I'll post my maps when I make them, but that'll be at least a few weeks.

In the mean time, here are a few things to think about:

Re: Green Line
If you look at the Census numbers for Garfield Park and that area, much of that area has finally stablized instead of suffering population decline and there is other evidence that gentrification has begun in and around Garfield Park. If that's the case, then it would be expected to see Green Line Lake ridership to start to increase strongly in that area. It's also the case that the West Loop, both the near (Clinton) and western edge (Ashland) have a lot more going on than they did 10 years ago. The numbers bear this out: Since 2000, Clinton has increased by over 150% and Ashland by over 80%. Of course both of those are influenced by the Pink Line, too.

The gentrification theory starts to show west of Ashland. California is up about 52%, Kedzie up by 26.6%, Conservatory up by 314% (!), Pulaski up by 42.8%, then we start to see the numbers be less aggressive, though at least still grow over 10% since 2000, with Cicero up 19.2%, Laramie 14.5%, Central 10.2%, and increases are in that range the rest of the line, with Oak Park and Harlem slightly better.

Re: Pink Line
As you mentioned, it benefited from increased frequency, but also increased speed (no super-slow zones anymore), lots of publicity, and a more pleasant experience all around at the station levels. Polk was only up about 50%, but it was and remains the highest-used station on the line, with over double any other Pink Line station except 54th. Pink Line is also now open on weekends - the stations weren't in 2000.

Another thing that helped as additional station entrances, or moving entrances to major streets. In 2000, the train stopped on Hoyne - now that the station is at Damen there was a 136% increase in usage. And I do think there is some gentrification continuing as Pilsen's influence moves west into the Douglas Park area. This bears out in the fact that stations east of Pulaski have greater than 100% increases in ridership, while stations west of there do not.

Re: Blue Line
As an aside, I think it's odd that Clinton is in the Forest Park/Congress stats and not the subway stats. Anyway, in addition to frequency improvements, this branch also benefited some from slow zone repair work.

Clinton is up 40%, Halsted 54%, Racine only 13.2%. The first two seem to point to the West Loop's growth more than anything else. The Racine number is surprising, although there used to be a Jewel there - I'm not sure when it closed, but it could account for the difference, or it could just be a shift in preference - taken together, the Halsted/Racine together increased 39% so still strong. Medical Center is up 60%, Western is up 74%, Kedzie up 28%, Pulaski up 47%, Cicero up 27%, Austin up 35.8%, Oak Park up 31.5%, Harlem up 32.6%, and Forest Park up only 14.5%. Again, like the Green and Pink Lines, although the drop-off isn't as steep, growth is definitely weaker west of Pulaski.

So, based on these numbers, it seems like the western edge of "global Chicago" is currently Pulaski.

Wow. What the hell is going on at Conservatory? It has no bus transfers, which was my first guess.

Historically, Clinton was built along with the Forest Park Branch and the Eisenhower, not with the rest of the Dearborn St subway. Operationally, there's an interlocking just west of LaSalle, and CTA has short-turned trains there in the past.

The interlocking is east of La Salle, not west; and was used constantly when La Salle was the end of the Dearborn Milwaukee line, before the extension out into the expressway was put in service.

Today, short turned trains are signed for UIC/Halsted, the first median station and trains are turned in the middle track west of the station in am rush only.

David Harrison

I looked it up. Seems it was closed half the year. Still nice increase, showing the power of even just one destination.

Ah, so a fairer comparison would involve doubling the 2000 ridership, and even that ridership would be artificially depressed because of the closure effects. Makes sense.

2 metra overpasses have been installed along Ravenswood ave so far. The west side overpasses at Sunnyside and Berteau are in. They look pretty good so far, though the old ones were more quaint. They removed the old stone retaining walls along the underpasses and put in concrete walls that look like small limestone blocks. They actually look really convincing. I had to look really closely to tell that they were concrete instead of limestone, they did a good job for precast.

I saw the one at Sunnyside last night after Spacca Napoli. It looks good, but the depth of the trusses is massive compared to the old ones. It really restricts your vision over the tracks.

