I agree. Building tollway extensions in already developed areas will actually save us money because we can eliminate the need to expand existing state roads that are close to or already at capacity. Since half of Lake County is already built out and will not likely be getting any denser (aside from pockets near Metra Stations), building the 53 extension will really not change land use patterns all that much, and overall traffic amounts probably won't increase all that much either. Meanwhile, traffic demands and the wear and tear it creates can be absorb by a road that will pay for itself.

There has been some developments in planning what used to be known as the Rte.53 northern extension. The majority of the opposition to the road came from 3 towns: Long Grove, Hawthorne Woods and a small section of Mundelein where a subdivision was built on both sides of the right of way. The northern towns wisely decoupled the projects' northern East-West alignment and formed the 120 Bypass task force. This led to the development of a plan to construct the "Belvidere Boulevard" within the right of way of the former Rt.53 extension. Through many town meetings and consultant drafts the committee has agreed to recommend the building of a state of the art 4 lane limited access boulevard implementing intersection round-abouts and rail/road grade separated under passes rather than a 6 lane elevated highway with cloverleafs. Executive report here. The roadway will use bio-swales and landscaped medians to collect runoff to protect the watershed . The 4 lane boulevard has some more advantages including using less land especially at intersections and being more accessible to transit buses. Website here.

It is very likely that the north-south leg of the Rte 53 extension will also be built as a boulevard. The environmental constraints of Lake County are unique or at least acknowledged. Lake County has many shallow water features known variously as bogs, fens, swales, ponds and marshes that are especially prone to pollution from road runoff. The boulevard system allows for a much smaller road footprint and can weave and meander to avoid sensitive areas. And the inclusion of the bio-swale drainage alongside the entire road length is at least a commitment to limit the impact of our human activity.

Oh, man... that looks terrible. It would be great if the interchanges were roundabouts with flyovers or fly-unders, like they're building in Carmel, IN. A 4-lane highway is perfectly fine, but whatever the lane count, the highway needs to be fully grade separated. They can add bike paths, greenways, and bioswales to their heart's content, and let the alignment weave and meander, but don't take away the one thing that makes this highway a relief to congestion - the grade separation.

Also, without grade-separated, access-controlled interchanges, it will be incredibly difficult to charge tolls, so the funding for this will have to come from somewhere else.

^ Yeah this East-West only proposal emerged before CMAP pushed the entire 53 Northern Extension project up to No.1 on the need to build list and without consideration as a toll road.

I did a quick search for grade separated roundabouts and Carmel, In. I came up empty. All documents in Carmel indicated standard roundabout interchanges. Do you have any links to actual projects that are or will be built?

What I meant was more the British style/Massachusetts rotary, where there's only one big roundabout (although most of the Massachusetts rotaries are technically traffic circles, and are much more accident-prone than a true roundabout). Traffic on the surface street and the exit ramps all cycles through the roundabout, while traffic on the expressway flies over on a bridge or under in a trench.

The ones in Carmel are topologically the same - the roundabout is just pinched in the middle so that it only needs one bridge instead of two (called a "dogbone" roundabout). I think it looks nicer to have one big circle, though, where you can then deck over the circle to form public space.


Roosevelt Circle, Medford, MA

In order to be a roundabout, traffic waiting to enter the roundabout must yield to traffic already in the roundabout, so they tend to cause backups, especially with timid drivers. The advantage is that a driver will only enter the roundabout when he feels there is enough space and that he can enter safely. This greatly reduces accidents, but slows traffic speeds. A traffic circle, on the other hand, gives the right-of-way to entering traffic, but drivers already in the circle tend to assume that THEY have the right-of-way, so you have two cars trying to occupy the same patch of road... recipe for disaster.

CTA averages 1 bus collision a day

Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for Governor in Wisconsin, has launched a major attack against passenger trains in Wisconsin. Please ask your friends in Wisconsin to show their support for passenger rail expansion.

Wisconsin was awarded Recovery Act funds to extend the successful Amtrak Hiawatha from Milwaukee to Madison. Walker has promised to stop construction if he is elected.

