprawl and population fill in the undeveloped parts of Will County IL and Lake County IN. The thing is, a Gary/Chicago airport is a much better way to serve them, seeing as its located near I-80, 90, 94, and 65, not to mention is linked to downtown Chicago by a 35-40 minute express train ride, 50 minutes if local.

Peotone is only on I-57, and would be about a 50-55 minute express train ride (add 20-30 minutes for local service) to downtown if the Electric line were extended. I just have a feeling a Peotone airport would end up like Mid-America outside StL, except even more expensive and even farther from a population source to draw traffic from.

You are 100% correct. It would be a disaster of unimaginable scale.

The only people who would stand to benefit are the various contractors who would get to perform the design and construction work related to it...the taxpayers would be out billions of dollars (without receiving billions of dollars in benefits, to be sure), the state wouldnt even be receiving much tax revenue (worse yet, paying to subsidize the airports operations). And the politicians who got it built? Well they'd certainly get some big donations from the aforementioned construction contractors, but the general public wouldn't have a particular target for their angst because the decision would have been taken collectively, so no politician would stand to get punished for the blunder.

That lack of interstate, intercounty, intercommuity micro-government mentality is why Chicagoland has so many problems functioning and creating progress on a regional level. Too many units of government and no cooperation between them.

Building an airport in a retarded, foolish location just to keep it on state tax rolls and appease certain south side elected officials is the ultimate in selfishness and lack of foresight.

:previous:Exactly! Indiana should cede the NW to Illinois which should in turn annex it to Chicago. :tup:

Thank you. I think the whole "keep it in Illinois" thing is rather shallow. As a south-sider, I can assure anyone on this forum that the prosperity of NW Indiana has a direct impact on the City and Illinois itself, probably a lot more than Peotone. It's not as though there is some kind of border patrol...

I was just looking at a map of the Gary area. It looks to me like the area where Gary-Chicago Airport is built is hemmed in by I-90 to the south, US-12 to the east and north, and Cline Ave. to the west, as well as a number of rail lines.

Is there enough land for the airport to expand, if the need arose?

I would also wonder whether Illinois would be the beneficiary of any of the revenue that would be generated if Gary became the third major airport in the metro area.

Access would be a problem, I would imagine. From the south suburbs and most points west, one would need to take 80/94, which, while just gaining a new lane in each direction, is still a nightmare. Adding any substantial amount of airport traffic would make things that much worse.

I agree that Peotone is probably too far from downtown, but I also wonder whether Gary is really a viable option. Does anyone have any other alternatives?

I don't give a hoot what state it is in. The only thing that should really matter when it comes down to it is the practiacility for the passangers and airlines and the best service it can provide to the region. Given location, accesibility, and market size that is Gary.

I would rather have Indiana and Gary benefit a bit more that have a close connection to more of the metro then bumbleweed Peotone that is less successful and neglected. As has been said Peotone is really just a pet pork project for some Illinois officials under the banner of jobs while neglecting major practicalities. These people would propose a Hoover Dam size project for the Des Plains river under the banner of jobs and tax revenue if they thought they could get away with it.

If Ryan Air really goes through with their continental cheap flights to secondary airports in the U.S. hopefully Gary will make a convincing case that it would be a good choice.

I think access to Gary is (relatively)great, since it's accessible by 80, 94, and 90 coming from the east AND west, plus 65 from the south. 80 is a mess because 1) its so old, so the geometry of the entire roadway wasn't desired to modern standards and 2) bits and pieces have been under construction for literally decades; and when a roadway is continually gaining and losing lanes, it will be jammed at all time. When 1 & 2 are both fixed in the coming years, this problem goes away, and then you look at widening I-90 to 6 lanes east of the state line (the Illinois side i.e. the Skyway is already 6 lanes). Cline Avenue gets beefed up into the airport feeder road that is accessible from both 90 and 80/94.


