^Surprised me, too. I'm still not sure the numbers are counted in the same way. CRT probably counted simple boardings (paid or unpaid entry into the system), while CTA may be quoting a calculated number for rides, using a multiplier of 1.2 to account for transfers between trains and round trips.

Oversimplifying quite a bit, in 1926 there were only four lines out of downtown. Today there are eight.

What about the prospect of upgrading all the subway stations to be fully accessible and with elevators, including the elevated stations.

Give a Minute for Chicago


http://www.ceosforcities.org/blog/en...te-for-chicago




• Video Link

The various rebuilding projects have gone quite a ways with improving accessibility. The Brown, Pink, Orange, and Green Lines are now fully accessible, with the exception of the Loop stations and the stations in Oak Park on the UP viaduct.

Oddly enough, most of the pre-war system is now accessible, and most of the post-war system is not.

Hopefully the CTA will soon add elevators to the Garfield and 87th stations to make the Dan Ryan line fully accessible (Cermak-Chinatown is almost finished).

^ Why the Grand Ave station on the Red Line doesn't have an elevator beats the hell out of me.

^ To the street? It does now.

highest one-day L ridership
 

It turns out that CTA has posted some recent stats here, indicating that the highest ridership since 1998 was 752,277 on 3 July 2008.

On the other hand, in 1926 there were about 217 stations in the "L" system, vs. 144 today.

I think adding stations would be one of the easier and cheaper methods to increase riderhsip. Specifically I am thinking of then Green line. There used to be stops at Halsted Morgan and Racine between Clinton and Ashland...thye should put at least two of those back probably Halsted and Racine. Especially given the development that has occurred within a few blocks of Lake going out to at least Ashland....I mean you have expensive condos I think the area would be ripe for added stations.

Also some between Ashalnd and California....that is a ridiculosu stretch without a station....and it used to have 4 stations. There should at least be stops at / near Damen , western if not even a third one.

Same holds for South Side branch.....so many ababndoned stations......why can't we use these statoins as nodes to focus development and density...starting with stations closer to core and moving out....I really think the green line could be leveraged so much better to help spur development in some of the areas of the city that most desperately needs it.

Also the areas near woodlawn and south of UC could use this connection.


A rebuild of the Halsted stop on the Brown line may make sense perhaps with a pedway undeground to connect to the the New redline apple station

^ Sounds nice in theory, but on the south side transit nodes seem to only generate big box stores with massive, worthless strip centers sorrounding them. It's not like you need to build a multimillion dollar rapid transit station for that.

Btw, a green line stop at Morgan is already under way.

Population density in those areas, even with recent growth in the West Loop, is a shadow of what it was back in the 20s and 30s.

Check out this map showing population densities in Chicago in 1930.

^^ What's your comparison? The West Loop is starting from a heavily industrial base, so I sincerely doubt the residential population was very high in 1930. That map is by square mile, so the area currently known as West Loop is split along the Madison Street line into two different square-mile blocks.

Those blocks, in turn, were heavily weighted by very dense neighborhoods on the far north and far south (Ukranian Village/West Town and Taylor Street). Neither of these neighborhoods are super-dense today, but you bet your ass they were in 1930. If the map had been done in half-mile increments, you would see that the population for 1/2 mile north and south of Madison Street was fairly low.

Point being, the population gain in the former warehouse district of the West Loop has been incredible, even comparing against 1930.

Not possible due the curves and 8 car trains that run on the Brown Line. IIRC, part of the eventual plan for the Circle Line is to re-route the Brown Line underground to link up with the Red/Circle and have it re-emerge immediately after which would also eliminate the curves over Halsted/North Ave.

That would be one clusterf*ck of a construction project.

I have full faith that if CDOT started today we could see it done by no later than 2046.

Kill me now.

There is nothing historically significant about that area. We would be better off declaring eminent domain on the CB2 and Borders. Pay them off and give them the property where the old tracks exist. Going underground would be ridiculously expensive and unnecessary.