This week, he held an anti-train rally in Milwaukee and began running TV ads promising to "stop this train". He even set up a special website: http://www.NoTrain.com

We have set up an action page where Wisconsin residents can show their support. Please forward this email to your friends in Wisconsin and ask them to support passenger trains.

The action page is located at:
http://www.MidwestHSR.org/Wisconsin

^^^ why is he trying to stop it?

Because he doesn't want the state to subsidize its operations each year and he thinks funding should go to roads & bridges. Meanwhile, Europe and Asia continue to build rail high speed rail...

The 3 C's corridor is likely to face the chopping block when the current Ohio governor, Ted Strickland, loses his reelection to anti-rail Republican John Kasich this fall.

Vile Republicans.

^ All the money the morons from Wisconsin and Ohio lose should go towards rail elsewhere, regardless. The Republicans should not achieve their goal of derailing the funding of rail in America (no pun intended)

You know Scott Walker is a moron and in no way representative of Wisconsinites in general. He has been extremely effective... at driving Milwaukee County into the ground for the past decade or so.

Whatever. We still get our high-speed train to St. Louis. Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota seem like they strongly support rail service, and even Indiana is somewhat supportive under Mitch Daniels.

If Wisconsin wants out, let them go. We'll build the line to the Twin Cities through Iowa and let Milwaukee and Madison crumble. And if Ohio is so backwards that they'd rather spend money improving their gold-plated expressways than introducing even basic rail service, then screw them too.

Isn't Scott Walker leading in the polls?

I couldn't agree more.

Push renewed for premium rail service to O'Hare

Mayor Richard Daley on Wednesday relaunched a stalled proposal to lure private investors to build and operate a premium express train service between downtown and O’Hare International Airport.

The mayor announced formation of 17-member committee, headed by businessman Lester Crown, to study the concept and report back to Daley at an unspecified date.

Chicago Tribune story here

^ And what does Professor Downtown think about this?

Personally, I think it could be a big hit if it had carpeted, comfy coaches with plenty of luggage space, even if the time was still about 45 minutes. You could get families and grandmas out of taxis & buses and off the Kennedy if you had something that was virtually guaranteed safe (no stops except at airports and downtown) and was reasonably pleasant (no freezing wind rushing through the railcars every 3 minutes at a station).

I just worry about taxi hell around Block 37. So a West Loop station might become necessary.

Slightly updated version of the same article

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...vice-blue-line

Concerning the rapid rail direct to O'Hare. It seems that the median in the Ike Expressway has ample room for a ROW. Especially with CN rerouting nearly all of their through traffic to the EJE. The Ike ROW has access to the Blue Line subway on the East end Downtown, and the Ike ROW has access to the old CN line on the West end after Harlem-Forest Park. Maybe this is a good route for an express service line to Ohare??

I've always thought express service to the West Loop made the most sense (if express service makes sense at all). To do it justice, though, you have to build the West Loop Transportation Center. From a cost standpoint, it might actually be cheapest to built is as a deep tunnel express deep enough it avoids any and all utlities for most of the route. If the Deep Tunnel waterworks can be completed for $3 billion, then it seems one 33-foot-diameter, 16-mile-long tunnel could be built for a lot less than that. Adding tracks and appropriate ventilation would cost something, but for cost/speed tradeoffs, I would think that a long tunnel would be competitive. Ideally, you might even go under O'Hare, pop above-ground to continue north.

33 feet should leave it wide enough for dual tracks with spacing for TGV-sized vehicles, meaning it could be tied into HSR systems to Milwaukee. Imagine a West Loop station with a 15-minute trip to ORD, a 5-minute layover, followed by a 30-minute trip to MKE, 5-minute layover, 10-minute trip to central Milwaukee. Chicago-Milwaukee in 65 minutes, an effective third regional airport for Chicagoland, and tighter integration between Milwaukee and Chicago.

As to what to do with the tracks under Block 37, I vote for completing the western portal under Lake for the Blue Line subway and routing the Green Line through the subway instead of over the Loop, thereby making Loop operations less complex (albeit at the expense of more complicated Blue and Red Line operations).

duplicate .....

:previous:

I like it. I was going to mention a tunnel but thought that tunneling all the way through would be too cost prohibitive. But I like your idea [from DT to O'hare at least] and wonder if this has ever been thrown out there as a real option.