It's quite similar to the newer overpasses on the UP-NW, which was reconstructed about 10 years ago. The premium limestone finish is new, though - it's actually not precast, the walls are cast in place with textured form liners.

I ate at ING over the weekend and checked out the Morgan Green Line progress while in the area. It looks really nice, although if I'm allowed one critique it's that the auxillary exit stairways on the east end of the platform exit back toward the west, on the same block as the main entrance. That just seems silly since a few extra feet to the east and they could have exited to the east and broadened the range and eliminated a street crossing for pedestrians. Seems like a lazy solution - or maybe just excessive value-engineering?

Metra UP-N Bridge Replacement
 

New Sunnyside and Berteau Metra/UP-N Bridges from Flickr user vxla.


Sunnyside

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7183/6...508d8029_b.jpg
Flickr


Berteau

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7192/6...db781eaa_b.jpg
Flickr


Berteau faux-stone concrete detail

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7046/6...6678f207_b.jpg
Flcikr

Anybody know what that big beam in front of the plate girder is for? I can only guess it's for billboards, but Sunnyside and Berteau are not exactly prime advertising spots, nor would the neighbors consent. Right now, they're just oh-so-convenient ledges for taggers - they've already struck at Sunnyside, in fact.

Another possibility is that it's a conduit for the signaling system - recent CTA stations have included similar tubes to get the conduit out of the way and to allow for future changes/expansion. Still, seems like a really boneheaded way to do it.

None of the above ardecila. It's actually a "sacrificial" beam designed to absorb the energy of an above clearance vehicle hitting it, thus protecting the actual girder bridge from damage... Pretty clever really. I also thought about the graffiti issue but I don't see why it would be more tag worthy than the actual large bridge girder.

Does anyone know what color they plan on painting these new bridges? I could see I nice green or perhaps dark gray or even black.

Ah. That's interesting and pretty clever. The "sacrificial" beam is an easy way to access the main girder, though. Without it, taggers would either have to tag the inside of the girder facing the tracks (who cares) or they'd have to shimmy out onto the bottom flange, which would deter a lot of them. The fact that the girders have already been tagged is evidence of this problem, which is gonna lead to a maintenance headache.

Besides - what happened to the clearance-raising part of the project? Did Metra drop that goal to save a few bucks? The comparison image shows some huge bearings on the previous plan that don't show up in the updated plan.

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/7971/bridgesk.jpg

Are they able to raise clearances much? I mean you'd have to redo long approaches. I guess they could use some really wide flange stringers to give a few extra inches of clearance or maybe cut down on some of that built up track bed.

Usually it's easier to pay the city to drop the road level...sewers and all...especially when there's an existing drainage problem and a major solution is needed.

Strike beams are usually installed when there's absolutely no other alternative...but they've done such an overhaul here, this is really quite surprising.

14'6" is non-restricted clearance. Can't quite tell if the bridge is even close to that. Looks like ~12'6"

Strike beam in action
http://11foot8.com/

I think the idea (in the original project) was that the two tracks would be centered in the ROW and additional gravel ballast could be piled on top to raise the elevation by a foot or two.

Looking back on it, though, I can't see any official source that claims Metra ever wanted to raise clearances at every street crossing, as The Urbanophile claimed in his blog post. The middle section in the "single-track" scheme shows the new bridge with the exact same clearance as the remaining old one.

Certainly some crossings on the UP-North are drastically low, and at these locations Metra may try to raise track elevation. But at Berteau and Sunnyside, they seem content to leave clearances unchanged and put in the strike beams. Berteau is currently 11'8", Sunnyside is 10'10" per the city's master list.

The bottom elevation of the new bridges might be a few inches higher than the old ones, and Metra can probably gain a few extra inches by shaving the roadway. That's not enough to bring it to 14'6", though.

The news from last night's presentation on a new Green Line station at Cermak:

Cermak was chosen over 18th for several reasons, including interference with 18th Junction, transfers from the Cermak bus, proximity to McCormick Place, and a ridership study. Projections are for 2000 "riders" a day at Cermak. I didn't demand clarification about whether that was in fact "boardings."