In terms of expandability, there's enough room (if a few freight tracks are relocated) for 2 parallel 9'000foot runways along with beefing up the current crosswind runway; even 1 9'000ft runway is ample capacity for several years to come, and the second parallel runway allowing for simultaneous operations would add capacity for Chicago's air travel demand probably for as long as all of our lifetimes if not more (assuming OMP is built out as well). After all isn't London Gatwick 2 runways, and Stansted only 1 runway? Also, remember that Midway's runway design is such that they can't do any simultaneous operations, i.e. at best operationally its got 1 takeoff and 1 landing runway that can't be used simultaneously.

FYI, I was driving past GYY the other day and they are well into the first stage of the expansion (rerouting of rail tracks to the west of the main runway).

I also like the idea of calling it the Calumet International Airport. Locals would identify strongly with that, and non-locals wouldn't be turned off by the word "Gary".

Lastly, one need only drive surface streets down in that area to see that the Indiana/Illinois border is just a line on a map. Nothing more, nothing less. What's good for southeast Chicago is good for northwest Indiana, and what's good for northwest Indiana is good for southeast Chicago.

BTW, Viva - I'm not sure Cline can be beefed up any more than it already is - it's grade-seperated the whole way between 80/94 and the airport. Admittedly, the cloverleaf at 80/94 is a bit of a bottleneck, but it's enough to handle the traffic for well into the future.

One thing that Cline does need is resurfacing.

Not only that but Heathrow only has two runwayas as well (both +12,000ft) and that caters to well over 50m a year.

Far into the future when we are gone the far north burbs will likely be so built out that Milwaukee will be seen as a truely 4th regional airport for a good catering to a segement of Lake County.

Agreed. All points.

Was this article posted? From Crain's, May 7:

From the past many pages from the past month or so I have read from newspaper articles that we have the city, suburbs, businesses big and small, metrolpolitan organizations, unions and everyone imbetween screaming that mass transit needs more funding. Well then it will happen because it is everyone stating that we need more funding or the consequences will be dire. I am confident it will happen. Everyone is on the same page and that is what is important.

And a side note. I think the Redline, haven't rode the Brown line in a long time, is running better with one less track because of the recontruction, than before when all 4 tracks were in place. I am amazed. It is decent now, wtf. Some things I don't get and this is one of them.

You're forgeting one thing. Our governor is an idiot.

I don't know much the guy but if you are saying that he is not for more transit funding then he can't win. Everyone is for more and I mean everyone. Is there a group, business, or governemt body - suburban or city, against more funding? No there is not and they are sounding an alarm. He can't fight everyone.

Blago is a politician, though. He sees the writing on the wall, and he won't publicly say he is against funding for transit. He will instead stick to the party line, which is "Pass my gross receipts tax and we'll see about transit funding". That tax is a huge pill for the pro-transit businesses to swallow, maybe even enough to get them to back off the transit issue.

The fact that he's pushing this totally ludicrous and financially backwards tax alone shows me he's an idiot.

Make sense tho. I'm sorry to say it but only a high, sustained gas price will finally ween this country off of oil, and make the use of transit that much more appealing. What is the public opinion of this? Is there much support, or as I would expoect, ambivalence? "I gotta drive. I'll just pay whatever they ask. I have no choice."

I think it's partly due to the fact that everyone working on those routes is on their toes to make sure nothing goes wrong, and that they're running fewer trains on the routes. You don't get the huge back-ups of trains during rush hour that slow everything down.

New CTA leader announces cuts

By Jon Hilkevitch
Tribune transportation reporter
Published May 10, 2007, 10:49 AM CDT


Newly appointed CTA President Ron Huberman today took a first stab at reducing the agency's administrative costs by announcing the elimination of 49 management positions and other cuts totaling $12.5 million.

