^^^ I really wish Apple would just restore the station to exactly how it was when constructed so we know that at least one Art Moderne station will survive...

^^ When is the Apple remodeling of North & Clybourn scheduled to begin? Or has it already begun? (I don't live in Chicago anymore, so I'm out of date on what's happening)

Also, has station construction begun on the green/pink lines at Morgan?


Finally, where do people feel the possible extension of the brown line to Jefferson Park ranks in importance to other projects like the red line further south, the orange line to Ford City, the yellow line to Old Orchard, and the circle line? It seems like such a great way to connect the north side to O'Hare without forcing people to either ride the el to downtown or take an east/west bus that can get stuck in rush hour traffic (or even worse... rush hour traffic combined with Cubs game traffic which I dealt with on several occasions). On top of that, a 2 mile extension of the brown line would serve a relatively dense area of the city.

This would be awesome!! The only problem I see is vandalism on white walls and floors. Anything nice is usually ruined by someone being an unappreciative ass.

In the latest round of Alternatives Analysis for the Circle Line, CTA looked at a Brown Line extension and added it into their long-term plan.

I remember reading about that, but I was just curious of the opinions of people on this forum regarding where they'd rank the various proposed extensions in levels of importance/impact.

I'd rank it the top five. I've got a graphic I drew up a couple years back of a brown line extension to JP before any official talk of such a thing. So I guess if I thought of it, it ranks high for me;)

People are catching on to the possibilities of BusTracker
 

CTA's online Bus Tracker rolls into sight at Wicker Park shops

December Board Meeting Notes
 

I was reading the CTA's December Board presentations online and noticed a couple things.

The construction report showed (on page 3) that the repair/expansion of the Cermak Red Line stop started in November and should be done by December, 2010. They'll first build out the new auxillary entrace on Archer (which I'm glad about - I wrote them just after the truck crash suggesting they do that), then redo the Cermak entrance.

The President's Report, on page 13, shows that, after starting to fall relative to last year over the late summer/early fall period, ridership re-stabilized in November being overall equal to last year in the month of November (still down for the year, though). That's a good trend - I think. The big ridership increases are off-peak and weekend - rush hours is still down. More about this after my next note:

In the Budget Report (page 3, fifth paragraph), I caught this snippet: "The average fare for the current month was $0.91 and was $0.09 less than budget due to higher ridership on passes relative to pay for ride fare media. Year to date fare revenue was $425.1 million and was $11.6 million less than budget primarily due to lower ridership. The average fare for the year was $0.97 and was $0.02 less than budget."

Looking at those last two items together, it appears that this ridership increase is coming primarily from people who upgraded to monthly passes and then ride more on the weekends to stretch their savings. I'm pretty surprised that the average fare per ride has dropped so much, though - a 9% drop from budget is very substatial, especially considering fares went up a little in January.

And about as far to the Wilson stop on the brownline. I started taking the 49B(or 49 or 49X or 11) to Lawrence then the Larwrence bus to Damon (1/2) mile to catch Metra. The time from door to door (my place 5400 block western to 100 N Riverside Plaza) 45 minutes normally. If I went bus to CTA the best I could get was 60 minutes most of the time 70 minutes. 1/2 hour a day saved 10 hours a month saved commuting was well worth paying CTA and Metra fares. Petersen stop will be great! Now they just need to add and Addison transfer - to CTA and it will be a perfect line.

..

I assume you mean either the Montrose stop (which is a little further than Damen) on the Brown Line (hasn't been a stop at Wilson in decades :-) ) or the Wilson Red Line stop, but that's nearly three times as far from the Ravenswood Metra stop as the Damen Brown Line is.

For something that's so plainly critical for the country as a whole, I really don't understand why the Feds don't just guarantee the $2.5 billion as, say, $250 million/year for ten years and be done with it. Even at $2.5 billion, t's a relatively small investment with huge dividends. If Boston can get $15 billion to build a highway tunnel that has limited benefit outside of Boston, or at least outside of New England, why can't Chicago get 1/6th of that to do things that have clear benefits for the entire country?

I know politics can be brutal, but don't politicians still just do the right thing sometimes?

Yawn, the dirty hipsters over in Wicker Park are just catching on to this now? My building installed a flat screen MiniMac on the wall with the sole purpose of showing BusTracker only a month or two after our routes (151, 147, and 136) were added to the system and I live in stodgy old Edgewater, no edgy Wicker Park...

^ yeah, i noticed that in your building. it's actually a really nice thing on a cold day.

maybe the new thing is an actual business putting the monitor inside their store?

^In September, I installed one in my condo building's lobby as well.

Yes, it is actual businesses. W Grocer has had it for a while now, as there is a North Ave stop right outside their door.

Some math:

71(total)-11(completed and underconstruction)-10(new for HSR)= 50(left to do)

Answer this question please, is the $2.5 Billion for 10, 21, or all 71 CREATE projects?

No one is quite sure. $2.5 billion was the total cost estimate for all CREATE projects, but that was several years ago. Every year that the projects are delayed, the cost only goes up.

