that is a problem with the L, not an advantage of buses.


there should be an L stop with a few blocks of anywhere with some density.

buses will VASTLY improve once they eliminate the drivers, however.
course, that applies to the L too. no more waiting for slow fat lady to make it up the stairs, bell rings, the train goes.

I didn't realize the Kennedy was being widened by 1 lane from Cumberland to Harlem (inbound only), to accommodate the widened Addams. Drop in the bucket, but it's a start (of course, I'd prefer a dedicated airport train of some sort any day).

(old news; http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2...ews/160528996/)

Yes, there's also a flyover ramp being added so that EB traffic on I-90 doesn't have to weave through the EB traffic on I-190 to exit at Cumberland.

This should at least shave a few minutes of driving time for people heading to the park and ride at Cumberland. Although it seems like most of those are Park Ridge and NW Siders approaching from north and south, rather than folks who would be driving in on the Addams...

Yeah, I thought that was an expensive solution for a tiny constituency when I first read about it. (Though even a single vehicle weaving from the Addams to Cumberland can introduce congestion and even accidents, which is the main benefit.) But might they be preparing for an Addams express bus depot at Cumberland? Per the Daily Herald, the nearby Rosemont station got a $1.5m upgrade in anticipation of the busses.

Which is odd, since there's no real direct way to access the Rosemont station from the Addams. I guess eastbound buses can make a quick U-turn after the toll plaza to take a service exit into the CTA parking lot, but westbound buses have to make a circuitous route up River Road to Higgins to an onramp. At rush hour, that can add 5 or 6 minutes to the eastbound trip.

Cumberland is probably a more efficient place for the CTA-Pace transfer to occur, but it's not quite the same regional center that Rosemont/River Road is, with entertainment, shopping, etc. You really want to keep the bus transfer point there if possible, even if it means building a new ramp to the Addams.

Sorry if I'm late to this conversation on this DLR for the Loop but isn't this just another re-iteration of the City Rail loop/ Circle Line concepts that CTA/Mayor Daley wanted to do in the 1990's but realized it is not cost effective to implement?

Also has there ever been any consideration of taking an S-Bahn approach to electrify and extend a few Metra corridors into those areas under Carroll Street to serve the Streeterville/River North/North Michigan Avenue activity centers because the bulk of the ridership looks like transfers off of the Metra lines.

Like you, I would definitely prefer, rather than spend a penny on the Connector Transitway proposal, that this money go towards a RER style conversion of Chicago's Metra network, which would do many of the same things but have much wider-reaching benefits.

George Hooker proposed one such scheme 100 years ago (in 1916) called Through Routes for Chicago's Steam Railroads. The proposal called for basically three trunk lines through the center of the city.

I recently drew up a fantasy map(cue :rolleyes:) that makes the connections with two four-track trunk lines, one on the existing alignment of tracks through Union Station, and the other by extending the ME/South Shore north of Millennium Station, along Columbus/Fairbanks through Streeterville and then west along Chicago Ave.

I propose the following connections.

• UPN <-> BNSF via Millennium Station
• MD/NCS <-> Metra Elecftric via Millennium Station
• UPNW <-> South Shore via Union Station
• UPW <-> Rock Island via Union Station

Of course this fantasy map has plenty of other proposals in it. Funny thing is, not a lot of it is "new" on my part; a good bit of it has been proposed in some official capacity at some time or another over the years, and I mostly just chose the proposals I thought made the most sense and tweaked them to form a cohesive whole.

Some of it may seem pretty crazy:

• the 40 mile circumferential Brown Line, which I admit is more like a combination of four independent lines that just happen to meet end-to-end. Few people would ever travel halfway around the loop in either direction, but it still provides more value as a single line than as separate lines.
• De-Looping the Loop into separate routes for the Green and Orange line and De-commissioning LaSalle Street station as a commuter terminus and handing its lead tracks and right-of-way over to the Orange Line.
• The pink line route along the Union Station lead tracks and Carrol Street is probably the part I'm least satisfied with, since it duplicates the Green Line so closely for much of its route, but it's basically the way that it is in order to take advantage of existing infrastructure. Also, given given the way the Fulton Market area is booming, maybe having a second "L" running through there won't be such a bad thing after all.

