Chicago should do more improve its mass transit

they're dooms day keeps coming and going

I saw that. So are you saying the repairing/replacing of caisson foundations, bents, and flange angles weren't necessary at Montrose while it was at Addison? Otherwise I'm still confused why the slow zones have only been an issue at Addison and not at Montrose when they seem the same to me.

Either they're only necessary at Addison, or perhaps they're only working on one at a time to minimize the cumulative inconvenience of having the slow zone in place. I'm not on the project. But I know structural work was part of the scope around the stations, and it would be work that you wouldn't see from track level.

The bridge at Addison over Lincoln and then the one over Addison must add to the engineering complication of Addison.

Not to freak out Viva out...but I have been overall amazed with the brownline station rehab.

I will be sad to see all those stations added back onto line. The ride from Western to Belmont has been a lot faster overall having three stations closed.

Maybe it's just an after-effect of waiting so much at Clark Junction, but I've noticed a definite fast zone between Clark Junction and Addison. It's so fast it's unreal, for the CTA at least.

Here's another thing I don't get... why does the Orange Line travel so slowly on track that's only 15 years old?

Well, the solution that we are going to get for mass transit is shaping up to be the same kind of bullshit we see every year. A measly 200mil band-aid loan for one year so we can continue to have a broken system for years to come:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,6298326.story
Casino, transit funding bill OKd
SPRINGFIELD—The state Senate on Tuesday bypassed a long-term fix for Chicago area mass-transit systems, instead passing a plan for a massive public works program that would expand gambling and offer stop-gap funding for public transportation.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,7158468.story

I'm beginning to find this issue so damn depressing that I no longer click and read articles that pertain to it.

Unless I read a headline that says "Vote passes for long-term transit funding plan", I'm no longer interested.

Ok, so I tend to complain a lot when it comes to the CTA. I tend to get frustrated very quickly when I'm riding the El because of the numerous slow zones. But I thought I'd post a compliment this morning. On Wednesday evening I headed downtown for dinner with some friends and took the brown line down there. Typically it's been taking closer to 45 to even sometimes 50 minutes to travel from Lincoln Square to the loop on the brown line. Much to my surprise and delight I actually arrived downtown within about 35 minutes at most. I can't remember the last time I arrived downtown that quickly. So thank you, CTA! :)

The Sun-Times is reporting that IL Senate President Emil Jones is tentatively throwing his support behind the sales-tax funding plan, at the risk of angering Blago.

First of all, the legislature isn't completely putting off the sales tax plan, and they aren't stopping at the idiotic casino plan.

Second, despite the fact that he is a Democrat, Jones' support could convince certain Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the sales tax hike.

So, basically - WTF is Blago doing, with wide support from both houses of the legislature for the sales tax proposal? He's making more bad decisions than Rex Grossman! The difference is, Grossman only comes out on Sundays.



The Sun-Times also reports that CTA under Huberman is making a big investment in keeping railcars and buses clean. The party line under Kruesi was that seats were cleaned every 3 weeks, but in reality only every 9 months! Now they've shifted personnel from platform cleanup to vehicle cleanup and started installing new sealants and coatings to prevent staining and odors.

I've been working on this little pet project of mine for the past few days and I thought I'd share it here. It's a massive expansion proposal for the CTA 'L'. Especially amidst funding troubles and low expectations, there should be a clear goal for the future of the system. It would instill a sense of direction and competence if we all knew there was a greater goal. This is my proposal, and I'm happy with how most of it turned out. For the most part, my plan uses freight and Metra ROWs to expand the system. There are a few instances where lines must go down alleys, new subways, and force minimal demolition, but I think it could work. It's not my "ideal" system (which would require TONS of subways under most major roadways -- never going to happen), but it's about 100 times better than what we have now. I'm thinking of sending this to Huberman. Give me feedback if you like/hate it.

Here's the link

I'll briefly explain the system I've come up with.

Red Line:

The only change is an extension down the median of I-57 all the way to 127th street.

Orange Line:

I've added a second branch that travels down a freight ROW to the city limits at 87th and Western. This is needed to service the greatly under-serviced southwest of Chicago.

Yellow Line (Skokie Swift):

No changes.

Green Line:

I've extended the West 63rd Street branch all the way to Midway. I think it's absolutely necessary to give service to the airport from the South Side. It continues to travel down the alleys behind the commercial frontage of 63rd street. The east 63rd branch continues to travel directly over 63rd all the way to Jackson Park. With the extension of the Brown Line to the South Side over the Green Line tracks, the south branch of the green line can run express to downtown starting at 59th Street.

Blue Line:

There is an added branch that travels up the median of the Edens to Devon. This is probably the least important addition I've made.

Purple Line:

No changes.

Brown Line:

I have made two extensions. The Brown Line now travels South over the Green Line tracks to 63rd near King Dr. After that, it continues straight south over a rail yard and then runs parallel to South Chicago Ave. over freight ROWs to 99th and Ewing. I've also extended the north end of the line though mostly alleyways and to the Blue Line, where it continues to O'Hare in the Kennedy median. I propose temporarily renaming it the Bronze Line to coincide with the 2016 Olympics.

