Beyond the environmental and cost concerns, have they thought about safety? As depicted, it would seem like someone could just jump on top of that garden car when the train is stopped. Can't stop people from doing idiotic things, I suppose, but it just seems like they'd be tempting idiocy...

Good point. I think they should add a cage around it, with barbed wire to prevent people from clinging to it. Matter of fact, better be safe than sorry, and add another car to it with attack dogs and security personnel toting assault rifles while guarding it. I might have to create a rendering for this.

Whether intended or not, the Green Car is a very effective parody. How about driving some green flatbed trucks around to bring some much needed plant life to the interstate? Sometimes folks get their head so far into an idea that the lines between clever and idiotic vanish to them.

I will go ahead and already give this thing a name:

'The trash car'. I can just imagine the sound of beer cans clinking together from a half a mile away, and people on the platform saying, "hey, I think the train's coming!"

I've never seen anyone do anything like that with Santa's open car on the Holiday Train.

Sure, but the santa car at least has one guard: santa. ;)

I'm just picturing this car rolling along the red line route at 11pm on a friday...oh the fun the bar crowd would have...

Good material, I'm stealing that.

I'm wondering if this garden car would be the 9th car in a train and rather than stopping at the platform, it would extend backwards beyond the platform? Though that still wouldn't stop people from being able to jump onto it once the train starts moving forward...

The safest place for it would probably be as the lead car, being pushed. That way the operator can see it at all times and slap around any hoodlums who get on it.

Past that, though, I think it's a really stupid idea to actually implement. It's a cute idea as long as it's ONLY an idea, but if implemented, it's pretty stupid.

It's funny because it's such a fantastic overthinking of a minor issue. Need more greenery for commuters? Put some freaking plants in the stations. Done. Having a train pull them around means than no one will be able to be near them. How much time do you spend standing next to trains? At best people might encounter this plant car for 15 seconds while waiting for another train at a loop station. Otherwise people just get on the train when it arrives. The riders on the train would have no perception of a car of plants at the end of the train.

The fact that the artist responsible had enough time to create a slick graphic before realizing any of this...

It's 5% cute, 95% waste of everyones time.

Chicago didn't get a penny of the FTA's 2011 New Starts Construction Grants.

Way to go Chicago! :tup:

Hardly surprising ... none of the Chicago projects is far enough long to receive any substantial award (a completed EIS/preliminary design would do wonders here), and the availability of local funding is highly questionable.

If the Red/Orange/Yellow extension EISs proceed this year rather than continuing to get peridodically delayed for various political reasons like the Alternatives Analyses were, it's conceivable the 2012 and 2013 New Starts could have something for the region, but until then...

That's just CTA. Then there's Metra. The unglamorous but useful projects for the UP-W and UP-NW could well both qualify by 2012 (preliminary engineering supposed to occur in 2010). The Southeast service is farther behind, I don't think there's even an approved "locally-preferred alternative" yet so it may not be up for another few years. And the STAR Line, well, we should be so lucky that atrocity dies.

That said, the luck of any "small starts" projects for the region is a tad less explainable or defensible.

In defense of Chicago and in critique of the entire program and structure of American transit funding, note that Houston is getting money for it's $600 million Southeast Light Rail line projected to serve... 12,000 daily transit riders. CTA has, roughly, 40 distinct bus routes that serve that level of ridership or greater. Money well spent, dear taxpayers.

EDITED per ardec's correction below.

It's the UP-W, not the UP-N. The only project on the UP-N is the viaduct replacement in the city, and Metra is paying for that without federal funds.

Interesting article on Wired
 

"Could Cars Have Caused the Mortgage Meltdown?"

Part of the study was done in Chicago, they cited that people who lived in densely populated areas with easy access to public transportation were less like to foreclose that those who lived in sprawling suburbs with no PT acess. I think the title is a bit of a stretch obviously, but an interesting article none the less.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/02...wn/#more-19091

The thing is, carbon based power plants do not change their putput throughout the day that much. Its cheaper to just let them run.

So how much extra electricity is needed to propel one additional rail car? Im guessing very little. So the rail car will use up a tiny bit of electricity that would have existed anyway.

^its still stupid. Just admit it. Rebuild the L station and put a green roof on the canopy or grow ivy on the L structure before you haul a potting soil wagon around. And what someone said about idiots hopping on it or throwing garbage on it is true, that's exactly what would happen.

^Not to mention the extra costs of maintenance and additional electricity that CTA must pay for. I still really don't understand how this adds greenery to commuters, it will sit in each station for 30-60 seconds, and its not like anyone can ride with the garden if they choose to.

In fairness to Houston, there is a lot of private money flowing in by way of a private-public partnership to build out much of the LRT system. METRO is in very good financial standing, and built the Main Street (Red Line) LRT without any federal funds. Additionally, because of the lack of zoning in Houston, that ridership level might grow significantly after the line opens. The Red Line is already way ahead of its initial ridership projections.

while Houston is building a transit system Chicago is dismantling.

CTA cuts coming this weekend
http://www.wgntv.com/news/wgntv-cta-...,1347570.story

get ready for a 20% reduction in bus service and a 10% reduction in train service. That reduction is enough to make getting around the city as a primary means of tranportation not reasonable. Its time to seriously reconsider living here, oh I know, its the same old threatening to leave that everyone does but I like having no car and the urban lifestyle. If Chicago can't provide that than adios, I live once and am going to live and enjoy life how I want whether it be here or elsewhere.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,4856524.story

It blows my mind that the Unions get to pick the arbitrator and that it isn't a joint choice between the union and the CTA. Still, they lost. Now they want another month in the hope the money will appear. They clearly were not taking this seriously enough. It's a shame. Transit ridership has been on climb over the last decade and I bet this takes a chunk out of that ridership.

The arbitrator has to be approved by both parties, I believe. Each side proposes a few arbitrators and then they agree on one. The wording here suggests management proposed this particularly arbitrator and the union approved the choice.

Of course, this still begs the question of why an unelected, unaccountable arbitrator is in the position to make decisions impacting the level and quality of public services and implied changes in taxation.