Short of a developer with really ambitious plans involving multiple blocks, the only thing that's gonna fix that area is a tornado strike.

What area exactly are we talking about? North and halsted brown line?

Yes, the last phase of the Circle Line plan calls for re-routing it underground to link up with Circle/Red Lines through a huge new underground station under North/Halsted/Clybourn.

The West Loop is not really starting from a "heavy industrial" base, more like light industry, wholesale trading and a lot of warehouses. In between all that, people still lived. You do realize that Greeks actually did live in Greektown for a while, right? This map shows there was definitely residential in what we now call the West Loop or West Gate area in 1920, and even the industrial/warehouse area that is what we might call the Fulton District now had some hooligans living in it.

Here's a more detailed population representation of Chicago, with transit included, from 1914. Sure, that's 16 years before 1930, but you at least get a nicely illustrated example of just how dense population was in the West Loop, industry or not.

Even when families weren't living there, the West Loop and what is now River North were home to thousands upon thousands of men living in what were then called Rooming Houses and what we now usually refer to as SROs.

If you still think I'm wrong about the shift of density, please provide some form of evidence other than merely your word. This population density and shift should surprise no one who is actually familiar with the expansion of Chicago, given that in 1914, the city population was about 2.3 million, and yet the bulk of that population was concentrated in an area of the city a fraction of the size it is now.

Sort of random, and more transportation than transit related, but you can see a rendering of the new Halsted St bridge in this flyer posted at Ald. Waguespeck's site:
http://ward32.org/wp-content/uploads...tion-Flier.pdf

^^^ great find viva! The bridge and road in that area is awful. It will be worth the 1 year detour

Not shown in the rendering is the underpass on the west (i.e. north) bank for the riverwalk and bike trail. This was in the early renderings of the bridge. Has it been cancelled?

It would be great to extend the path from its awkward terminus at Hobbie Street. Sending it under Halsted would still leave a grade crossing at Division, but after that it's a straight, easy shot up into the Weed Street area and North/Clybourn.

Since we're talking about the North/Clybourn area
 

http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en...anchcanal.html

Halsted Triangle Plan to guide growth along North Branch Canal
November 18, 2010

An extended riverwalk, new pedestrian bridges to Goose Island and numerous transit and streetscape improvements are among the goals of the "Halsted Triangle Plan" approved today by the Chicago Plan Commission.

...Specific priorities include:

* A continuous walkway along the canal from North Avenue to Division Street
* The development of public plazas on oddly shaped and hard-to-develop parcels
* Widened sidewalks along North Avenue, Halsted Street and Clybourn Avenue
* Improved on-street parking provisions along Kingsbury and other streets
* Improved pedestrian access to the North/Clybourn subway stop
* Development of new public transit connections at Division and Orleans streets
* New traffic signals at the North/ Fremont and Halsted/ Eastman intersections

That is interestijng Emathias, and it just goes to show how much Chicago suffered during its white flight and attendant decline in the 1950-1980 period. Nonetheless I think my point was not to contend that this area had reached a new population zenith; but instead to pint out that given the development in the area over the past 10-12 years a few more stops probably could be used beyond the one at Morgan that is planned....I has forgotten about that one...

Also the green line presents a chance to focus development at "new" un-abandoned stations....start with a few and start with one closer to central area.

I know this sounds like wishful polyannishness but sites along the Red line are all but built out.....Brown line is getting there. The green line has pretty much not experienced any of this development...for myriad of reasons not the least of which is the bombed out nature of some of the neighborhoods through which it passes......but given the dearth of stops along its route it is not surprising this is the case.


I recall a story from my youth....my mother used to tell me back in the 1970's......"you don't want to live near an L line; it brings crime" At the time this was in a nutshell the common wisdom...and in many cases I don't blame my mom for thinking it. In the 1970's and even 80'sd many areas around L stops were less than desirable even along the redline....hell to this day you just have to look at thorndale or morse to see that this idea still holds some truth....though both those stops are better than they were 20 years ago or so.