The construction schedule is rather aggressive, with construction beginning in 2013 and the station opening in 2014. A design firm will be chosen soon, but some parts of the program are set: no property acquisition, main entrance on north side of Cermak, auxiliary entrances on south side and also at 23rd to serve McCormick Place.

The astonishing cost—projected as $50 million for a simple island-platform station—was defended because it will be "a tight time-frame" and "built under traffic." Morgan (to open in May, we learned) was only $40 million. The Cermak station will be paid for by TIF funds from the Near South district, which sunsets in 2014.

I know I'm the only person who continues to tilt at this particular windmill, but just for comparison: An entire suburban Walmart costs about $14 million to build. The Tollway Authority yesterday approved an entire interchange at Route 47 (to be built under traffic at Davis-Bacon rates) for $36 million. The new eight-story Jones HS at State & Polk is only $90 million.

^ You are not the only one tilting at that windmill.

This is exactly why America is building such little mass transit right now. Chicago just keeps sucking property/business owners dry so that they can overpay contractors for this kind of stuff.

Anyhow, I hope this station spurs some development around the site. Right now there are some nice little places for drunken grub, but otherwise those vacant lots and that god-awful drive thru White Castle need to go. I really wish the redevelopment of the Hilliard Homes had included something to enforce the State/Cermak streetwall, but alas we have a fortress behind a sea of empty grass...

Perhaps someone would be able to FOI a detailed budget from the Morgan station to see where exactly all the money goes per the budget?

Was the $50m figure fully loaded, or only the hard costs of the construction contract itself?

I guess you could. I'd be more interested in seeing the submitted bids (when they get to that stage).

There are various reasons that have been projected for the high cost of construction. One of the most logical explanations is that there are pretty high barriers to entry, with CTA or CDOT demanding firms with a past record of transit work, union labor, etc... That means the bids only come from a select few contractors who meet the criteria. Over time, this high cost of construction affects the initial budgeting for a project, so a transit station will be allocated $50 million at the outset instead of $30 million to avoid a last-minute scramble for funds. None of the small cartel of qualifying contractors will come in drastically under the allocated amount, since that amount is public knowledge that is known to all ahead of time.

Mr. D's comparison of a suburban Wal-Mart is off-base, though. Wal-Mart puts up hundreds of stores annually, so they gain the benefits of economies of scale. Wal-Mart clears and levels each site to a blank slate condition and then erects a cookie-cutter store there. Plus, it is usually not beholden to the strings that come with any kind of public funding. Cities that provide incentives for Wal-Mart to open up almost never make demands, and cities that make demands almost always have some sort of hugely profitable population of potential customers (or else Wal-Mart goes to the next town over).

Another huge month in ridership growth on CTA.

Average weekday ridership is up 10% on buses and 9% on trains.

http://www.transitchicago.com/assets...rts/2012-2.pdf

I'd wondered if eliminating free rides would result in a one-year dip in ridership. I'm glad it didn't. The higher-than-budget ridership figures should also help offset the higher-than-budget fuel expenses, which is nice.

I'm sure the unseasonably warm February helped, but it's really good to see the South Side lines all also having strong gains. Based on some earlier data analysis I posted here, it was trailing but this time the Blue Line has really strong growth and all the other lines have comparably strong growth - excellent.

The senior free rides thing was absolutely stupid. Thank goodness it was eliminated.

Even Red and Brown line ridership has strong growth of over 7% each.

Thanks for the great news. :banana:

There may have been more in the West Loop, but it wasn't much of a factor for the Cermak station. The expiration of the TIF district seems to be the main reason for the urgency.

I put this in the Heavy Rail discussion, too, but since Chicago's ridership increase is quite healthy I thought I'd post it here, too. The only two places you can say grew better (rail) ridership than Chicago are New York and LA, and LA has been adding heavy rail lines plus started from a very low base. New York's population growth helped a lot, I'm sure. Probably the reduction in overall crime and crime perception helped a lot, too. If Chicago's crime continues to improve, that should be a bonus for ridership here, too.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6092/6...77c83dcd_o.gif
Graphic created by me, from APTA numbers

^ Great graphic, thanks for sharing!

I would also argue that, with the lowest number of riders per mile of rail (if I'm correct), Chicago also has the greatest potential for growth without having to add any new lines or stations.

