Hey, just found their white page proposal for a more in-depth study of the circulator. Interesting how page 3 of the proposal also mentions the possibility of connecting the circulator to the South Lakefront ROW to act as the Gray Line/Gold Line. The picture mentioning it also has 4 new stops that the Metra Electric does not currently stop at.

http://ccac.org/wp-content/uploads/2...sal-102814.pdf

^ Based on the traffic congestion on the Kennedy I see nearly every time I come to Chicago on Saturday (I'm sure these people aren't headed to Loop offices), this is a far larger volume of potential riders than you are making it out to be.


^ That has less to do with rail lines and more to do with the utter lack of demand for the private sector to build housing on the south side. But if an area is booming with private sector development, it's kind of obvious that infrastructure improvements to those areas should be concimant. Lets use some common sense, Mr. D....

If bus transit were so adequate, the E. Loop wouldn't perpetually have the highest office vacancy rates and lowest rent per sq foot in the downtown Chicago market. Rail does matter.

Concimant? A perfectly cromulent word, I guess.

But the concept is exactly backwards, the way I see it. You're saying to developers "scoop up some cheap land, land that's cheap because it doesn't have any transport access—and we're so desperate for transit users that we'll eventually build transport to it." So you get absurdities like Metro to Tyson's Corner, DART to Las Colinas, or proposals for the STAR line to Hoffman Estates office parks. If we were serious about regional planning, the demand for suburban office space would be met near existing Metra lines and stations, the way it happens in Australia.

East Loop and Streeterville office space is somewhat forgivable, because the city was intending to build a rail line there. But when people ask "why is there no train station near United Center or Soldier Field or McCormick Place?," I say the proper question is "Why were they allowed to build those things not close to a train station?"

As someone who travels every month to Tysons for business I have to say you seem pretty far off the mark. Ridership projections so far have been higher then expected and that is even without a full build out of the TOD in the area. While not ideal for pedestrians in some respects it is transforming to be much more Ped friendly. I only wish that Chicago had some suburbs (Evanston kind of qualifies) like Reston and Tysons around Chicago.

When the line finally reaches Dullus Tysons will go from being one of the top 20 commercial districts in the nation to perhaps top 10.

But anyway, we aren't talking about putting out metro's to far flung neighborhoods or suburbs in this case. We are talking about integrating downtown more thoroughly by rail. Chicago is in the midst of a return to downtown living transformation. Open up dependable rail service that can quickly shuttle new residents to the West Loop from the homes in River North or South Loop and the city will only increase that momentum.

Provide direct N-S CTA rail access through the West Loop and companies will be even more enticed to capture from a labor pool that not only has easy access via Metra/suburbs but also a huge labor pool that lives in the city that right now have to make connections to get to job centers in the West Loop.

The West Loop can be the new Loop with the added attraction of being extremely convenient for most suburbanites and most city residents if the right connections are built.
That much is true. Unlike Tysons which is only a 25 minute ride from downtown DC the office parks of Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg would be a good 45min and more like an +1 hour in many instances plus on the Blue Line.

Extending the Blue Line beyond O'Hare or building the Star Line that go through heavily forested areas. Stupid. Any of the new suburban office development should ideally be centered around present day Metra stations.

^ Since when are the E Loop, N Mag Mile, and Streeterville "cheap" land? These places are going nuts with residential and hotel development, plus you have the State's largest tourist attraction (Navy Pier) sitting at the eastern point. The die was long ago cast, these areas draw lots of people, and a large proportion of the people they draw don't even live in the city but are mostly forced to drive. There is nothing absurd about investing in some sort of dedicated transit line that can really get people from the West Loop stations out to these areas more conveniently. I find it hard to believe that you are comparing running a subway east-west through Chicago's central area to some sort of train line out into farm land. How are these two things related?


^ I agree, but that's a different topic

So... Clinton Street subway with a Carroll Avenue spur... sounds good. Both plans have been discussed ad nauseum, lets see if this time it amounts to anything.