Looks like the new metra station at Ravenswood is already under construction. A wooden staircase and platform is built north of the station. It looks like they are building a temporary station to the north first, and then building the new station where the current one is.

Not sure of this was posted:

SNCF Midwest Bullet Train Proposal
http://www.midwesthsr.org/sncf-midwe...train-proposal

French National Railways (SNCF), a world leader in high-speed rail (HSR), responded to a request for information from the US Department of Transportation with a proposal to develop, construct and operate a Midwest bullet train network.

The first phase of the system includes the Milwaukee – Chicago – Detroit route, serving Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports, and will account for 15.8 billion passengers in 2022. The full high-speed rail network is estimated to serve 42.3 billion passengers in 2038.

They are proposing 28 stations conveniently located close to medium and large city centers and airports.

Construction alone will create more than 316,000 new jobs, and 677,000 long-term operations and maintenance jobs will attract workers from all socio-economic segments.

Speeds up to 220 mph will be competitive with both regional auto and air travel and are expected to generate a significant number of new trips.

The trains will have 500 to 550 seats, with a wide variety of on-board amenities and price options.

Once the system is fully established, revenue will exceed operations and maintenance costs and cover a portion of capital costs. Public funding will only be required for 54% of the initial capital investment. Capital costs for the entire system are roughly estimated at $68.5 billion.

http://www.midwesthsr.org/sites/defa...dwest_sncf.gif

Chicago to Milwaukee in a little over a half hour? That cuts down the time by car by almost an hour

So they will use there $$$ to construct and build half the system?

The SNCF plan was developed nearly 2 years ago and is on the IDOT website. It was also presented in person through an SNCF official at the annual MHSRA meeting in March. From what I gather, the proposal is really just an excercise in possibilites and potential. SNCF clearly stated that a massive PPP would have to be instated to warrent actual involvement from the quasi-private french railroad company. In reality SNCF along with any other hypothetical international partner (DB, JR, Renfe), regardless of this 54% number, would require federal backing funding in the 75% + range to give SNCF or others actual profit sensing goosebumps.

So its probably very unlikely SNCF is serious about such a venture being spearheaded by them. They want to see massive fed involvement and funding before they see a way to get involved and make money, and that may be limited to a consultancy, let alone operating such a system.

What the plan does do, much like the MHSRA 220 proposal, is stir interest and excitement over such possibilites, and seeing real engineering and planning in these proposals makes them feel even more possible and exciting. But again my opinion is SNCF developed these plans to show the "slow witted" Americans how to build HSR and in the very least get there foot in the door for future engineering/consultation fees and to sell us Alstom trains as SNCF and Alstom might as well be bedfellows.

Re: a non-stop express seat to O'Hare. Some kind of direct service will soon become critical to Chicago's position as a national and world business center. The Kennedy corridor is nearly impossible much of the time. A European associate recently complained bitterly to me of the over-one-hour time from ORD to the Loop (non-peak time). I myself just experienced it both ways, at non-peak times, and in good weather.

The Heathrow Express, though pricey, would seem a good model - - non-stop, with direct, relatively short walking access to all terminals. In other words, the O'Hare transfer station is NOT an option, if Chicago is to remain competitive. This, of course, would probably require tunneling at ORD. The provision of direct rail access to other cities from O'Hare would trump the Heathrow train and work more in line with Charles deGaulle and Schiphol.

I believe the frustration factor in getting to and from Chicago's center is a threat to business.

^Agreed. But I think most here already know that. After all the concept is over a decade, probably two decades old. It's just the form that's still up for debate and finding the political will and capital to actually get it built.

The ideal would be for express service to lead right to the terminals but I think it could still work be a success even if it just led to the ATS/O'Hare transfer station.

It would be wise and very convenient to lead to the ATS to the O'Hare metra anyhow given the plans are to extend to its remote parking lot (F?) right now. All it would take is a few hundred more yards.

Tunneling and direct terminal access could be a long term plan though to cut down several minutes for some travelers in instances. Still for those going to some of the other terminals it would only be minimally faster then an express/O'Hare metra transfer.