Though Hooker wrote the booklet, apparently the through-routing scheme was the work of Bion J. Arnold, a famous transit expert of the day. Over the years, I've posted it several times:

http://i.imgur.com/BOU12EI.gif

Here's the full report.

I think a new subway under Clark or LaSalle is critical to the concept, though. I don't think you'd get the same success routing all suburban lines around the edges of the Loop.

Mr Downtown, it's your occasional posting of that 1916 Through Routes plan that made me aware of its existence in the first place. Thanks.

I'll agree that the central loop is one of, (and arguably the), most important destinations, for sure. But a few considerations make me think that part of the Arnold/Hooker plan is not as necessary today as it may have been a century ago.

First, the Arnold/Hooker plan was drawn up before the State Street and Milwaukee-Dearborn Subways were ever planned, and their presence makes constructing a Clark or LaSalle subway both more complicated and less necessary. I believe that having effective connections among the various commuter lines, and between the commuter lines and the CTA, renders digging another tunnel through the center of the loop for commuter trains an unnecessary expense.

Second, it's not that far to walk from Union Station or Michigan Avenue to the central loop. Scores of people already do so today. It's not unrealistic to expect people to continue to do so in the future.

To me, effective connections means the following:

1. Have cross-platform transfers wherever possible
2. Make transfers as short as possible everywhere else - such as up or down a single flight of stairs - with distances measured in tens of feet rather than hundreds of yards.
3. Full fare integration between all systems

The principle behind the commuter rail portion of that fantasy map is to pair the lines into 'trunks' based on the routes they follow when approaching the loop, and to send one line from each pair through Union Station and the West Loop, and the other through Millennium Station and Streeterville, and provide convenient transfers between them for access to the opposite side of the CBD.

NW Trunk: UPN/UPNW
W Trunk: UPW/MD/NCS
SW "Trunk": BNSF/Rock Island/Heritage
S Trunk: ME/South Shore

These trunks where the paired lines run together provides an ideal opportunity to arrange for timed transfers among the various commuter lines.

The ideal way to arrange these "trunk" connections is with three stations.

• The outermost station allows inverse cross-platform transfers from inbound trains on one branch to outbound trains on the other. Example connection: Des Plaines->Evanston
• The middle station allows same-way cross-platform transfers from each inbound line to the other. Example: Des Plaines->Streeterville
• The innermost station allows inverse cross-platform transfers from outbound trains on one branch to inbound trains on the other. Example: Union Station->Streeterville. This is probably the least important of the three since other ways to make this connection exist.

This scheme is described in detail by Alon Levy here in the context of the Boston North-South Rail Link. A similar scheme has been implemeted in several places in the Hong Kong MTR.

All the lines I have "paired" together in Chicago, except the BNSF/Rock Island pair, run together for long enough for a full three-station cross-platform transfer scheme, with stations in places that actually make sense. The BNSF/Rock Island pair, which would have to be done by a cruciform (+ shaped) station in the Southwest Loop where transfers are the second-best kind, accomplished by ascending or descending a single flight of stairs directly on to the platform of the other line. For the other three "trunks", if the "ideal" configuration with those various cross-platform transfers is not attainable due to cost or constructibility, as long as the transfers are short and well-timed, they would be successful nonetheless.

Similarly, if transfers between the commuter lines and the CTA system are kept as a primary design criteria, they can be successful as well.

Ed Zotti and the Central Area Committee explicitly mention a regional rail scheme. I think they are pushing first for the "Gray Line"/"Gold Line" and then an eventual connection to Union Station for through-routing ala Crossrail Chicago.

The Connector is a complement to such a scheme that provides downtown distribution. Yes, it would be ideal if the Metra system did its own downtown distribution, like the Loop and the two subways do for CTA. But I just don't see that ever happening. Underground construction costs are simply much too high to entertain this kind of scheme.

The connector is supposed to be at least partly underground too, right? So wouldn't the cost concerns over tunneling apply as well?

I agree that through routing for commuter trains is probably not practical at current US tunneling costs, but four through tracks can be provided at Union Station without any tunnels and without tearing anything down, and if tunneling costs were in line with Europe, then a single new four track bored tunnel (I propose Millennium Station-Streeterville-Chicago) might be possible.