^ I still think the Clinton Subway as Red Line bypass is a more worthy idea. It doesn't do much to distribute suburban Metra riders around downtown, but it does tie the two biggest Metra terminals to the city's busiest L line, and for that reason it provides regional benefits, allowing suburbanites to get to various places around the city. A Metra rider from Hinsdale could ride to DePaul or Loyola, for example.

Adding new lines like this circulator without re-routing some of the existing lines to fix bad planning is only a half-solution, since it only addresses problems faced by people who are headed to downtown destinations. It repeats the planning mistake of the last 60 years, which says that the city neighborhoods between suburbs and downtown are just flyover country with no important destinations.

I think for Mr. D's post, the big take-away is that transportation planning and land use need to be integrated tightly.

We're definitely not there yet in Chicago, with transportation planning being done alternately by well-intentioned planners, politicians, and business groups and land use being controlled by self-interested neighborhood groups and pandering aldermen. The TOD concept should not be controversial, yet it has proven to be a divisive issue for groups in Logan Square and Lakeview.

So how about direct access to/from the region's largest commuter/national rail hubs with the region's largest heavy rail public transit network? All residing within a sub community that has been adding hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space and thousands of new residents over the past 20 years?

We aren't talking about an extension to Ford City here.

Clearly.

With the creation of the Clinton Subway the entire system could go through a proper re-balancing and re-routing to function more on par with local needs while reducing Loop congestion. Less Loop termination, and more through routing.

In the 1970s, when developers built office and residential towers on former railyards and warehouse districts, several blocks from the nearest rapid transit lines.

Forced by what, exactly? Not knowing the number of the Navy Pier bus? (Hint: it’s the one that says NAVY PIER on top).

How exactly is the Green Line deficient in that regard? Or the dozens of bus lines that require no steps and go pretty much door to door? Of course, I’ve only lived in the South Loop since 1983, so perhaps I don’t realize how transit-deficient my neighborhood is.

Now, truth be told, I find myself intrigued by the idea of a C-shaped distributor: Navy Pier or NMH (two branches) to Merchandise Mart, to Ogilvie and Union, to Roosevelt Road power centers, thence to Museum Campus or McCormick Place (two branches). I’m very dubious of most streetcar schemes, but that might ultimately be the proper capacity and technology for this line. But the way to start would simply be to through-route the existing 124 and 130 bus lines, perhaps with a special wrap for those buses. High-platform boarding would be the next improvement, then bus-only lanes where needed.

http://i.imgur.com/ZBQFBxq.jpg

Streetcar hopefully being a longer vehicle on par with Toronto's new vehicles.

http://www.ttc.ca/images/About_the_T...ar_Test_1a.jpg

^ Actually a streetcar is probably the best idea provided we are trying to move beyond bus service.

Lets face it, nobody is going to pay for a subway, which I find ideal (too bad it can't be 1900 again, where there is no ADA accessiblity and we can import Irish laborers who work for a dime and hour ;) )

^Sandhogs made great money, that's why they were so willing to risk their lives, ethnicity aside.

No, we're not moving immense crowds. That's why a subway is silly for corridors that don't even support a bus route today. Better to have a Portland-size streetcar (or bus) come along every 8 minutes than a high-capacity vehicle every 15 minutes.

Well, I imagine the immense crowds would materialize eventually. If you are filling up the articulated buses (as certain routes in the city already do) there is nowhere to go but rail. I agree with your thrust about maxing out buses - that's why I'm excited for the new Loop BRT as a proof of concept.

For something that's supposed to be quick/easy/cheap, though, that BRT sure requires a lot of advance planning and utility work.

But the buses can operate on much tighter headways, having rubber tires for braking and being subject only to rules of the road. You can run a bus every 70 feet. Rapid transit and light rail must have signal blocks and enforced separation of hundreds of feet between trains. The only way to approach the capacity of buses is to make long trains.

Not sure what rules streetcars would have to follow if reintroduced to Chicago. There's no way for them to overcome the greater braking distance of steel-on-steel, though.