Link

maybe i should email this article to jones and madigan. you know, the two chicagoans who are in charge of each house of the state legislature to go along with our chicagoan governor ...

well, I think Blago was made a lame duck governor if I ever did see one today. While I agree with him in principal that his pet projects are the right things to focus on, it was clear in the beginning that he needed to figure a way to either start more modest programs and/or reformulate his taxing structure. Heck, he should have worked hand in hand with business groups on ways to improve Illinois's healthcare and education He shouldn't have fucked with transit either (that's where he lost me). Typical politician who doesn't see the big picture. He wants better healthcare but doesn't comprehend that getting cars off the roads automatically improves people's health.


regarding the above article, I think its a bad idea to cut advertising. That's the one thing that should be increasing at this time of increasingly high gas prices. But instead of hte previous crap the CTA has put out, they need to seek an agency that will do their work pro bono.

Well, getting cars off the roads would definitely increase the efficiency of ambulances. Twice in the last 2 days I have witnessed ambulances, with their sirens on, STUCK IN TRAFFIC because nobody wants to move.

I agree he was made a lame duck.

The fact is the state is in a fiscal mess right now (under his leadership, and this is all while he INCREASED government spending over the past several years more than any other recent administration).

You can't tell people that we are in a fiscal mess in one sentence, which we all know, and then in the next sentence talk about raising taxes to spend more money on government and expand health care. You don't talk about how the government is in a bloated fiscal mess and then in the next breath propose to raise spending and expand government. It just doesn't make sense to anyone with half a brain.

When you are in a personal fiscal crunch and are in debt, do you think it is wise to borrow money at Best Buy to upgrade your plasma TV? Truly unbelievable behavior by Blago and no one was falling for it.

jan-march ridership #s for cta train (compared to 2006):

Red line: -2%
north -3%
state subway -2%
dan ryan 0%

Purple line: -2%

Yellow line: -8%

Blue line: -6%
o'hare -5
dearborn subway -12%
forest park -2%

Pink line: 4%

Green line: 2%
lake 5%
south elevated 2%
e. 63rd -5%
ashland -9%

Brown line: -4%

Orange line: -1%

Loop elevated: 8%

blue line is getting hit hardest across weekends. Highest increases seen on Loop elevated sundays (up 31% in March (15.2k vs. 11.7k rides in '06)). The capacity project on the north side has affected just about every single line as expected.

System Total (train 20007): -2%

March numbers:
weekdays: -1%
saturday: 0%
sunday: 6%

jan-march ridership #s for cta bus (daily averages):

weekday: 1,002,404 (979,504 (2006)) 2.3%
saturday: 615,598 (611,930) 0.6%
sunday: 424,658 (402,844) 5.4%

really good numbers for bus ridership.



CTA systemwide gains (bus and train) for the month of March, despite our awful state of rail, there's about an increase of about 19k rides per weekday, 5k on Saturdays and 32k on sundays.

Sundays continue to be the big ridership gainer on the CTA system as it has been for at least the past few years.

I had an idea after I saw the Southworks plan - what if the Green Line took over the IC South Chicago branch? It would only require about 1.5 miles of trackage to link the two, and it would increase frequencies to both South Chicago customers as well as the customers on the IC Main Line. Additionally, it would add riders to the Green Line which is struggling right now.

You could go even further and build a subway. It would be cheaper than a standard subway, since they wouldn't need to disrupt the traffic to build it. The existing median is more than wide enough for a subway (I checked it against the clearances of NY's IND subways, which have bigger cars than Chicago anyway).

I'm not sure the Southworks plan will work without transit improvements. Without good transit, it won't appeal to the yuppies, and with its New-Urbanist plan and South Side location, it probably won't attract many families.

hhmm...I like it, sounds like an intriguing idea. I was thinking of how to get transit over there when I saw the Southworks renders as well. That sounds like it may be a feasible solution. I was thinking just extending the green line to it since its not all that really far away but your idea may be more practicle and lost costley. To really get the most out of that site and its potential some good transit options would be key.