As the Connector team has gotten more into the details, they're now talking about nearly a mile of tunneling to get through Streeterville.

The Connector project is a rather strange hybrid that can't decide if it's about line-haul, distribution, or making areas like Finkl Steel and Riverside Park more developable. Most of the steering committee is development folks who don't think real critically about the various rôles public transit plays, and what justifies public financing of it. They don't really get the difference between streetcar and light rail, between AGT and CTA heavy rail. The white paper talks a lot about capacity limits of CTA on the North Side, but the proposed solution won't short-turn any trainsets or lengthen a single platform. Instead, it's about serving developable land in the center-city-periphery from Streeterville to Pilsen to McCormick Square, and incidentally being somewhat useful to Metra riders.

IL: Study Says CTA Could Sell Some Linden Parking Space for Retail, Residential Development
KATHY ROUTLIFFE ON DEC 23, 2016
SOURCE: MCCLATCHY

Dec. 23--Chicago Transit Authority officials say they are reviewing the findings of a study that says the agency could net at least $2 million -- and ultimately the possibility of a residentially denser, more transit-friendly Wilmette neighborhood -- by selling some of its Purple Line station parking lot property.

The study, by graduate students in the Transit Oriented Development studio program at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Urban Transportation Center, recommends that CTA officials actively seek developers who could build a multi-story retail-residential project near the intersection of 4th Street and Linden Avenue.

Bringing new residents into the area known as Linden Square could revive its currently depressed retail scene by making the business district more attractive to new retail, study authors said. Those new residents could also provide new Purple Line ridership, which could more than make up for riders who might be lost by cutting parking lot size, they said.

The Purple Line has the lowest average weekly ridership of the CTA's seven end-of-line stations, with only 1,125 riders, compared to the Red Line's Howard Station ridership of 7,912, according to the study.

Students estimated that the CTA could sell 40 percent of the parking it has on its 5.4-acre Linden property for between $2.6 million and $3.5 million. It could sell half of its parking area for between $3.3 million and $4.4 million, the study team stated.

Selling either amount of land would still leave the station with enough parking to handle most, if not all, of its needs, the study authors said, because the lots are underused.

The study cited 2014 and 2015 parking data to reach that conclusion. According to the study, average monthly parking didn't exceed 50 percent in 2014, and in 2015 it only exceeded 50 percent between July and September, when ridership peaked during the Chicago Cubs baseball season. That year, monthly parking use was as low as 20 percent in January, according to the study.

Pin-Jung Ho, one of the study's authors, said Dec. 13 that her team was surprised at the seasonal ridership swings they found. Although daily commuters normally comprise about 80 percent of total Purple Line ridership, that changed in the summer, when people headed to Chicago for Cubs games, she said.

Ho's three-person team, which also worked with village officials, estimated the development value of the CTA land at $56 per square foot, compared to the development value of more than $79 per square foot the team estimated for the mixed-use development now underway at 611 Green Bay Road in downtown Wilmette.

The study recommended that any developer interested in a Linden Square project could expect to take roughly nine months to navigate Wilmette's zoning process, including potentially winning permits for a four-story project instead of the three-story limit of the district's current zoning before completing a land purchase. Winning the height bonuses could increase the sale price the CTA could command, study authors said.

Copyright 2016 - Pioneer Press Newspapers, Suburban Chicago

^ Nice find.

I really hope that these seeds of TOD will blossom into something in our region that will finally get us up to par with other cities in the world (particularly our Canadian neighbors to the north) in making better use of our transit resources

But those seem like a worthy goals. And I think development-oriented transit might actually get money under the Trump administration.

Personally, I think Crossrail + Connector + connection between blue line and union station would totally transform Chicago transit for the better.

Well, given the acrimony between city and suburban officials (and their respective transit agencies), plus the resistance of existing traditional neighborhoods to denser development, the Connector might be the best we can hope for. We can't even muster a consensus around common-sense, low-cost and useful improvements like BRT.

The Connector, by serving some existing dense areas (River North, South Loop) and linking into new developable lands along the river, can at least generate its own dense, transit-oriented urbanism without running into confrontations with pesky neighbors over height, shadows and traffic.

Connector just another attempt to polish a turd.
 