Morgan station
 

http://www.nbcchicago.com/traffic/tr...101507439.html

Work Underway on New CTA 'El Station
Updated 5:42 PM CDT, Wed, Aug 25, 2010

Work has begun on the first new Chicago Transit Authority elevated station to be built in roughly 10 years.

The new station -- located on the Green and Pink lines at Lake and Morgan -- will serve the growing West Loop area, situated between the existing Ashland and Clinton stations.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/2599/cta3.jpg
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/7909/cta1.jpg
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/406/cta2g.jpg

^ How much of those screens are actually occupied by stairs or other functions in addition to the elevators?

Why did the existing Blue Line (43 minutes) not meet his needs? That's pretty comparable to what he would have faced at any European airport.

Getting from either of Paris airports to La Defense isn't exactly quick and easy via transit. It's not torture, but it's not a marked improvement over Chicago's options. Getting to central Paris is a little faster, but still not hugely so.

The biggest advantage either has over Chicago is that RER trains are nicer than the CTA trains.

Getting from Madrid's airport to central Madrid isn't too bad using the Metro - once you get to the train. Line 8 is only 12-15 minutes to the airport from sort of the edge of the central city where you can transfer to the Metro system. MAD is a similar distance from central Madrid as Midway Airport is in Chicago - about half the distance of O'Hare.

Barcelona has a pretty good setup, with the Renfe train into the city center taking about 25 minutes, although it doesn't run very frequently, so if you just miss one, it about doubles your total time to downtown. But the trains are quite nice and very reasonably priced.

Vienna's S-Bahn rail service downtown takes about 25 minutes, but only runs every 30 minutes or so.

Oslo is small, but may have the best airport rail option. High-speed rail leaving the central station every 10-20 minutes 24 hours a day, with a travel time of 22 minutes.

It really isn't as though every other city except Chicago has super-slick excellent, speedy, frequent and cheap rail service between the business district and their aiport(s)' terminals. Most cities (including Chicago) have services that meet some of those criteria, but how many actually have service that meets all those criteria?

If Chicago's considering high-speed rail and an airport express, I think my idea of tunnelling is a good one. I also think that if it will cost a billion or more to do an O'Hare express, we should also consider options like biting the bullet and expanding Midway to become a full-fledged International airport serving European airlines. After all, the Orange Line is already pretty quick, and a reconfig could make transfers to it from the airport easier (remove the long walk, or even just move the station to the west side of the rail yard instead of the east). If further express was needed, an express from Midway to downtown would not only be easier, but could probably be done with a trip-time of 10 minutes.

All of this, though, really does play back into Chicago's lack of a long-range, coordinated, development plan with dedicated funding. Without that, Chicago could be throwing good money after bad, or building infrastructure without the proper supporting development.

In other words, petty politics are a far bigger threat to Chicago's future than the current lack of an airport express.

Please tell me they are not going to advertise the CTA with that giant logo?

I hope they do. It's part of the city's branding. I think logos like that help sell the city. I would prefer signage like on the rail cars, though.
http://www.transitchicago.com/assets...ogoontrain.jpg
Picture from CTA's website.

It's not really the logo-- it's just the text from the log. How can anyone dislike Helvetica?

Thanks for the find, spyguy. I'm stoked for this one... it could turn out really nice.

Well, Helvetica IS a bit overused these days. Spare me Adrian's bullshit about modernity being a "universal solution". Successful brands are always unique.

The towers on the Morgan station are probably a little oversized, but they give the station a substantial presence in the neighborhood. Other than the questionable use of galvanized steel, what's not to like?

I dunno, I wouldn't say Helvetica (and Helvetica knockoffs like Arial) is overused these days. Its just coming back into style. Hell, remember the 1990s and early 2000's when Times New Roman and Comic Sans were all the rage. If anything lets rejoice in the fact that people are into serious fonts now and now "oh cool look at what my computer can do" or "oh cool we can print any shape graphic onto a sign we want, lets make one with cursive writing even though its illegible from a distance"...

Does anyone know why they chose Morgan for a station? There used to be a Halsted station if I remember correctly. That would have allowed easier connections to the Halsted bus ... did they just think that was too close to Clinton??