^ That is a cool idea. A few issues to consider:

1. How to extend the green line eastward to the IC, since so much blood was already let in the 90s to get it removed?

2. If I understand you correctly, this would involve shutting down the South Chicago branch for a couple years while the line is reconfigured to CTA standards.

3. Is there a market for travel to justify the expense? As it is right now, the #6, 14, an 26 express bus routes combine to wallop the South Chicago branch. Put another way: would such a green line extension provide service to where those residents would want to go, and would it provide that service with short enough travel times to win people over from either their cars or the bus? The South Chicago branch ridership is certainly hurt by a combination of its poor off-peak service level and the lack of fare integration.

On account of the all the infrastructure issues alone (overhead power collection, platform height, etc.) I've generally figured that the most plausible solution is to purchase more Metra Electric Highliners to allow for 15 minute headways throughout the day, coupled with vital fare integration between the CTA and Metra systems, i.e. so customers could take a bus to the Metra line and transfer, or transfer to CTA once they get downtown.

Well, I think my idea would work politically. Metra would lose the burden of providing service to an in-city area, and the residents of South Shore would be happy since they would receive a transit upgrade.

The number of trains being run would not actually change. Metra would still run the same amount of trains on their Electric District; only without the burden of the South Chicago branch, they would be free to run more on their Main Line (or to eliminate those runs altogether). The number of trains being run on the Green Line would be the same as the number of trains being run to East 63rd right now.

As for the community opposition - I would in fact have the rest of the 63rd Street L torn down. It's too controversial, and I have a better routing. It would continue south through the CTA yard and onto the abandoned New York Central viaduct, which runs parallel to the Skyway. (the viaduct currently in use was built by the Pennsylvania RR, and is also parallel). From there it would diverge at 71st and enter a short subway over to Dorchester, where it would join the South Chicago Branch.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/1...tensionxi0.jpg

Lots of trouble
By the time you get a parking permit at a handful of suburban Metra stops with lengthy waiting lists, the Summer Olympics may be in town

May 14, 2007
BY MONIFA THOMAS Staff Reporter

If you apply today for a parking permit for one of the two commuter lots closest to the Naperville stop on Metra's Burlington Northern Santa Fe line, you should be getting it by, oh, sometime in the year 2016.

That's right -- the waiting list to get a quarterly permit for a parking spot there now stretches nearly nine years.

If you're the parent of a preschooler, you'll be getting her ready for high school then. Who knows, maybe the two of you can take Metra to see the Summer Olympics.

A third commuter lot by the Naperville station isn't as tough to get into -- the wait's just six years for a parking permit there because it's farther from the tracks.

Sound bad? It used to be worse.

"Actually, the wait lists have come down a little bit over the last five years," says Doug Krieger, Naperville's finance director. "We've seen the peak, and we're starting to come down."

That's small comfort to Metra commuters in the west suburb who say they set their alarm clocks two hours early to leave enough time to hunt for street or meter parking. Either that, or drive to another station, walk, take a Pace bus or arrange to be picked up.

Marlene Marino tried almost all of those options during the five years she waited to get a space in one of the coveted Naperville lots, back when the list was shorter.

Marino says she also "parked illegally . . . and got a lot of tickets. It was a long five years. I feel bad for the people on that list."

Marcea Holman, also of Naperville, didn't even bother to add her name to the list, which already has nearly 1,700 names on it. Her husband started taking her to and from the station after she tired of spending 30 minutes to an hour every day looking for a place to park.

"It's crazy," Holman said. "People get these permits, and they last forever."

Indeed, those lucky enough to get a permit can keep their spaces as long as they want. All they have to do is pay fees of $50 to $60 per quarter, depending on the lot.

Naperville does audits to make sure people are actually using their spots, Krieger said. But those are done only every few years.

Naperville isn't the only place with terrible waits for reserved parking near a Metra station -- just the worst. Other suburbs that have lengthy waits: Clarendon Hills, with an eight-year wait; Lisle and Midlothian, both five to seven years; and Hinsdale, at least five years.