Exactly! After finding and reading this White Paper thoroughly and having time to pause to think, I don't believe that this will get off the ground without a viable long term financing model much the same reason of the last plans of the Chicago CBD since 1968...it is too Downtown focused and there is not a greater regional benefit that is directly linked what I mean by that if you're on the Northside you're thinking I have to travel all the way downtown to make the connection that I can already do now on the bus or deal with the crowds, so what?

The pro/cons in the back section is complete load of claptrap because they haven't defined what the actual cross section of what a corridor should look like to minimize costs and have an effective design, because that is usually the basis for your cost and financing model.

The Vancouver Canada Line built as a light metro P3 approach and it has already reached the design limits of the line in a short time frame because of the dismally short 130' platform lengths yet, no mention of that constraint in their pros/cons.

If this is a real transportation solution to relieve Northside overcrowding shouldn't the Northern branch be constructed first to give immediate relief to the Brown/Purple Line segments and not the segment to River North/Streeterville?

There is not barely a mention of the role Metra could play a role with this and as I read this the more I think the Gray Line proposal should link up with this to actually make a feasible project that can get off the ground quickly and possibly even go to the voters for a sales tax in Cook County along with other capital operational and core capacity improvements to the CTA system.

I would agree that this the best that can be done given the setbacks but I'd argue you can't muster consensus around common-sense improvements in Cook County and that is where it has to begin to make opportunities like the Connector and other projects viable which has been the lesson learned throughout these plans since 1968 yet this proposal will just repeats the same mistake for one important reason.

If there is a cost over run in this project, who picks up the tab? City of Chicago? CTA? RTA? This CCAC?

^ Not sure I understand the hate for the 1968 plan. As much as I'm sentimental about the Loop L, I think we would have a much stronger transit system today if the 1968 plan had been built in its entirety. Far better connections between lines downtown (including Metra), underground/sheltered platforms for all lines, grade-separated junctions allowing higher capacity, etc.

The plan was also pretty prescient and saw the future need for transit to Streeterville, western River North, West Loop, South Loop etc... all the areas that are held back today because they don't have efficient transit connections.

I don't hate the 1968 plan I have a PDF copy from college when I went to IIT, I hate the political execution of these big plans because it is too centric and does not engage outside the Central City to bring allies into the fold all of which are the reasons these big plans over the years have not been executed to the level of detail that is needed and we have these service constraints.

It's not the plan but the messaging and execution of that plan.

This is also the reason if they need to get Federal Funding or other state funding sources to fund portions of infrastructure that coalition will need to take place to make it happen.

I find the plan fascinating, but I've never seen it in its entirety - are you aware of any full copies online and/or are you able to scan it in and do something like post it to a public or semi-public location on Dropbox or Google Drive or something?

The Connector is still in much too early a study stage to discuss who'll pick up cost overruns. CCAC is still trying to figure out what to propose, and which players to try to bring in as allies. If they want FTA money they'll need one of the transit agencies, for political cover (elites proposing yet another project for downtown rather than the 'hoods!) they may want allies in various minority communities. Because it's Chicago, obviously they'll need the mayor's office to nod approval.

CCAC was much buoyed when the General Assembly approved the Transit TIF law, and hope a similar district can be set up for their new toy. To me, that seems like the only way it can be politically feasible: if downtown developers pay for the gadgetbahn that will make them lots and lots of money by allowing dense development on former industrial sites.

I have the file in an external hard drive in storage. I got it from my professor in 2003 and I have held on to it. I have to search through what I have and see if I can upload it

My cause for alarm revolves around how low the contingency is out of a $750M project as you say haven't been defined, they assume only $19M , that is only 2.5% for something you need a minimum of 5% cushion. I don't care how early in the project or process this is, that will scare off a private investor let alone a public agency, I am watching this happen right now in Downtown LA with the Streetcar project.

Also the local match is only 50% of the project to which they assume need a 50% to come from the FTA which requires automatically an alliance with CTA/City Aldermen/Congressional Leaders.

Even strategies of value capture through possibly reducing parking requirements of the development to create an in-kind contribution to the cost of parking structure or parking spaces to the development for a station box for this structure should be something addressed in the white paper as it is conceptual.

Does this run the risk of jeopardizing the Core Capital improvements to the CTA system that may currently fund station modernization and refurbishments or is that $$$ to pay for those station improvements coming from a different pot?

