Taking the ME to lab this afternoon and it's packed much more than any of my recent weekday trips (to be fair, I'm a reverse commuter). Also, they just announced that the Homewood stop is flooded?

My guess is that some of the stations needing elevators would need to be completely reconstructed. $50 million to rebuild a station and add an elevator sounds about right. Adding two elevators to the Loop's Quincy station cost over $18 million, and that was relatively straightforward.

Quincy has special historic status though, right?

Well, sort of. Decades ago, the CTA and city agreed to restore Quincy in return for being able to modernize the rest of the Loop stations. In the end, it was more reconstructed than restored, but whatever.

However, the elevators were added in quite a straightforward way—by extending the platforms to new towers from the sidewalk—thus requiring no alteration of the historic station house.

14 out of those 41 stations are included in the RPM project (4 in the current phase that just kicked off yesterday) so those should be considered separately since the line will be reconstructed. Another 7 are part of the Blue Line Forest Park branch, which is also planned as a standalone reconstruction project.

That leaves only 20 stations to tackle as accessibility projects - 12 outlying stations on the O'Hare branch and the Lake St branch, plus North/Clybourn, and 9 downtown stations. Out of those 20, 11 are subway, 7 are elevated and 2 are expressway median stations.

..

Has anyone heard anything recently about building a connection between the Clinton blue line and Union Station? I wish they'd incorporate it somehow with the BMO tower construction...

^ discussed a few pages back

^ discussed in the BMO thread, not this one.

To recap, BMO will extend a pedestrian passageway through their underground garage to Clinton/Van Buren, but no further.


A further extension south to CTA is not planned at this time, but it might be included in the Forest Park branch rebuild project (whenever that happens). Under that project, Clinton would also get a second entrance and mezzanine at Jefferson by the Greyhound terminal, and maybe a pedway from the existing mezzanine east into the Old Post Office.

^Thank you!

The Clinton station desperately needs a massive overhaul, that much is for sure. For being such a major station so near Union Station and Greyhound, not to mention the OPO, it's in pathetic condition. I hope to see the ped connection to OPO and the additional entrance at Jefferson before I die. ;)

Aaron (Glowrock)

The Clinton blue line station is/was a bit of a no mans land and the physical location of the station is not the most inviting. Could use an overhaul, but I could think of a few stations I'd prefer to see built or redone before the Clinton Blue Line station.

Well as noted it would be part of a larger project for the whole branch which is in a shameful state except for the IMD and UIC stations.

A big point which I didn't realize is that all of these ADA projects also need to bring the stations into compliance with fire code (NFPA130). In most cases that means adding additional emergency exits at the platform ends, regardless of whether that platform is elevated on a narrow viaduct or 80' below ground. That process is very expensive - it's not just a matter of installing an elevator next to the existing stairs.

The good news is that auxiliary exits can also be beneficial to passengers as well by making the station more convenient, but the bad news is that NFPA130 compliance is a huge unfunded mandate. By demanding this upgrade, fire officials are deliberately and drastically slowing down the rate that CTA can become fully accessible.

I worked in the Old Post Office a whole few weeks pre covid and took the Blue Line from that station to the Red Line. It is something else lol. It's not dangerous, not needles laying around, not human stuff, or anything like that, it's just there and not maintained. I'm guessing that with the Old Post Office being abandoned for years and not much around that immediate area that station had minimal people traffic. It does need an upgrade, that's for sure. Btw. I had to go into the old Post Office last week for a couple of hours - it's strange that last time I was there the BMO tower was just a construction site with no highrise part that I noticed and now there is an almost completed highrise there. On another note the Old Post Office is perhaps the most impressive buildings I have been in

I've only been in the lobby for the 2019 OHC, but that was indeed very impressive.

The Clinton Station just feels like... a highway underpass next to a greyhound station. Which is what it is...

Perhaps it's just that I used it 5 or more days a week for about a year when I worked in the South Loop that I feel pretty strongly about it. That and the massive amount of new construction (not to mention access to Union Station) of course.

Ardecila, any idea as to when the Forest Park branch renovations might begin on the Blue Line?

Aaron (Glowrock)

If Biden's infrastructure bill passes, this will be a high priority for CTA but currently there are no funds allocated to it.

I would say it is probably top-5 priority for CTA after the RPM project that is underway on the North Side, the Red Line extension, and railcar replacement.

Looking at CTA's actual budget is usually pretty grim and does not inspire confidence in the ability of CTA to ever expand in a meaningful way. Even if the Federal government comes through with a boatload of money it will still flow to rehab of existing infrastructure primarily.

I’m not sure if this subject has been debated to death, but I don’t know why the cta is so dead set on a red line extension. Don’t get me wrong, it would be amazing, but in terms of transit deserts/equity on the South Side seems to me that extending/restoring the green line and better connecting existing Metra lines would be a lot more effective and efficient use of funds.

I’m pretty mad at LL’s decision to not link the CTA and metra because she doesn’t want to divert ridership away from the CTA. Wouldn’t a better transit system bring more ridership to both in the long run without spending the bank? Am I missing something?

The origin of that problem is the RTA exists as a body who decides how to divvy up the dough, but not actually how to run an integrated and intelligent regional transit system.

Right now the ME is cheaper than the CTA for unlinked trips, thanks to the 50% off pilot. Unfortunately the service levels are much worse.