Chicago could easily vault to the top of this list if we saw more infill and density around the stations

Well, since you specify heavy rail... there's a huge difference between a $30 million elevated station and a $3 billion subway. The $3 billion subway has to be built as the product of regional consensus, because funding of that magnitude can only be obtained from the Feds if the whole region's cohort of politicians is pushing for it. Look at how long we've spent in endless studies for the Circle Line, the Red Line Extension, and the North Main Rebuild.

Not saying Streeterville doesn't need a subway... but maybe I am? NMH has for several decades now pursued a strategy of stuffing parking in every possible place they can find in the neighborhood. If Northwestern's thousands of employees can all get subsidized parking provided to them, why should they bother with taking CTA? The relatively few transit users that remain can be served with standard bus routes.

The Central Area Transitway might help... but it will not actually have bus lanes in Streeterville. My vote is for some kind of BRT solution, at least in the short term, to get fast buses running from Ogilvie/Union, connecting with L lines, and running to the NMH area.

Metra, Amtrak service could be disrupted during NATO

^^ So they're finally making this public... didn't want to comment on it until they released the information.

What a nightmare that will be. Maybe they could run under a weekend schedule and run shuttle buses from 27th?

I wish there was light rail that started at Union Station, then crossed Kinzie RR bridge, then past Michigan Ave, on to Navy Pier back around through Streeterville and up to Water Tower place. Better if it's a loop but I need to take more time to think about that.

Loops are crappy unless they're bidirectional. I do like the Carroll St trench, though. It seemed like the city was on the verge of doing something with it, but that apparently crashed and burned before anybody even heard what was going on.

Also, why not hold the damn meeting in McCormick West, which has no train lines beneath it?

Morgan Station
 

A unique perspective of the new Morgan Station as captured by Nathan Weber for the New York Times. (This article specifically)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...GO-2-popup.jpg

The new Oakton station on the Yellow Line should be opening this spring.

March 2012 – Oakton Station Progress

And here's a direct link to the progress report shown in the screen capture at the above link: http://www.egovlink.com/public_docum...newsletter.pdf

Yes because we live in a direct Democracy where community groups influence law by directly voting on legislation...

It's not as if we have representatives who are capable of "adding earmarks to the next federal transportation bill" who listen directly to the more vocal elements of their community and try to bring home the bacon.

Don't be an asshat DT.

You guys are nuts. Nobody's going to spur a train line off into Streeterville, heavy, light, or otherwise. It's easy walking distance to multiple red line stops, and the northeast corner loop stops already.

It's borderline. There's a lot of service in the area that could theoretically be consolidated into a single high capacity service like the ill-fated 1960s distributor subway. The fact that the capacity already mostly exists makes it that much harder to inspire new construction (this gets back to one of the long-running bones of contention with the New Starts program formulas favoring light rails from nowhere to nowhere in transit deserts rather than investments to improve quality of service in transit-rich areas with transit-dependent land use)

Once Wacker drive is done the CTA 120-series buses can return to Lower Wacker for a pretty quick jaunt from Metra over that way via Columbus/Fairbanks. From the north you have all the 140-series express routes... from the north/south you have the Red Line connecting to the #66 Chicago bus which runs every 2-3 minutes peak and generally every 5-8 minutes off-peak. From the west, you again have the #66 and the #65. From the loop and south loop, you have the #3, which runs every 5-10 minutes most of the day.

That's what I was thinking VivaLFuego, the neighborhood will soon be maxed out, and people don't seem to be complaining about getting to work.

I suggested Union to Navy Pier light rail that would serve mostly as a tourist amenity, but also benefit Streeterville residents and would provide near proximity to Northwestern

It would probably require alot of private funding. I would propose no more than 3 miles of LRT that would basically hit all the popular downtown areas.