Instead of being reactive....putting in stops where development has occurred I just wish CTA could be somewhat proactive here and team with zoning / planning and local commerce chambers to drive denser more intense use near such an asset as an L stop. At this point much of the green line is a blank slate....in some case stops are over 1 mile apart (sam holds for some of Redline on south side). Add a few more in nearby neighborhoods and zone appropriately. It will take time...but I think it could be succesful.

I am no CTA or planning expert....just an enthusiastic amateur who care about trying to figure out ways to help the city I was born in and live in get better. Chicago's heavy rail infrastructure is arguably the second best in the nation (DC would be the only rival) I just think it needs to be leveraged better. The disinvestment during the 30+ years after 1950 or so scarred this city....but it is a testament to the city's strength (and after all a city is but the people who live in it) and perseverance that it has not collapsed entirely. Open up parcels to development along the green line to Indians, Pakistanis , Koreans, Mexicans, and whoever are the new immigrant mix that has aided in Chicago's population not collapsing. Allow them to build 2-4 flats as was done in the past so families could bundle their resources together to own homes. Many of these immigrants have very strong familial ties leverage that within a development schema.

Just random thoughts on a tuesday before thanksgiving

^ Why would Indian and Korean immigrants want to live along the Green Line?

Bus Lane Grant
 

Anyone have an update or know the status of those bus priority lanes throughout the loop and other locations throughout the city? Just wondering because I haven't heard anything in a while.

Link back to the article from this summer:
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2...-projects.html

I was by Morse this past Sunday, and was blown away by how... pleasant it is now. Yuppie bars and restaurants. Young couples and even a few young families out and about. I hardly exaggerate when I say that, as of last week, the stretch immediately adjacent to Morse looks like it's only a few years away from serving up artisanal cheeses and laboriously hand-crafted baked goods for the lucrative canine market. It's not just the streetscaping project with tasteful brickwork in the sidewalks and shorter crossing distances. Just in the past few years, the businesses have moved upmarket, and the crackhouse apartment buildings that brought the area down have been substantially cleaned out and cleaned up. For my entire life until now, Morse was always the quintessential open-air drug market, but not anymore. Pretty remarkable considering it occurred during this bum economy and real estate crash that hit Rogers Park particularly hard with bogus condo conversions.

The same reason many people are drawn to transit rich areas.....note I am speaking rather hypothetically here. With an increase in stations ie at the abanndoned 39th, 33rd, 29th, 26ht, Cermak and 18th (which if I recall is scheduled to be reopened I think??) and dense enough zoning / proper form based zoning one can imagine a dense mix of use along much of the route. Such a mix of residential....in the form of say 2-4 flats which may leverage some of the strong familial ties among new and 1st generation immigrant generations and commercial which can leverage the seeming proclivity of many with in these groups for business investment and it is not too hard to see that entire well functioning transit served neighborhoods could now stand where grass and gravel and dirt now reign supreme.

^ I largely believe the ship has sailed on the chance of waves of immigrants "saving" the south side Green Line 'hoods.

Immigrants almost always take up existing property. They almost never build new communities on their own, at least in the beginning. The problem with Green Line hoods is that there clearly was over-agressive demolition in these areas, and now there is nothing there. What guy from Pakistan with only a few dollars in his pocket is going to build a house in this part of town, especially knowing that most of his brethren live on the far north side or in the suburbs, as well as with the knowledge that this particular part of town has horrific crime issues?

I think the only hope for these areas is for denser, north side hoods to become so expensive to live in that people are forced to foray into the south side to find places to live. I think it can eventually happen as long as downtown's economy stays strong.

Out of the blue from my perspective, but any chance of putting light rail in it's own dedicated lanes in those underground streets? Not to ban cars from them but a least couple of lanes.

What we really need to attract is a bunch of rich Belgians, Luxembourgers and Lichtensteiners to build fancy mansions along King Drive again to bring back the Grand Boulevard glory days ...