^ Core Capacity is intended for refurbishment and capacity improvements of existing, overtaxed rail lines, which limits its usefulness to only a handful of US cities (Chicago, NY, DC, Boston). As the law is currently written, it can't be used for a new transit line or extension.

Assuming no major changes to how transit projects are authorized by USDOT, this project would compete for New Starts funding like the rest of the country. In theory, this project's ridership should be competitive based on the sheer density of the areas it serves and the need for downtown distribution, but its overall competitiveness will depend on its cost as well.

Side note: Uber and Lyft now have amassed a wealth of data on origins and destinations in our major cities. Their customers skew more wealthy/middle class, but I wonder if their data could be used to suggest possible new transit lines (or bolster the case for lines like the Connector)? They wouldn't just give up that data for free but maybe the city could use airport access and taxes as bargaining chips.

Because the central area is already so well served by transit, when run on the Connector alignment, the modeling software FTA normally uses to evaluate projects doesn't predict any new riders at all.

The problem with that is if they had started building the 1968 plan they probably would have finished half of one of the subways and then just leveled the loop at which point they would have said "well darn, looks like no one rides the train anymore" and left us with only the Blue and Red line still functioning. Sure it would have been great if it was implented in its entirety, but the odds are it would have fallen far short of that probably destroying the rest of the system in the process.


Also, all hail the Loop elevated, it is our Eiffel Tower. An Eiffel Tower that is actually useful and makes insane shrieking noises at all hours of the day. There is nothing wrong with that!

Finally. I wonder if they tackle the middle track or the eastern track now. It's been a mystery to me how they will finally start tearing down the old viaducts while leaving 1 active inbound track undisrupted.
Actually, this excerpt is from the annual Trib rundown of the coming year's transportation projects (usually by Hilkevitch until he departed the Trib at the end of last year) - always fun to mine for tidbits you weren't aware about (and schedule updates for projects seemingly mired in fog).

Chicago transit in 2017 By Mary Wisniewski

Idk, other big transit projects back in the 60s/70s were completed.

DC Metro was built, NY built a bunch of new tunnel connections, etc. Boston moved pretty much all of its elevated lines underground.

Possibly but the only reason it didn't occur was there wasn't an additional (or not enough) revenue or financing source(s) that can be leveraged with the 80% UMTA Federal Funds match to build the projects.

^I'm not following you. The Chicago Urban Transportation District collected a supplemental property tax from the entire central area from 1970 until 1983.

Yeah, when I got my first tax bill in 2004, I noticed the supplement was still mentioned, although at $0. I kind of wished it was still in place at the time, although my taxes have nearly doubled in 12 years so now I'm glad it's not.

It looks like what I thought as I did some digging, the districts boundaries were not enough to make a dent in generating enough tax revenue and the costs associated with the design and changes rose faster than the revenues generated to leverage federal funds because of the technology assumptions and once there's no consensus or movement it went to core capacity extensions outside the Central area.

That was an area that plagued LA for a long time, they drew up big plans but didn't have enough revenue or revenue sources and consensus to make the expansion and infrastructure happen until 1980. So it will need more than the local district for this new plan coupled with other Cook County area Transit projects to go towards a special sales tax on transit if the State legislation allows for it.


This ridership modeling is critical!

In order to justify the access to new Federal dollars you have to show new riders. As it is currently designed or laid out conceptually, this is just shifting Metra Bus Shuttle riders on to the Light Metro with little new riders because this was built.

If a federally approved study were to exist it would require a TSM (Transportation System Management) and TDM (Transportation Demand Management) evaluation and looks at the existing shuttle services and suggest what if you simply increased frequency on those shuttles and provided dedicated lanes in some stretches, would that move more people and be more cost-effective?

I mean for the cost, I'm wondering would simply electrifying the BNSF Aurora Line and then running it over the St Charles Air Line ROW to a new wye (unfortunately there is Mark Twain Park) to hook up with IC ROW to the Millenium Station be more effective to spur more riders for Federal Dollars?

CTA lands $1.1 billion goodbye grant from Obama

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/artic...ion-from-obama

Thanks, Obama ;)

Good!