Union Station / Loop (with close proximity to Sears)
- Route along Canal St
Ogilivie
- Route along Canal St
Kinzie Street Bridge
- Route over Kinzie RR Bridge
Merchandise Mart (span Wells and Lasalle
- Route on Carroll St
State Street (span Dearborn and State
- Route beneath Wabash
- Route beneath Illinois
Magnificent Mile
- Route beneath Illinois
Columbus
- Route on Illinois
Navy Pier (it would loop back around on Grand and LSD, back to Illinois)

8 stations. Slightly less than 3 miles

Notice I'm trying to be unobtrusive as possible by routing beneath many busy streets. Canal and Illinois can certainly afford to give up space. I'm guessing it would cost around $220-$260 million which includes rehabilitation of the Kinzie St. Bridge.





-

You can't see it in the official newsletter, but the Oakton station includes a really neat railing on the ramp up to the south station house. The designers used perforated metal and varied the hole sizes so the word "Oakton" is visible.

Sounds pretty good, although it makes more sense from my perspective to stay on Lower North Water and shoot straight over to Columbus/Illinois with a stop beneath Pioneer Plaza.

There are only two Red Line stops anywhere near Streeterville, which is not really what "multiple" would imply. And most of Streeterville is not really an easy walk from them. Internationally, only locations within 3/8ths of a mile of a station are considered to be well-integrated into a service area. Anything east of St. Clair is over 3/8ths of a mile from a subway stop.

You have the two most-used Metra stations in the West Loop, and you have a strong commercial, retail and residential district in Streeterville and Michigan Avenue. Yes, buses do link the two, but they're still not very well connected and proportionally few people coming into Ogilvy or Union are willing to connect to Streeterville or the East Loop or the Michigan Ave area. A subway link would greatly increase accessibility between the West Loop train stations and the Streeterville/Michigan Ave cooridors.

Additionally, a subway as proposed in 1968 would put UIC, most of the South Loop campuses, and the Streeterville/Watertower campuses of the UofC, Northwestern and Loyola all along the same line. It'd be excellent for circulating students between all the different areas catering to them.

Sears Tower to Northwestern's Galter Pavilion is nearly 2 miles walking - a good 35 minutes walking. Taking a bus is 21 minutes. Taking the Red Line is 21 minutes but involves nearly 3/4 of a mile in walking. A subway under Monroe to Streeterville would cut that time in half and include about 2 blocks of walking.

Taken together, you have commuters keeping it busy during rush hour, business people keeping it busy during the day, suburban visitors keeping it busy during the work day and weekends, students keeping it busy during the evening and weekends, and West Loop and Streeterville residents providing additional ridership throughout the day.

The areas covered by the 1968 plan were the areas projected to have strong growth. It fell apart for a lot of reasons, but the places that have grown the most over the past 50 years are the areas served by a roughtly UIC to Streeterville line. The need is still there, there's just limited will because of doubters and people who'd rather spend money in low-density, distant parts of the city where ridership will be a fraction of what a new downtown subway would provide.

Put transit where people will use it a lot, not just where residents cry for political mollification.

^^^ Disagree, transit should go where it will spur new growth, not where it might rack up decent ridership numbers from old growth. There are half a dozen places I'd rather see the city put a new subway. The circle line would be far more useful and probably get more ridership while spurring gobs of new development for example.

You are forgetting something in your formula: whether it's actually worth using transit. Most people in Streeterville work in Illinois Center, Northwestern, or the Loop all of which are a maximum of a 30 min walk from home. Now tell me, if I want to get from Streeterville to the Sears Tower, does it really make sense for me to walk to the Subway (5 minutes), wait for a train (5 to 10 minutes), take the train (probably 15 or 20 minutes since you are going out of the way to the north or south) and then walk to the Sears Tower (5 to 10 minutes)? You are talking 30 to 40 minutes on the train which is probably about what it would take you just to walk there in the first place.

Most people in Streerville spend 90% of their life downtown and therefore don't use mass transit (except maybe buses) because they just walk everywhere even if it's 2 miles. Everyone I've ever known who lives in that neighborhood has that same lifestyle even if they live in Lake Point Tower which is as far away from the Subway as you can get.

The Red Line is frankly irrelevant in any discussion about Streeterville because it doesn't even register in the minds of the residents of that area.

Wouldn't enhanced Water Taxi service be just as fast as a new light rail service between Union Station and Streeterville? If the light rail is on the Carrol Street easement, that's only a block from a new water taxi stop at Fairbanks or McClurg.