Umm, yeah.

The underground streets are only in one small-ish section of the city (Illinois Center and Lakeshore East).

Wacker Drive is a much longer, double-decker avenue that extends outside of this area, but the underground lanes were built specifically to speed up truck traffic and remove them from the surface streets where pedestrians are. Vibrant, dense, cheerful pedestrian environment above, auto-dominated netherworld below.

There is one place, known as "Carroll Avenue", where the double-decking of the city fabric might allow for a successful transit line. It would probably be a BRT line like Ottawa's busway, with street-running portions at either end.

To us here at SSP, it's a cheap, no-brainer transit idea that could have a big impact, but to the people in charge in Chicago, it's out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

As dicey as it is to traverse, I for one will be sad to see the old Halsted bridge go. Far more elegant IMO than the new version, and one of the few surviving examples of the early bascule design.

^^^ Well said. At first I thought it would be cool to see a new bridge, but now I'm thinking "why can't they repair it"

It complements the Division bridge so well, another similar design. Unfortunately that one as well has suffered from neglect/deferred maintenance, and I can only assume its days are just as numbered. Hell, all those north side bridges are on borrowed time Im afraid.

Modern infastructure is crucial to any thriving city, but one with as many historic artifacts as Chicago (which become tourist draws in themselves) really needs to take a more balanced approach. At a minimum, I'd expect new stuff to be on par with the design of North Ave. This just feels half assed.

I'd be okay with it if the city put the bridges into storage. The various members could easily be stripped and repainted in a shop, and then reassembled at one of the various places on the river that a new bridge is needed (Polk, Taylor, 14th/16th, Erie).

I thought that the work done on the Division Street bridges in the last year or two was for the purpose of extending their lives indefinitely. (Not that they look that much improved now.) So I had thought that losing the Halsted bridge was a tradeoff for those.

It would be great to save them by relocating them, but I suspect that would be astronomically expensive.

If only the new bridge were an addition, not a replacement.

While I agree with you that ideally, the old bridge structures would be saved and reused at a new crossing location, I'm not so sure that reassembling elsewhere would be particularly easy or cheap, particularly since any new bridge would have to meet modern engineering design standards. It certainly wouldn't be impossible, and it would be a beautiful bridge when done, but I doubt it would be cheap --- the added design/engineering and prep costs would probably about wash with any materials savings, making the cost similar to or possibly a bit more expensive than an all-new bridge of a more cookie-cutter variety.

I do wonder why the new Halsted bridge is being built with two lanes in each direction. I could maybe see two northbound lanes to provide for turn lanes at the Halsted/Division intersection, but otherwise Halsted is only one lane to the north and all the way across Goose Island to the south.

At least Division plausibly has two full traffic lanes for about half a mile to the east and a full mile to the west of the bridge, so it makes a better case for widening the bridge as a bottleneck. Other than the merging bike traffic and people trying to make turns onto Division, the Halsted bridge is no such bottleneck.

Possibly for the future implementation of BRT. Bridges have no parking lane to steal, so a 4-lane cross section would be needed.

There's also a major intersection just one block north of the bridge, so widening the cross section would make the queue of cars at the light much shorter (all right-turning traffic gets to jump the queue).

Not using a cutting torch to chop up the bridge in small removable pieces and instead transport the contiguous girders and bridge "sides" if you will would cost an absolute fortune. Not that I'm against doing it - it's just that I know it would never be done. Even if they were to 're-create' the historic bridges at river crossing where there is a needed bridge - they would just recreate it out of new steel that isn't 100 year old corroded steel covered in 20 coats of toxic paint.

Hmmm. I think putting a 140-foot bridge across a 160-foot channel may violate one of the basic rules of bridgebuilding.

You could just build bigger anchorages and narrow the channel.... the main branch is set up this way. The south branch still sees shipping, though, so maybe that's not feasible.

It would probably be really complicated to transport the bascule mechanism as well as the bridge itself, especially if the bascule mechanism hasn't been maintained over the years.