Great to see the rebuild is actually happening. I had to wait for three trains this morning before I could board the red line. I'm wondering if this rebuild would make it feasible to route the Purple line through the State Street Subway and maybe run the yellow line through the Loop? Would that be insanity? It would definitely require more cars on the yellow line. Anyone know the recent numbers for ridership up that way? Last I heard I feel they were on the decline due to the embankment giving way.

The congestion on the Brown/Red/Purple Lines pretty bad these days. More trains could definitely help.

I've always thought it would just be easier to extend the Red Line to Dempster (or Old Orchard) during peak times, and only keep the Yellow Line as a shuttle for off peak. The short turn of Yellow Line at Howard can delay the Red Line by a minute or two sometimes. Then the Purple Line express would run full time to State Street, skipping Wellington, Diversey and Armitage.

I'm not really sure what is the main limiting factor for frequency on the north side: Clark Junction or Tower 18. Both play a role, clearly.

The Belmont Flyover by itself will probably help somewhat by eliminating the flat junction where the Brown line joins the Red/Purple. But Tower 18 remains a constraint. Your suggestion hopes to gain somewhat better overall network capacity by moving Purple Line trains into the State Street subway, and that may work for a while, but even the State Street Subway has finite capacity, too, especially at rush hour when the Purple Line expresses are running.

In the long run, no matter how you reshuffle the routings between the Loop and the Subway, there will come a day of reckoning due to the bottleneck: there are six tracks to the north of Belmont and only four tracks to the south, two of which go by Tower 18.

Once you hit the level where the current infrastructure is maxed out, the options for further increasing capacity will be:
(1) Do nothing
(2) TDM-style improvements like higher frequency on UP North, better bus service, etc
(3) CBTC to increase the capacity per track
(4) Longer trains/platforms
And, finally, the endgame:
(5) Eliminate the bottleneck by sending a third track pair south from Clark Junction.

I'm not sure if it will ever come to (5), but if it does, I think a new subway for the Brown Line through Lincoln Park, feeding into the Larrabee-Clinton subway and the West Loop, would be a good way to solve it. Think of this as Chicago's equivalent of the 2nd Avenue Subway, bringing rapid transit to a very dense but under-served part of the city.

Possibly. I think we're a long way off from that. Assuming no flat junctions, a 2 track subway line can host a train every 90 seconds in each direction. (Achieving this requires some design changes to the stations and signaling systems). The Red Line can also, in theory, have platform extensions to allow 10-car trains for a 25% increase in capacity.

In the short term, my plan would shuffle riders around to ease crowding. Armitage/Wellington/Diversey riders are shifted to Brown Line trains exclusively. Red Line riders north of Wilson may transfer to Purple Line trains at Wilson or Loyola to avoid the local stopping pattern.

Why not simply install a tail track somewhere between Chinatown and 35th to short-turn every third Red Line train and send it back to the North Side for another load? They could even run express from Belmont to Howard to start another run even faster.

Great idea, I'd even add one just south of the Sox-35th Street where this can be used for after White Sox games to relieve crowds and demands to the system

Google tells me that the current signal system and manual operation practices in place, the State Street subway can accommodate 24tph.

The typical capacity of a modern CBTC system with drivers is more like 32 tph.

I agree that, with full automation and platform screen doors, some metro lines in the world do achieve 40 or 42tph (90-85 second headways). However, as far as I am aware, such capacity is only achieved on lines with no branching at all. Throw branching into the mix, as would be required for re-balancing red/brown/purple/yellow(?) trains between the Loop and the State Street Subway, and it would likely complicate things and reduce capacity - even with no flat junctions.

Besides, when there is a reasonable alternative route that covers underserved territory, sometimes building a parallel line to ease crowding IS legitimately the right choice. The Second Avenue Subway is a very familiar example. If NYC fully automated the Lexington Avenue Line to achieve shorter headways, maybe the SAS wouldn't have been so necessary. However, the rather complicated branching and interlining on the 4/5/6 in the outer boroughs makes automation more complicated, and the SAS covers new territory and provides redundancy - so it makes sense. (Maybe not at its current cost, but at reasonable costs it certainly does.)

I never understood the flyover saving up to 2 minutes off the red line trip. I've taken that junction twice a day at rush hour for 15 years.