Plenty of streetcar systems operate on sight rules, just like a bus - little or no signaling required. That's part of the reason why they are cheaper than light rail. You might need some kind of rudimentary signaling at sharp corners or in constrained portions like lower Carroll St, but generally they are dumb systems completely reliant on driver judgment.

You're right that the braking is not so easy for streetcars, which is why low-speed collisions are fairly common on new systems until drivers adjust to the presence of rail vehicles.

Because due to a lack of a N-S line for much of the north side of the city the Green Line involves a transfer and only then does it serve the north end of the West Loop. For anything in the south West Loop there is still a lengthy walk.

........While on the discussion of West Loop transit, I know it has been talked about years ago but I forget the explanation. Is there are any kind of logistics or cost prohibitive reasons why a new Blue Line stop couldn't be had before the curve between Fulton and Canal under Milwaukee that would essentially connect with the Green Line/Olgoive?

Now with two major office towers going up less then a block away I think the time calls more then ever not to let the Blue Line bypass that area entirely. 20 years ago it didn't make too much sense to try to force a station there but now it seems like a no brainer.

It would be a cheaper alternative (I think) then digging south in order to finish the Blue Line loop under Clinton/Canal while really bringing essentially the same benefits.

Yes, it would be enormously expensive as all infill subway stations are. If built, it would have to be centered diagonally on the intersection of Fulton and Clinton, a long walk from the platforms at Ogilvie.

Now, the Dearborn Subway was designed to receive Lake Street trains via a new subway portal around Lake/Racine. If built, this new segment of subway under Lake would have included a station at Clinton to replace the elevated station.

Today, it doesn't make much sense to build this - the O'Hare Branch of the Blue Line is the city's second-busiest rail corridor. Sending Green Line trains into the subway with a new portal would just borrow slots from the Blue Line without any practical benefits.

http://www.chicago-l.org/plans/images/1943subways.jpg

How Chicago Spent $400M On a Subway Superstation to Nowhe
 

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...#ixzz3SdkeD2Ct

Imagine a scenario where you bury a lot of your hard earned money in the yard, and never see it again. Better yet, imagine giving that money to someone else, who buries it with promises of big returns which never happen. Farfetched?

You’ve already done it......

Imagine! A public works project that stalled for an entire decade.

http://i.imgur.com/wiUmBdl.png

Source: whole cloth

I hope one day they revive the superstation.

edit: Nevermind $1.5 billion to finish it.....ridiculous but hey already $400 million sunk. It's ashame how our city's leadership mismanaged our resources that something like that could even happen smh.

I got to see inside the super-station shell during a walk-through for the current B37 project. What a waste!

Here's an exciting proposal for the space, in keeping with the recreation theme of B37: Create the world's 1st urban indoor rifle range! A little sound deadening material, a security barrier, some dedicated parking, and pardon the pun, boom! It would be an instant money maker for the city!

How about a subterranean spa. Any natural hot springs down there?

It would be nice to at least finish out a Red-Blue transfer corridor, if possible, through the space. Get some use, any use, out of it.

The difference is there just wasn't the money to finish the Blue Line due to financial constraints. There was little question of the benefits of the plan or the end result.

The Blue Line Airport express working as intended without causing efficiency issues Blue Line trains or Express trains is something that was a real question even if the project was completed. Or so I thought.

Not to mention the likely and much cheaper alternative of running express trains on the NCS line.

The Airport Express was initiated from a trip by then Mayor Daley to some SE Asian city with an AE operation like that, he decided that Chicago MUST have one (pet project on a whim); so he assigned CTA Planners with the task (as IMPOSSIBLE as it was/is without Big Billions being spent) who BETTER come up with one or he would hire new CTA Planners who would -- and thus the coming of the Airport Express!