Well, if not re-using the bridges, maybe they could be repurposed as sculptural elements in a park somewhere. They're icons of Chicago. Why should they be sold for scrap?

^^^ That's an excellent idea. They should take both halves of a bridge and move it to one of the new parks that keep springing up along the rivers and then place them as if the river is at grade and use them as the roof to a pavilion or picnic shelter of some sort. That would be a tremendously epic park feature. They could even expose the bascule mechanism which is usually hidden from view and place an educational exhibit at the ends of the bridge pavilion explaining how they work and the history of bridges in Chicago. Its not even like this would be expensive to do as you could just float a barge with a crane on it underneath the bridge, then undo its "hinges" and lower it on the barge and just float it over to its new home elsewhere along the river system. I would love to see them create a park along the Chicago South Branch devoted to Chicago's industrial past. Such a pavilion and exhibit would be an awesome start. Then they could get a few other industrial relics and place them around the park with plaques explaining them and it would be quite a local attraction. I think the ideal location for a park of this type would be the franklin point development or the huge open plot further south as an anchor park similar to LSE park.

I would favor putting a park as an anchor to the larger southern plot of land and then turning the St Charles Air Line into a high-line style park that would connect Notherly Island with this new park. The air line should be approached like a modern version of the Midway connecting Notherly Island to a new park along the river (which in turn would eventually link up to the river walk to the north). Just as the midway connects Jackson Park to Washington Park. This could also encourage the new developments on that parcel of land to be extremely pedestrian oriented as vehicles could only enter the neigbhorhood from the north being blocked by that other sweeping rail line to the south and east. The air line park would provide pedestrian access over the tracks from the south east.

Well, better too many than too few.

^^^ Uhhh there is no such thing as "too few" parking spots when there are two train stations on two different train lines within three blocks and you are at the intersection of like three bus lines. Guess what, unlimited quantities of free parking isn't a basic human right.

Absolutely Not! Especially given that this parcel is about 1000 feet from a subway stop (less than 5 minute walk) on the Red line and within about a 10 minute walk if 2 more L stops on the Brown line. Additionally there has been talk of a new Brown line stop at / near Division which would be literally about 160 feet away from this parcel.


So to your point that better too much parking...absolutely not. I do not know if your name portends from whence you have come but urbanity in Chicago is decidedly different in Chicago than in Texas....and in a parcel such as this one we do not need to coddle the auto as it has perhaps some of the best transit connectivity outside Manhattan!

an absolutely false and inherently anti-urban notion.

manhattan has WAY too few parking spaces. please explain to me how manhattan's built environment would be improved in any way waht-so-ever by flip-flopping that equation such that it had WAY too many parking spaces.


also, the nature of parking spaces is a huge part of the equation. underground parking that neither mars streetscapes nor inhibits street-oriented retail is very, very much the lesser of two evils compared to the property-tax-wasting, city-killing, surface parking lots one finds at atrium village.

In the transit vein i wish Chicago would add back some of the stations that were closed in the 1949 service change. Though new stations are not cheap I think adding a substantial number of these stations back along with appropriate zoning / planning near these nodes could help propel development.

Is it coincidental that some of Chicago's most stubbornly resistant to development areas are in areas coterminous with areas where CTA service was all but eliminated as a viable local transit option?

(Note GRAYED stations are former stations --- now largely demolished)
Redline with demolished stations
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...ain-Howard.jpg


Green line with demolished stations

http://www.chicago-l.org/stations/sacramento.html
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/.../SouthMain.jpg
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/.../Englewood.jpg
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...acksonPark.jpg

God the green line was decimated...I wonder in its time did it beat the red line for ridership?

Pink (former blue)
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...as/Douglas.jpg

Yellow
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...YellowLine.jpg




And a line that too bad was destroyed....would be nice if they could rebuild it and tie it in with a new major north - south line
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...t/Humboldt.jpg

Given that development is spreading west from wicker park into humbolt this line would be useful today