First and foremost, transit should be provided where people are. Speculation is all well and dandy when all existing needs are capable of being met or when there is rapid, predictable growth in an area. But why on earth would we be building things to draw people into new areas when there are existing unmet needs and there is not rampant growth?

The 1968 subway proposal linked areas of the city that were just starting to turn around at the time, and have, since then, experienced strong growth. So even if we took your philosophy to heart, implementing that plan would simply be building where growth will be, but about 50 years late.

The reason the Red Line doesn't factor much into Streeterville is because people in Streeterville *drive* to places outside of Streeterville. The same is true in Kingsbury Park, for example. These are people in transit-oriented areas that have relatively limited transit options so they walk locally and drive to leave the neighborhood. Contrast that to people who live close to rail lines - they use the rail to get to work, but also for leisure activities in the evenings and weekends.

I'm not against building more than just the 1968 plan, but I think it's just stupid to not provide excellent transit to people who already live in areas that are already built to a heavy-rail-friendly density. Why ignore the people who are doing what is best for urbanity simply because they did it before new people you think (might) appear if we build them a subway? That's not only unfair to the early adopters, it has no foundation in reason or logic. Yes, you should ALWAYS prioritize lines that will yield the highest ridership, whether it's already an area that's partly served or not. Not doing so is an abandonment of responsibility to the citizens who pay for it.

No. Have you actually ridden a water taxi for any purpose other than leisure? Not comparable.

So you are saying building the circulator would be 50 years too late which is why we should build it? That makes no sense. We should build a circulator connecting areas that are NOW experiencing rapid growth like North/Clyborn, Wicker Park, West Loop, South Loop, etc. so we are constructing it just in time for new development, not half a century in arrears.

Build something now that serves developing areas with open lots (old cabrini, the west loop near United Center, the wasteland around IMD, the huge swaths of vacant land in the South Loop along the river) in order to spur high density development in these frontiers.

Instead of concentrating on an area that will be built out with 500' highrises one way or another, concentrate on attracting development to the areas immediately surrounding downtown in order to help reconnect all the neighborhoods that have been severed from downtown by urban decay.

Nothing makes more sense to me than a subway running under North Avenue to Damen and then turning south to the IMD and then turning East along Roosevelt to UIC and then terminating at the Red line or continuing to the Museum campus and turning south along the Metra tracks to McCormick place (and allowing possible future expansions to the South).

^ Gotta disagree with you here.

The last thing Chicago needs is more infrastructure that is underutilized. There are so many areas of the city where train stops serve few customers, or are surrounded by vacant land, that it's pathetic.

I would argue that your line of thinking is not only what is fundamentally wrong with the CTA, but it is helping bankrupt the city and state.

^^^ But it wouldn't be under utilized. It would basically allow people to make trips that are impractical now. For example, ever try to get to anywhere along the near west side from the north or northwest? It ain't happening. Ever try to get from the North Side to the NW side? Not fun. The segment between North and Clyborn and Damen alone would be packed constantly. That's not even considering events at the United Center (which is currently inaccessible by transit from just about everywhere). Then there is providing actual service to the Museum Campus and opening up new communiting possibilities to the IMD from the N and NW... It would also open up completely different line possibilities. You could set it up so that you could alternate Red and Blue Line trains down opposite sides of downtown which would make commuting to places outside of the West Loop Practical from the growing NW side. Right now I can't go anywhere except the middle of the loop from my house on the train; no Michigan Ave, no Lincoln Park, no North and clyborn, No West Loop (except the south side of it which I can get to from UIC Halsted), such a line would actually make it possible for me to take trains to visit friends in LP or to go to a job along Michigan Ave or meet someone near the Hancock for dinner. I just drive right now...

Eventually a rail line will be built in Chicago that does something other than go to downtown and we will all be shocked at the amount of demand there is for trips that don't go downtown... Chicago is pretty much the only city with a transit system of this size in the world that doesn't have a train line allowing circulation outside of the CBD...

So built a station at Madison on the Pink Line. There - I just saved the City from building a $2 billion subway.