It would obviously be much better to run an express via the Railroads from CUS to O'Hare today (the North Central rail infrastructure already exists), but we apparently can't even get our merde together enough to do that right! Hell, Metra could run expresses starting tomorrow leaving 5 minutes before some CUS North Central departures.

btw: Congratulations to Chicago on winning a Mayoral runoff -- six weeks to hold their feet to the fire on Public Transit issues; I'm salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs already (South Lakefront Transit)

Airport service that ends at CUS does nothing to reinforce the center of the Loop, which was the intent of 40 years of North Loop redevelopment, and the very reason for the Block 37 project in the first place. We don't need any help convincing companies to move to the West Loop. We need help keeping them close to the subway lines, where people from all parts of the city—even the South Lakefront—have easy access.

^ Hence the need for better East-West rail connections downtown.

You seem to recognize the need for this in some round about fashion, but just won't go out and admit it.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.... A gun range in the middle of the Loop. That's hilarious. I would sooner hold my breath for the sun to swallow our planet whole. Why would we ever encourage people to bring their firearms all the way into the center of our city? That's a good one.

I'm all for bringing back street cars. Maybe we could use this space to assemble new streetcars. Have a manufacturing dead center in the city that works. They could start with first line going up Dearborn and continue up Clark to Wrigley like the fine folks at Chicago Streetcar Renaissance suggest (http://www.chicagostreetcar.com/). Just elevate the new cars to street level and put them right to use.

^ Another option is to open up an underground theme park. How about a recreation of Thorin Oakenshield's dwarven kingdom from The Hobbit ?

....Or, build an underground version of Disney's Magic Kingdom, finally fulfilling Richard J. Daley's dream of having a Disney theme park in Chicago?

I think Honolulu has long since beaten Chicago to that punch.

Honestly for many years this is all I thought the project was for lmao. I thought somehow the blue line would jut east and the red line would jut west to connect at this new transfer station, ignorance is bliss I suppose.

Somehow the West Loop is close enough to be a viable destination for 100k's of commuters ever day who work downtown but it would not be good enough for those traveling back from the airport who are doing business or staying downtown much more occasionally? How many would not be taking a train/taxi/bus/van to their final destination anyway? I think insisting on spending 1.5 billion just to make sure that B37 may be salvageable is to mess up priorities.

Both have their pros/con but especially when one figures in likely cost and operation logistics I don't know how one can't look at the CUS possibility and give it serious consideration if not outright favor when discussing an airport express train.

I don't really see a Block 37 transport hub as evidence a new east-west subway line is needed.

My basic philosophy is that Chicago should continue to function much as it always has: a very compact office district served very closely by rapid transit and radiating line-haul bus routes, with suburban terminals just around the periphery but in easy walking distance. As I've often said, a tunnel under Clark or LaSalle to allow through-running of our suburban trains would have been a good investment a century ago, but it doesn't seem to be in the realm of the possible at the moment.

I do favor (at least for more study) a new peripheral C-shaped intermediate capacity line to better serve the periphery of today's CBD. I sketched one possibility over the weekend, while CCAC is talking about a similar idea.

And for the long-term, I think we'll need to build the Clinton subway, but as a way of increasing north-south capacity. I've also sketched how I see that working.

The airport connection was intended to again make Dearborn & Washington relevant to office leasing, instead of continuing to let the jobs drift further west, where they're convenient to suburbanites (from the right kind of suburbs, of course) but not to city dwellers on CTA. Suburbanites can easily walk across the river, or use excess capacity in the CTA bus network to go that last half-mile. That's not so attractive an option for airport travelers. I have my doubts about how much public money should be spent on travelers who can easily pay for their own rides to O'Hare—but as an investment in keeping the office core right where it is, it's a reasonable use of public money.

I really want a C shaped connector, and I'm glad it's back in the works (again^again^again), but it always makes me wonder about poor saps who need to move from one end of the C to the other. Like, say, from their apartment at State and Roosevelt to their appointment at Northwestern. It's either take the connector counter-clockwise all the way around town, or get acquainted with the Michigan Avenue bus lines.

Any plan would have service holes like that, I'm sure, but it makes me wonder if an O would be ideologically purer than a C. I'm sure citizens would develop a cute inner-loop and outer-loop geographic terminology in no time, and maybe what's now "the loop" would become "the donut hole".

