I've thought that if the gray line happened it could possibly be extended underground up columbus / fairbanks then west down Chicago ave to connect to the red line. It would connect most of the big downtown tourist attractions mag mile, navy pier, millenium park and museum campus and maybe spur on some office development in those empty lots east of Tribune.

It would be a spur line if it terminated in Streeterville, but if it traveled through Streeterville up along the length of the park it would service Streeterville, Lincoln Park & the Lake, and relieve the Red and Brown lines a bit.

Any sort of subway construction seems cost prohibitive since your essentially duplicating the existing red line footprint. I hope some day some sort of light rail solution will prevail in connecting Metra Stations-McCormick Pl -Museums-Illinois Cntr- navy pier.

You complain that a subway is a spur line, yet want a surface line created instead, one that would add a totally new type of rolling stock to what the CTA has to maintain and that can't share yards and service facilities with anything else the CTA has? That's completely illogical. A subway is faster, can carry more passengers, and doesn't interfere with other forms of transit. And it wouldn't have to be a "spur line," and the 1968 proposal doesn't duplicate the Red Line, not by a long shot. There are several ways you could make minor alterations to make it possible to route as part of existing lines or build out one or two new lines as part of a long-range plan.

At any rate, the lines shows in the image I posted, from the 1968 plan, is about 6 miles of route. 5 of the 16 lines in the Paris are about that long or shorter, and 11 of the 16 lines in Paris are under 10 miles. Are you proposing that Paris' network is somehow lacking because their lines are too short? The fact of the matter is that most of Chicago's lines are far too long to be ideal and Chicago would be far better served by building a few more short lines in the center of the city than by any of the line extensions that have been proposed. Building a line from the IMD to, say, Lincoln Park by way of Streeterville, with a south leg to McCormick would be comparable to over half of Paris' lines, serve tens of millions of riders annually, and tie together some of the most economically important parts of Chicago, for maybe double the cost (but several times the ridership and utility) of what a Red Line extension is projected to cost. In no rational world would the Red Line be extended before additional rail was built out downtown, but politics makes it nearly impossible to build central lines anymore because idiots decry them as serving only the rich.

Rauner sticks a knife in the Illiana:

http://www.wbez.org/news/rauner-puts...ay-hold-111394

Thank god we aren't blowing cash on a freeway when we have this budget mess...

Already happy with my vote.

^^^ I hope the Rt. 53 expansion in Lake County gets the ax next. A 45mph "freeway" costing $5 to drive 12 miles? No one will ever use it. I'm really hoping the budget crisis takes that boondoggle down too.

And it's with great sadness that I finally broke down and edited the Spire out of my avatar :(

I know, fantastic news!

me too! :cheers:

goodbye illiana boondoggle, and good riddance.

Rauner's executive order suspended virtually all planning efforts on all non-essential pending projects at all state agencies. It didn't target the Illiana specifically, although the Illiana is the most high-profile victim. It also didn't affect agencies outside of direct state control, like the Tollway, CTA, Metra, or CDOT.

Also, the expressway is only suspended pending a review. If the review is done honestly, I think it will reveal that the state's fiscal projections for the Illiana are too rosy.

Unfortunately this may also affect more benign IDOT planning efforts, like the various Amtrak proposals for new services to Rockford/Galena/Dubuque and the Quad Cities, or the North Lake Shore Drive study.

Maybe he will kill Peotone Airport as well. The state already owns a ton of land down there, they should sell it off and capitalize on the high land values for farmland right now. They will probably make a profit if they sell it off in the next year or two.

I hope both are killed.

I'm from Moline so I've been following the Amtrak progress. Back in August contracts were signed for the final design of signaling upgrades on the last portion of the route. That design work should all be done now, all that's left is to actually make the upgrades. Moline's Amtrak station is done I believe. Work at an Aurora rail yard should be done. It'd make little sense to kill that project at the 95% point, so I hope not.

Unlike a new interstate to be bulldozed through farmland, this Amtrak route runs entirely on existing track.

Quad Cities Amtrak has $200 Million in Federal money set aside. And some of the work is underway at Eola Yards in Aurora.

...or they could try to expand the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

I thought that at 1st too, did not think it was that close together though.

Why is it vital to kill Peotone Airport? Do we honestly think we are the last generation, that the region's population (and air travel needs) will never expand beyond what they are today?

Let the state continue to bank land, and then lease it out for farming. Fifty or 70 years from now, we might be grateful someone had some foresight. If by then we're no longer using airliners and airports, we haven't lost much and the land can be sold off or made into a prairie preserve.

I'm sure there are some valid public uses for that land eventually. If we are ever forced to gear up for a major war again, we would need large scale facilities for producing ammunition (a la the original Joliet Arsenal). It could also be a good site for agricultural and scientific research like Fermilab, or for new power generation away from populated areas.

It's pretty clear to me that most regional travel is better done on a robust rail network with high speed, etc rather than in the air... Uses less energy, much smaller carbon footprint, direct access to city centers, etc. Building such a network would take significant strain off our airports, which are already colossal compared to their European counterparts.

I would prefer reinvigorating the old industrial footprint around Gary airport before burning up useful agricultural land for expanded air capacity.

Heck, even though it's politically unfeasible and cost prohibitive, moderate expansion of Midway's footprint South, East, North and partially West to the rail right of ways would unlock enough land to allow parallel runways for simultaneous take offs and landings.

I just think it's better to maximize existing transportation assets first, before building far flung new assets.

^ Honestly, so much of the metro Chicago's economy is oriented towards the north & west that I highly doubt a south suburban airport will get much use.

What is the point of Peotone? Is it really there to increase air capacity in the Chicago area, or is it just a political bone thrown to south suburban mayors and leaders? Because the way I see it, most of the power brokers in the Chicago area will not travel that far south to use an airport.

I had to pick up my brother in law from Midway airport yesterday and it was such a long and painful journey, imagine how time consuming and difficult a trip to Peotone would be.