Maybe 50% of the time is there a brown line and red line train that are northbound and wanting to leave at the same time. It seems to be a mix of who gets to go first, mostly who has been there longest and is there any bunching of either line around Belmont. Maybe 25% of the time does any train actually have to really stop and wait it out, and then I've never noticed it more than around 20-45 seconds. I can't ever remember waiting over a minute. Certainly not 2 minutes.

Coming south in the mornings usually the brown would wait it out, since they're virtually empty going north of Belmont at morning rush and the Red line is at capacity. I can never remember being delayed going south on a red line because of a northbound brown line.

Pretty tangential to this thread, but I had no idea we were finally getting a new license plate design this year. Apparently they became standard passenger car issue last week. They'll proliferate very very slowly though, unless you really want them now and pitch in thirty bucks as a replacement fee.

http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/im...ngervanity.gif

At last, the hokey cursive is gone from our tags. Unfortunately, the replacement typeface looks like it was printed by a battery operated cash register.

Overall I'd say Michigan's or Ohio's or South Carolina's or others are light years ahead of this; they look like they actually used design agencies while ours always look like Jesse White just offered employees free pizza one Friday afternoon and they drew up something that very day. Also I don't understand why we should be perennially limited to a palette of white with some blue and a bit of red when there's a universe of ideas out there to enliven our flat and overcast prairie. But at least it isn't cluttered with hyperlinks to the state DMV or tourism websites or with other suggestion-box drivel.

I always wondered whether the more recent Illinois-rooted president would be added to our plates, but at a minimum maybe you have to die before you get considered for that.

Interesting that you mention Ohio since its nearly universally hated by people with any design sense and imo is easily the ugliest in the union: https://www.fastcodesign.com/1596132...different-ugly...

...and here is Blair Kamin's take on the new plate from November: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...18-column.html

NITCD West Lake Corridor
 

NWI TIMES

The West Lake Corridor extension keeps moving ahead. The EIS is completed and it seems RDA has made their route and motive recommendations,

The extension from Hammond to Dyer will be electric just as current SouthShore. The current Hammond station and tracks will be moved south about 2 blocks to align with the extension. Quite a bit of detail in several articles in the link above.

The line will terminate in Dyer but not go down to the Dyer Amtrak shed. No need to accommodate that heap. This is far down the time line so who knows what the Hoosier Amtrak looks like then anyway.

That's hilariously ironic that the governor's wife had some hand in the Ohio plate since that was exactly the joke I was going to make about Illinois. I should've written "someone who knows how to use design software" rather than "design agencies"; while Ohio's doesn't conform to certain ordinary tenets of what is aesthetically pleasing and what a branding agency would come up with, its execution is far beyond the Illinois plate, which looks like it was done with scissors and glue or 1980s graphics software. But the bigger point is that this is a license plate, which has very different design goals than just a logo or advertisement. Your linked article represents the same thing as an overorthodox movie critic, sometimes striving to impress colleagues, panning a movie that ended up being a widespread public hit. The problem is that a license plate isn't sitting in a vaccuum; its habitat is a sea of car grills, gray slush, salt spray, interminable red lights, and oceanic parking lots. For that kind of context people would be happy to welcome a bunch of color and a little lighthearted civic pride. Your linked article evidences that the Ohio public loved the new plate. And IMO in our thousand-mile flat prairie, where winter lasts six months, I always welcome seeing the Ohio plate. Of course it could be endlessly improved, but we're just comparing actual end results.

An example of easily one of the worst plates in the country is the new NY one, which, despite starting with some simple lines and colors, hearkened back to garish orange (along with a bizarre lettering choice). Can you imagine all the Mercedes and Jaguar owners carefully choosing which six figure vehicle they'll buy, only to then have to slap on this embarrassing kick me sign on their car. It's like buying an Armani suit, and then wearing orange Chuck Taylors. You can almost hear the Albany bureaucrats scheming to stick it to the Westchester elites. Also, I would argue that orange is the opposite of a soothing color, and not what you want frustrated drivers to be looking at for hours on end. However, the NY plate might look ok as a logo or in an advertisement, by itself on a full page. So you have to adopt a slightly different standard for a license plate.