Or take the Red line and walk the two or three blocks from Grand or Chicago to Michigan or St. Clair...

^ Yeah, the C connector concept is mostly about improving E-W connections. N-S connections downtown are pretty much in place.

The red line? Scum and villainy!

Navy Pier to Museum Campus is probably a better (and more likely) example, but in that case I think visitors might just enjoy the roundabout trip.

The loop connector will not help any Metra riders get to their jobs more conveniently it will help them either get to the Museum Campus, McCormick or Navy Pier. A Monroe/Madison streetcar with dedicated lanes and signal priority or BRT if you want to be cheap would help Metra riders more.

You are correct in that assessment, but I was talking about services that could be started tomorrow on existing facilities (like the Gray Line); I favor the Connector idea also -- but it is years of planning and construction off in the future; we need something better until that comes online. People would go to CUS for a 2 or 3 stop Metra ride to O'Hare, rather than the 127 stops on the Blue Line (along with the free show), which is the only rail option running today!

I find it amusing to see how people compare ideal en route speeds without noting headways at all.

The Blue Line has a train every 8 minutes and a 41 minute trip to O'Hare. So 45 minutes on average end to end pretty much whenever you leave.

NCS currently takes 40 minutes; suppose we invested $60 million and got that down to 30 minutes, and somehow forced CP and Amtrak to let us schedule a train leaving every half-hour. Average time CUS to Rosemont now becomes the exact same 45 minutes. But wait: you're still 10 minutes from the terminal at the airport end, and 10 minutes from Monroe & Dearborn on the downtown end.

So what's the point of "services that could be started tomorrow" when they're 20 minutes slower even under the most ideal suppositions?

The NCS is actually 37 minutes from O'Hare Transfer to CUS. That is including 5 stops in between. I'm not sure why the NCS takes upwards of a half hour to go less then 20 miles from O'Hare to Union. It shouldn't. Maybe some signaling upgrades or grade separation could help get that down. I don't see how if one gets some DMU's to go 60-70mph why that trip couldn't be had in a little over 20 minutes to 25 minutes tops.

Why is it presumed that we can't attain 20 minutes headways and 15 minute headways during peak times on an CUS express? Or at least as often as a Block37 express would provide.......

At the airport end I don't think having to transfer to the ATS is much the deal you make it out to be. All international travelers will have to get on the ATS either way regardless if their downtown train arrives at O'Hare at Terminal 2 like present or at the newly planned O'Hare ATS/Parking facility. So for international travelers its a wash. And for those that leave from T1 and T2 (over 65% of the travelers right now?) it is a healthy walk to those terminal T1/T3 right now as it is. An ATS train that waits to meet up with an O'hare express train to drop them in front of their terminal in a matter of 10 minutes from end to end is only going to add a few minutes at most that those who have to walk to T1/T3 right now have to endure. The only clear advantage of one end point over the other is those who have flights from Terminal 2.

At the downtown end I'm not really sure why you are getting hung up on Dearborn/Monroe as the end all be all for end points as far as servicing downtown is concerned. It sounds rather antiquated to suggest that Dearborn/Monroe is Tthe ONLY epicenter of downtown Chicago that could service as a worthwhile endpoint. Not to mention your depiction of the Loop Center as if we are stuck in the early 90's where there is a feeling of needing some special protection and preferences in order to make it thrive or that there is some risk of the West Loop/RN/S'ville will somehow benefit too much at its expense. Logistics and money be dam**ed. Are you trying to reverse that trend hoping that developers will insist on building millions of sq. feet primarly in the Loop over the next few decades? I don't see that happening.