It's possible that projects have been completed at roughly the same rate as inflation, so while the total cost for all 71 projects was $2.5 billion several years ago, the cost of the remaining 60 projects is still $2.5 billion because of inflation.

CREATE projects are all intended to work together as a system, too, so a particular project might not have any benefit until another is completed. Projects are bundled into functional units for this reason, but there may not be enough money at any given time to complete entire groups of projects.

Part of the reason for the confusion is Canadian National's decision to leave CREATE and take their own actions to avoid Chicago congestion. This forced an entire overhaul of the CREATE plan to eliminate unneeded projects and reduce the total cost without reducing the benefits provided to the other railroads. Several projects, including almost the entire Central Corridor, were axed. Some cost estimates still use the total price of CREATE from before CN exited.

You all probably know more about this kind of stuff than me, so I'll lodge it here. I've heard some criticism of the state public works money going to reconstruct metra stations when the north side red line is in such bad shape. What's the rationale? Also, why is the Clybourn Metra not getting anything? Truly a horrible place to wait for a train for up to an hour in the winter.

I'm not sure... I do know that a renovation of the North Main Line, if done properly, would be a massive and costly project, renovating dozens of stations and miles of crumbling viaduct all without shutting down the L service.

However, it seems that CTA is going for a piecemeal approach. A major renovation of Wilson has been simmering behind the scenes for awhile. Granville is getting a few million from TIF to perform renovations there.

Maybe CTA decided to use their political capital to push for state assistance to prevent the service cuts or fare increases, while Metra approved a fare increase without batting an eyelash, and then proceeded to ask for its share of capital dollars from the state.

Don't know for sure, but if/when the northern segment of the Circle Line is built, I think Clybourn station will be closed and a new transfer station built at North Ave. Maybe they don't want to spend money on a station that is eventually going to be closed anyway.

Yeah, well they better rebuild the North Red Line because they now have installed giant I beams underneath the Loyola stop, the Viaduct over Devon/Sheridan, and a few other places along the north branch...

Seriously? How long have you lived in this state?

The rationale is that the North Side Red Line viaducts are in the city. The Metra improvements are in the suburbs.

Yeah...must have been falling alseep that time. Always thought that would be a great place to live....in the triangle sort of speak with Damen, Montrose and Ravenswood all within an easy walk. If it is under 3/4 mile it is a nothing walk for me. Lived closer to Addison on the Redline a while back, but lots of times in the past it was easier to just walk home from Belmont than wait for a northbound line.

Oh my Wilson faux Paux hit me last night on the brownline heading south....I went....oh...someone going to mention this.

It is crazy...I mean all the city METRA stops on UP-N should be palaces. We (those who ride METRA) pay more fares per mile in the city and we get very little in return.

Illinois needs to prioritize mass transit as high and within mass transit we need to prioritize monies by ridership or if there were ever any community planning by potential high to moderate density development along a line. We need to stop paying for the squeaky wheel.

This needs to be applied to the Interstate System too. Time to stop paying for downstate roads....let them pay their roads. Hey if it is fair for Chicago....why not turn it back on them?

Calculating travel strictly on a "price per mile" basis is ludicrous. Also, I don't see how Metra users get very little in return. Quite the opposite. Metra costs a typical city commuter significantly less than the CTA or driving, and most of the stations are quite usable.

These us vs them arguments never go anywhere. They'll just throw out some situation where they pay a few pennies more, distracting us from the real debate. The back and forth only lead to complete gridlock, hatred of government, and the bullshit "I'm not letting anyone get slightly more govt cash than me" mentality that is responsible for many of our problems. NIMBYism at the political level at its finest.

Well, your fare doesn't even pay the operational cost of your ride on UP-N, much less any capital costs.

Sales taxes collected in the city go to CTA. Sales taxes collected in the suburbs go to Metra. So Metra really has no incentive to improve service within the city. If some politician gets them a big grant, they'll grudgingly agree to stop at a new station (such as 35th), but city residents are just not their constituency.

The eternal question for our regional transit service—with a long and battle-scarred history—is whether service should be provided based on existing ridership or based on where the taxes are paid. Suburbanites pay the majority of the RTA taxes, but city dwellers take the majority of the rides.

Well, obviously, but I meant more like the what-politicians-could-say rationale.

Yes. In-city Metra service is basically a grudging sign of good will by Metra, since Metra receives $0 of sales tax revenue collected within the city limits. Thus, the long history of people complaining that Metra treats the Electric District like the stepchild out of some sort of racial animus rather than simply as a function of where Metra's subsidy is coming from.

Related to above. CTA points out that it provides 80% of regional transit trips but gets around 55% of regional transit funding, but in response the CTA service area pays even less than 55% of regional sales tax revenue. The extent to which the Cook suburbs pay an inordinately high amount of taxes to the CTA is also why the CTA operates grossly unprofitable service on the fringes of the system. Yes CTA could cut those underutilized money pit services, but if that caused Suburban Cook to strongly question it's substantial contribution in CTA subsidies, would the savings be worth it?