I'm no fan of Helvetica, but there's something to be said for systemwide consistency—and for CTA that means Helvetica. In the late 90s, a consultant recommended switching to Frutiger Condensed systemwide for publications, but although the system map and some other things were changed, it never spread to signage and the rest of the program is now pretty much forgotten. That's probably just as well, for it takes decades for system signage to be changed out; in 2000 there was still Futura from the mid-1960s on station platforms. Unfortunately, the logo keeps getting "freshened up" every few years, sometimes by amateurs, so I think it's a mistake to memorialize it in architecture. I might feel differently if it were more glyph-like, such as Boston's circled T or London's Roundel.

As for the station location, Morgan is closer to the center of walk-in patronage. Connections to the Halsted bus can already be made via the Blue Line about five blocks to the north and also about five blocks to the south.

And then some logos never go out of style:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1310/...26d736a445.jpg
Flickr

But reality changes. I think it's a bit misleading to call CTA "metropolitan rail" when the majority of the Chicagoland population lives outside the CTA service area.

It also sounds a little too similar to Metra, so there's a chance that tourists might confuse the two.

The design is pretty good on the logo, but it needs a little updating.

Berwyn
 

With both Cicero and Berwyn being some of Chicago's most-dense suburbs, why isn't there more call for re-extended what is now the Pink Line to just past Harlem or so? It appears that ROW still exists that entire way. For about 3 miles of route, I would think that basic cement-post elevated rail could be built for $300 million, maybe another $150 million to elevate the current surface portion, and for about 6 new or rebuilt stations, maybe $35 million each, so maybe $200 million additional for those. So for maybe $650 million (which I think is probably on the high end of the range), you'd add at least three stations, improve service to downtown, and add a fairly dense community to rail transit. It seems like the case for Berwyn would be at least as strong as the case for extending the Red Line past 95th, and less expensive. If Berwyn and Cicero wanted to, they could then do some TOD around the stations, improving their tax base and improving CTA ridership.

I think from Harlem to Clark/Lake would probably be in the 30-minute range, which means new stops there would be able to get downtown faster than any of the new stops proposed for a Red Line extension - some would be after than existing 95th street service. Additionally, more rail feeder would add a little more weight to the long-proposed Mid-City Transitway along Cicero Ave, to.

When's the last time this was under serious consideration?

Not sure, but yea, it seems like it would make a ton of sense. Berwyn has been fairly aggressively marketing itself towards city dwellers (see yesterday's piece in the Trib about Berwyn courting gay and lesbian couples from Chicago). Extending the L out there would be a great reassurance to city people considering a move out there. Unfortunately, the Pink Line doesn't have great ridership. Perhaps it's not being considered because of it's proximity to the Blue Line.

Perhaps, but it's not really that close - 1.5 miles away, hardly easy walking distance for regular use. Also, a Pink Line extension would run right along a major commercial street - less than 1/2 block from it - much of which has a lot of open parking that, with the right developer, could be consolidated into a garage, with housing and additional retail added. In that sense, there is far more possibility of using development to increase Pink Line ridership with a Pink Line extension than there is with the existing Blue Line (at least based on how things appear to me). It woudl end up being right in between BNSF stations and the Blue Line, spaced in such a way that it could bolster the idea of living car-free (or reduced-car) in Berwyn, all the more urban.

Hasn't been brought up in a serious way in recent history --- Berwyn and North Riverside would have to make a big push politically. From a transit planning standpoint, the main strike against is that the overall travel market already has ample capacity --- people in that area who want to take transit downtown can already drive to the Blue Line and take advantage of more-than-ample capacity. Continuing that theory, a hypothetical justification for say, the Red & Orange extensions is that they would serve travel markets that now basically require a bus-to-train trip to get downtown but for the few early birds who can snag limited parking capacity near the terminal stations.

Not just the Blue Line; Metra BNSF provides excellent service to downtown. I don't know that Berwynites have a great desire to go elsewhere along the Pink Line.

North/ Clybourn station, brought to you by Apple Inc.
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/5...46b6e19dbb.jpg
Zol87/ flickr

^ Thanks for the pic.

Once the banks open up lending, the area around that station is poised for a madhouse of development. Can't wait...

While looking great, I can't help but think how rad those stainless letters would look in Futura instead of Helvetica.
.