The whole benefit to all of downtown would easily outweigh any negatives/positives any one segment of downtown would feel from such a service. We aren't talking about decentralizing or losing out to Rosemont, Glenview, or even one of the outer neighborhoods. Downtown is simply much bigger and more dynamic then the true Loop these days. More people come into this city everyday via the commuter stations than via the L. There is millions of square feet of office space and residential space each at Illinois Center, River North, S'ville, MM, McCormick Place, West Loop etc and more office space is likely to be built outside the Loop rather then inside the Loop for the foreseeable decades. Office and residential units outside the Loop that will serve as end points for travelers. And we aren't going to try to cater to that fact out of spite or stubborn insistence that the central Loop is the only place where such an asset makes sense? An end point that will likely involve a cab/bus/van/train etc. transfer for people with luggage in tow regardless of anywhere one would place an express train terminal into downtown.

Is CUS as good as B37 in terms of connectivity in terms of residents/workers within say a 3 block radius? Probably not technically if one looks at A and B in terms of square footage or transit connectivity. However if a future express line depends on those in a 3 block radius its largely doomed to fail anyway. CUS is still really close to the heart of downtown and has good connections that are only likely to get better with new express buses/rail (hopefully) in the future. CUS also has the added benefit of possibly connecting some suburban/Metra riders that may utilize such O'Hare express service.

In many cases the objective will be to get travelers near their endpoint and for them to finish the ride by other means. Again, the majority of riders that will be going to MM/RN/S'Ville/McCormick will have to transfer via other means regardless if it is at CUS or Block 37. CUS serves as an endpoint that is still very close to the loop and other points downtown and best of all we would not likely have to wait until 2050 (if even then) for some federal funding to rain billions from the sky to make it all happen. And then we have to prey by then that slow zones will not yet be an issue that makes O'Hare runs almost 55 minutes and that there will not be battles between Blue Line riders/Express train riders of who gets track priority that will likely make the whole line more unpredictable and cumbersome for both. Don't get me wrong, if Block 37 express can be done sometime in my lifetime with reasonable amount of funding and without logistical hiccups then I'm all for it. It seems as if that had been the case that it would have been done by now and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

OVERALL time may be the same, but for some folks a fast limited-stop trip with connections needed at one or both ends, is better than direct but stop-after-stop-after-stop on a local Blue Line "L".

And you're already talking about "investing $60 million", I'm saying use today's unaltered infrastructure. Ways could be found to do all this easily, but somebody always has to throw wrenches into the gears!

CUS also has the advantages of connections to Metra lines, various regional bus lines and Megabus, OTC the Blue Line and Greyhound nearby, and even the Water Taxis; Block 37 is strictly stand alone except for the Red and Blue lines, and buses and cabs.

And remember it was a whim demanded by a "previous Administration", not an actual transit plan by actual transit planners.

Huh?
Total weekday boardings at the five Metra terminals: 133,000
Total weekday boardings at downtown CTA rail stations: 157,000

From the DNA article this week........

Either way the amount is about even.

Maybe we could skip finding a faster way to Ohare and cross our fingers for high speed rail to suddenly proliferate, so the only way to get anyplace in this country isn't a jet propelled megabus with wings.

The blue line's tracks aren't set up in a way that, say, every 10th train could be an express to ORD is it? Pretty sure there's just the two tracks, so bunny-hopping the other trains wouldn't be feasible.

I'll just keep ubering it.

You are correct, and that was the big problem, the then Mayor Daley wanted it done -- so like making pigs fly they had BETTER figure out a way to do it (or "bye-bye"). And WE still get to pay the continuing Bills even today!

CTA's yearlong Wilson station project will slow Loop-bound commutes
 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...225-story.html

Jon Hilkevitch February 26,2015

Morning commutes toward the Loop will soon take a few minutes longer for some riders on the CTA Red and Purple/Evanston Express rail lines while a section of track is rebuilt over the next year, CTA officials were to announce Thursday.....

The idea of running airport express service on the current Blue Line trackage relied on reverse signaling and a few passing sidings (which could be on a straddle beam above the other two tracks. This was been computer modeled pretty extensively. It's my understanding that TranSystems studied both using Milw-W tracks and upgrading the Blue Line for O'Hare Express service. To everyone's surprise, the costs were roughly equal. I'm sure both having the CTA under de facto city control and the ability to get directly to the heart of the Loop tipped the balance.