Metra doesn't handle parking for most of its stations, but it has been involved in several expansion projects to ease the parking crunch, which is most pronounced in the fast-growing west suburbs.

Altogether, more than 85,000 parking spaces are available in lots near Metra stations. That's nowhere near enough, commuters say. And, with ridership at an all-time high, it's only getting worse.

Many of the communities with the worst waits have no plans to add more spaces or change the way permits are issued.

As Midlothian spokeswoman Gladys Schuler put it: "We have no place to expand. Other than maybe turning our whole town into a parking lot, I don't know what the solution is."

DePaul University transportation professor Joseph Schwieterman has one suggestion commuters may not like: raising the price of parking.

While adding new commuter lines to Metra's system would be the best solution, "a higher price would encourage more efficient use of scarce spots," Schwieterman said. "A nine-year wait is simply intolerable for a growing suburb."

^ A few obvious points:

1. The quarterly price for renewal is much, much too low; raising the price would reduce the demand, minimize wait time and maximize revenue for the low owner. What are they waiting for?

2. Ms. Midlothian: Demand is high. Build large parking garages instead of these awful huge surface lots!

No kidding. It's not like people won't fill up the spaces and they won't be able to pay for the parking garages. What are they waiting for? If you can't park your car near a metra station out in the burbs what good is the metra station--might as well drive to downtown, and that just adds to the problem.

This is just more evidence that the park 'n ride system doesn't work. It makes sense in theory but in the real world, it just forces an average suburban commuter to have to spend 15 min on the road just to get to a train station. On top of that, the state is forced to bankroll 2 forms of infrastructure (road and tracks) instead of just focusing on improving mass transit. But I guess at this stage it's too late in the game to try to change all of suburbia to TOD. We gotta live with the park 'n ride.

The state is never gonna be free of the burden of funding roads. It's the high-volume, interstate or grade-seperated expressways that are so wasteful.

I really doubt that. The tollway system makes a hell of a lot of money and carries an incredible amount of (very important) business thorough fare. Sometimes I wonder if people forget that Chicago sits on the nexus of three states and is the major industrial/shipping/distribution hub in the Midwest.

I think Park n Ride does work as long as the parking lots aren't preventing any higher density, "sustainable" uses around the transit station. Out in Naperville, the BNSF stops are surrounded by vast rings of parking:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...1310&encType=1

Witness the wrong way to implement park n ride. Of course, at least this one has an apartment development in the near vacinity; but a better plan would be to use just one or 2 of those lots to build multi-story parking garages, and develop the rest as apartments with some storefront retail. The retail would not only serve those residents, but also commuters on the way to and from work (dry-cleaning, convenience store/pharmacy, etc.)

For a much more viable model, see Arlington Heights:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=...9555&encType=1

Note apartments, retail, and parking decks (several of which are available to Metra commuters)

Not every suburb has a metra parking problem--most in fact don't. And those that do, it's not like they can't replace the surface lots with garages. The park and ride system works great if there are places to park. It's not like the suburbs have the same land crunch the city does and the vast majority only have surface lots.

....which is a heck of a lot better than the same people all trying to squeeze through the Hillside Strangler, don't you think? There is nothing wrong with spending a few minutes on local arterials (which will ALWAYS be there) to get people off the major freeways and onto trains.

Are you saying to do away with ROADS? I think you may have it backwards if I understand you correctly. There will never, ever be a time where the only transportation money the state spends is on mass transit because roads are the only truly multi-modal, multi-usage, and omni-temporal commuting and distribution system we have and the economic health of the region is much more dependent on them for those reasons, besides the fact that a hugely significant portion of the metro's mass transit are via the same arterials (buses)...

I don't think Marcu was saying to do away with roads, but rather that by having people hop in their cars and drive a few miles to the train, you've already done away with a significant part of the benefits of transit to things like congestion (and its accompanying construction/maintenance costs), air quality, etc.