Another example of the difference between "design sense" ordinarily, versus what you'd want on a license plate: You have effectively said that the new Kentucky plate is not as bad as the Ohio plate. True, on a theoretical level, the Kentucky plate is generally more elegant and less cluttered, while Ohio is a design hodgepodge. But you'd have to be crazy to want that Kentucky cereal box image on your car.

(Thanks for the Kamin link. It's interesting an architecture critic took up this subject; it's appropriate enough and I'm glad he did. And it's scary that my nightmare pizza party scenario was pretty much how it actually played out.)

Chicago Union Station stakeholders enter into Emerging Projects Agreement with USDOT
 

It seems Chicago was given one more going away present...Qualifying for "Emerging Projects" puts CUS on the short list for big grant money.

CHicago Union Station "Emerging Project Aggreement:

Plans to modernize Chicago’s Union Station will move forward following the announcement that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) new Build America Bureau and the city of Chicago are entering an Emerging Projects Agreement (EmPA).

The agreement will allow Chicago to work with USDOT officials toward the goal of acquiring as much as $1 billion in federal funding to revitalize the station.

“Today marks a major step forward both in the future of Union Station and in the economic life of our city,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said....

Representatives say the EmPA will enable USDOT to provide better technical assistance for large-scale projects seeking low-cost federal credit through the Build America Bureau’s programs, including Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) Program and the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program.

“The Build America Bureau makes it easier for big multimodal projects like Chicago’s Union Station to move forward. This project will serve as a vital hub for rail and transit and connect the entire region,” said Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx. “I’m confident that the Bureau will continue to be a great partner for Chicago and cities across the country to build seamless, modern transportation networks in the years ahead.”

The EmPA announcement comes as Chicago and the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) are working with Amtrak, Metra, the Regional Transportation Authority and the Illinois Department of Transportation to design improvements to passenger capacity through renovated and expanded concourses and platforms. Representatives say current plans also reference improvements to service, safety, environmental concerns, accessibility and mobility issues surrounding the station.

Amtrak says it is in the final stages of evaluating proposals for a master developer to lead the station’s redevelopment and that of nearby Amtrak-owned property and air rights.

Redevelopment plans for the station outline a public-private partnership to facilitate transportation and transit-focused improvements surrounding Union Station.

The project’s three primary goals are:

Expand and renovate the station to serve as an architecturally significant transportation terminal
To allow a growing number of customers to use the station’s facilities safely and efficiently
Create a vibrant commercial center and civic asset

Potential improvements to be funded through the agreement include:

Renovation of the Canal Street Union Station Lobby
Rehabilitation of the Great Hall skylight and dome structure
Renovation and expansion of the Adams Street and Jackson Street entrances
Expansion of the Union Station Concourse
Widening of platforms
Improved accessibility throughout the station, including installation of an elevator at the Canal Street Headhouse
Reconstruction of the Canal Street and Harrison Street viaducts
Construction of pedestrian tunnels connecting Union Station to Metra’s Ogilvie Station and to the CTA Blue Line stop at Clinton Street


All of the above improvements are in the CUS Master Plan Except fpr the last one..First time Ive seen anything abut a Pedestrian Tunnel from OTC-CUS to Clinton Blue Line. Seem like a long dig- but could be the backbone of a West Loop Pedway. And the Clinton St station is where Megabus is being moved, right under the Ike -currently occupied by parking lots. And a short 2 block Eastward leg would connect to the Post Office.

Back when license plates were issued annually, colors were pretty fun...

http://www.collectiblesonlinedaily.c...21173396_1.jpg
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Here is my favorite, the purple 1964:

http://www.licenseplates.tv/images/usail64.gif
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I'll take pretty much any "unimaginative" plain vintage issue styled plate over the overwrought collection of hombres, vignettes, stupid typography, tourism marketing collusion, something-for-everyone trend of US plates of the last 20+ years.


Wouldn't fit modern lengthy license numbers, but I love the Penn silhouette plates from the 30s. These are just perfect:

https://img1.etsystatic.com/057/0/61...43449_344j.jpg
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The pedestrian tunnel to the Blue Line would be a major improvement, IMO. The lack of any real connectivity between Metra/Amtrak and the CTA have always been a big problem.

This basically connects OHare to many of the N/NW suburbs without having to make an above ground transfer.