Silver Line:

I borrowed this idea largely from this website: http://www.grayline.20m.com/ I renamed it the Silver line to coincide with the 2016 Olympics. It uses the Metra Electric ROWs to provide more frequent CTA service to the south lakefront and free up the Metra from making inner-city stops other than a few transfers -- speeding up Metra service as well. I only removed the Blue Island branch because the extended Red Line services the same area. The 99th/Ewing Branch (revamp of Metra's South Chicago branch) needs to be subway since frequent CTA service on the surface would be dangerous and create traffic havoc.

Pink Line:

I've created a new branch to service more of the West Side. It splits off of the main West L branch it shares with the Green Line West of Western Ave. and travels over Metra ROWs to the city limits at Harlem and Fullerton. There is an opportunity to expand this line all the way to O'Hare over the same ROWs.

Black Line (Airport Shuttle):

This is probably the most important of all of my proposals. It pulls everything together, better, in my opinion, than the proposed 'Circle' Line. And it's easy! It starts at O'Hare and runs down the Blue Line tracks to near Cicero. There, it elevates and runs straight down the freight ROW east of Cicero to Midway. It continues over the ROWs which turn east south of 67th and then southeast again east of Halsted. It then travels parallel to 95th street until it meets the Silver and Brown lines that run parallel to South Chicago and ends at 99th and Ewing. There is an option to extend this line to the Gary-Chicago airport. This line has the potential to service a large part of the city and it creates transfers to all the other lines, new and old, except the Skokie Swift.

Gold "Circle" Line:

I've actually drawn the proposed circle line as well as my own altered proposal. Mine uses less subway but covers more north-south distance. I did this because I don't think the 'circle' as it stands will give service to any areas that don't already have it, plus I don't think demand to travel from the areas along the current route will be great enough. My circle line travels very closely to all four major sports venues in the city (Wrigley, United Center, The Cell, and Soldier Field) as well as McCormick Place, the Museum Campus, the Loop, Mag Mile, and Gold Coast. The name also coincides with the 2016 Olympics.

Like the proposed Circle Line, my Gold Line has a complicated route. It uses the Freight ROWs south of 39th street, the Metra electric ROWS to Roosevelt, a 2-block stretch of new subway to connect to the Red Line. Then it uses the Red Line route to Belmont, turns and uses Brown Line tracks to Lincoln Ave. and continues West over new L down alleys and over some empty lots to the Blue Line. Then it runs down the Blue Line tracks to Ashland where it continues down the new subway path until it goes 'El' near the Pink/Green line. Continue south between Ashland and Damen to the Orange Line until reaching the freight ROWs south of 39th.


That's it!

^ Well done. As far as the yellow line, there's already an Oakton Street stop in the works along with plans for Central Street and Old Orchard stops. Hopefully in about ten years the yellow line will have 5 stops instead of the current 2

Cool, looks pretty sweet and thorough. I'd show you all my Chicago rapid transit fantasy, but it would probably depress you.

Also, alot of lawmakers either voted against or present for the funding plan because of blago's veto threat; they would only want to vote for it if it would surely pass, so theyre not on the record for voting for a tax increase that didnt even pass and thus didnt even produce any result they can point to. If Jones and Madigan can assure their chambers that there are enough votes to override the veto, then it's got a chance in hell of passing.

Your fantasy system might be similar to my fantasy system. If you don't mind sharing (assuming it's in a format in which you can share it), would you let me see it? PM me, so as not to depress the rest of the SSP populace. ;)

Wouldn't there be schedule reliability issues with using so many freight ROWs? Isn't the reason why Amtrak finds it so difficult to avoid delays in most of the country because it has to pull over to allow freight trains by?

I think it depends on how well it is done. Many parts of the current CTA L system are already built over, on, or alongside existing freight or Metra ROWs. Long stretches of the Orange and Green lines are good examples of this, but other CTA lines do this as well. If you spend enough time on Google Earth, you really appreciate the major role rail has had in shaping our city. Where possible, I think we should take advantage of these ROWs to advance our passenger transit as long as it doesn't interfere (too much) with other rail uses.

Yes, I was imagining problems if the CTA had to use the same tracks as the freight trains, but on second thought, that doesn't make much sense, since the el cars would require a dedicated track anyway for their third rail. Am I correct?

Yes, CTA trains require special tracks with third rails. I'm not sure, but there may be different track dimensions than those of freight rails as well, so there shouldn't be any problem with CTA and frieght getting in each other's way if done properly. Several Metra commuter lines run on the same tracks kind of tracks freight trains can use but even they have dedicated tracks and don't have to share. Now Amtrak may be a different story; I don't really know.

Many Metra lines share the same tracks as freight. In fact, the primary reason for Metra delays is interference with freight traffic (same reason for Amtrak delays). I ride the Union Pacific-West line every day out to Geneva and we're often held up 10-15 minutes due to freight trains in our way.

That being said, a lot of the ROW in the city are probably abandoned or underutilized by freight, so this might not be a huge obstacle.

I probably didn't make it clear that some Metra lines do share tracks with freight and others don't. That's what I meant. I come from a Metra Electric point of view, and that line never shares with freight, but I imagine some of the others may.

As land uses in the city have changed, I would imagine some freight ROWs in the city are less used than they once were and a restructuring to add new CTA lines wouldn't affect freight traffic much, if at all. I'm not an expert, though, so I could be completely wrong about that. I just want a world class transit system; we deserve it.