Roosevelt Station for Red/Green/Orange line is the same distance from the Field Museum as the Field Museum is from Adler Planetarium. I happen to think that doubling trains on the Pink Line and running half of them east along the 15th Street viaduct, then north along the Metra Electric ROW would be a good long-term plan, but mostly because I think it could be done relatively inexpensively. AND that it would only really make sense (given the piss-poor ridership on the Pink Line currently) if done in conjunction with the 1968 plan for a subway from the West Loop to Streeterville, which actually also branched south to McCormick Place. Tying new peripheral lines into a heavily used core enhancement will result in far more riders than simply donig peripheral enhancements. The core-centric nature of Chicago isn't going to change even with additional peripheral lines - nor, it can be argued, should it.

If you don't have a subway in Streeterville, how are rail enhancements getting you to Michigan Ave anyway?

There will be a station at Morgan in May. Transfer at Clark/Lake and now you have the north half of the West Loop covered, too.

You drive to dinner at the Hancock? The mere fact that you illustrate that it's practical for you to drive from where you live to where your friends are and yet want a subway line connecting the two spots illustrates your misplaced priorities. It's not practical to drive between the West Loop and Streeterville. That's where a subway is appropriate. Putting subways in places well-served by cars ahead of places where cars aren't practical is ridiculous.

I don't disagree that other lines would be "nice to have," you and I only really disagree on prioritization. I think places that are, by design, transit-capitve, deserve higher priority than places that are not, by design, transit-captive.

You realize that the line you seem to most want - the Circle Line - is essentially a line that services the Central Area, right? It may not be primarily about the Loop proper, but you're not talking about connecting Beverly and Edison Park, you're talking about another primarily central area line - you are just insisting that your central-area line, serving areas with employment densities of about 1/10th of the Loop and Michigan Ave's, anda population density of about half the Near North Side, should be prioritized ahead of a much more dense area - and I just don't see why that should come first. Plus, wouldn't the Circle Line make a lot more sense if, instead of routing into the Red Line subway at North/Clyborn, it ran to Clark, then under Clark to Chestnut to Streeterville to integrate as part of the 1968 planned subway? You could have transfers at North/Clyborn and Clark/Division and maybe a new station serving the North/Clark area. That'd be a lot more win than just the Circle Line brings by itself.

Using your logic, if we DON'T build it, and in 40 more years that area is built up and desperately could use a subway, we should then ignore the area you're advocating for now and, instead, build a subway along Western Ave or wherever the new western edge of intensive new development and gentrification is. We can't ignore the areas that got ignored originally just because they've been ignored so long already.

Never said my routing was the best routing, you could bring it in to Division and turning south along Paulina connector to save money, but a larger radius would be more useful IMO, you could always add a station at Madison as well and really open up that side of town.


Oh gee I dunno, maybe via the two different subway stops that are only two short blocks from Michigan Ave? Streeterville is almost all residential to the East, the only part that has high traffic uses like retail and office is Michigan Ave and it is already served by rail. As I said before, you build a line in Streeterville and it will be competing with walking in terms of speed, completely useless.



So I guess you think its practical for me to transfer at Jackson if I want to go to the Hancock Building as well....

I don't even understand what you are ranting about here. I drive to the Hancock because it's NOT well served by cars OR transit. I get stuck in the same traffic on Chicago whether I'm in a bus or a car and, given the additional pain of transferring and waiting for the train, It's much faster just to drive and avoid that wasted time. A subway would allow me to transfer at Damen and be whisked under the clusterfuck of North Ave and avoid Chicago Ave altogether.


Uhhh except not, it serves the entire city by allowing people to AVOID the central area. Instead of going all the way to Jackson and back out to get to Lincoln Park or transferring to a bus, I could simply transfer at North and be over there in 5 minutes instead of 20. Same goes on the West side. How does one get to the West loop if they are in Lincoln Park? The don't. You aren't going to transfer at Lake and walk to Clark/Lake. The idea is to open up more than just the CBD (note that I never said CENTRAL AREA once and said CBD which is vastly different in Chicago than the central area) to development and to the rest of the city.

What you are talking about would be a marginal convenience at best for the residents of Streeterville, what I'm talking about would be a game changer for how Chicago functions as a city. You tell me which is worth $2 billion...