What would you do to solve this problem, then? Ideal-world type stuff....

New Wacker Drive Interchange
 

This looks awesome! Finally, that park space will become usable, instead of the isolated, hobo-infested island of greenspace it is today. :tup:

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/3020/interchange.jpg

If you made me philosopher-king . . . well, it would be a kind of nerdy solution:

First, I'd integrate CTA, Pace, and Metra completely into a single regional agency, with completely integrated fares. The current suburban railroad operations would instead become a regional rail backbone that served longer trips across the whole metro area, all day long.

Second, I'd set up some boundaries based not on Chicago city limits but on the line drawn in the 1947 Metropolitan Transportation Act. (All such boundaries obviously end up being artificial, but I can't figure out how to do the next step as a sliding scale.) So there would be an "urban" district that consists of Cook County minus the seven townships that are west of the Cook-DuPage boundary. There would be a "suburban" district that consists of the rest of the six-and-a-half metro counties.

Third, I'd raise the statewide gas tax by the equivalent of 10 cents. I'd actually base it on mileage driven rather than gallons, and index it to inflation, but for simplicity let's say 10 cents/gallon. In the urban district, 8 cents go to transit and 2 to highways. In the suburban district, half and half. Downstate, 8 to highways and 2 to transit.

Fourth, I'd increase the state income tax a full one percent, with about 1/4 of one percent thought of as the transportation setaside. All of it raised within the urban district would go entirely to the transit agency; half the money raised within the suburban district would. I'd eliminate all property or sales taxes dedicated to transit.

Fifth, I'd set some guidelines for spending that would determine the allocation of roughly 75% of my new regional transit agency's budget. Half would be based on population density, a quarter on passenger-miles, and a quarter on boardings. The idea is to have some sort of formula like the compromise eventually reached for the original Interstate system that looks at both population and mileage needed to complete the network across sparsely populated states. And you also want to give the agency some flexibility (with the remaining 25%) to spend money where it's needed for the good of the network.

I think we all know what needs to be done in this state; we just lack the courage to do it in the era of 30-second attack ads and in a region where the central city is essentially irrelevant to more than half the residents.

I don't see a heck of a lot of change ... just a bit more green and more ways for the "hoboes" to get to the island of green space.

If 235 VanBuren or other adjacent buildings emptied onto the green space, or there were benches or dog runs, that would help, but as it is, who is going to be hanging out there? Another tower or two in the area will help I guess. Anyway definitely will look better driving by.

Still looking forward to a Wacker/Harrison re-do and extension of Wacker...

The ramps being depressed/decked is the expensive, big-ticket investment here. It's not a compelling public space because it's defined so poorly, what with it being surrounded by mostly parking lots and vacant lots. Hopefully the next boom will cause these to be developed. Once that happens, and there are more pedestrians around, then adding paths, water features, or sculpture to these areas is a simple and inexpensive matter - perfect for TIF spending. The redo of the interchange is quite a costly matter, which is why the city is getting state capital funds and (I think) some stimulus dollars for it.

I know your affinity for the Burnham plan's regional rail tunnels, giving Chicago a Philly-style rail network.

But is there any precedent for such a massive consolidated transit agency providing all manner of services across such a vast territory? Every major city of comparable size to Chicago has some sort of separation between urban and suburban transit agencies. The closest comparison I can draw is Metro in Houston, but even they only serve the 3.5 million people of Harris County, not the ~9.5 million of the Chicago MSA. It is my understanding that, despite all the infighting, the RTA was an unusually close agreement between city and suburban agencies. Although, to be honest, Metra and Pace are relatively new organizations, with none of the historic baggage that CTA has carried. This gives them a modern and progressive structure, with of course a much lower connection to Chicago-style politics than Daley's CTA.

I think any big-time politician sold on the idea of an income tax raise and an elimination of the other taxes would be skillful enough to convey to voters how his plan would simplify and REDUCE taxes. Especially sales taxes, which are a sore point among Cook County voters right now, for obvious reasons.

Through-Routing for Chicago's Steam Railroads is the Hooker/City Club plan, not the Burnham-Bennett/Commercial Club plan.

It's funny how cities around the world go through cycles, of amalgamating their agencies and then breaking them back into pieces. The most impressive integration I ever saw was Melbourne's Met, in the late 90s. But then the Victoria government was seized by free-market Thatcherites and they broke it into pieces that private companies could run. Didn't work out very well; one of the big concessionaires just walked away after a few months. I'm not actually sure which European cities have fully integrated regional operators at the moment. Berlin's BVG is pretty regional, as is Paris's RATP.

There is a LOT of work going on here. The entrance to Congress westbound from Franklin looks like it's disappearing, and the entire entrance to Wacker and Franklin is being redone and depressed.

interesting - just by looking at the diagram it seems like a lot of work - you never appreciate how complex this interchange is until you see it like this. Thanks ardecila.

^ Having been a pedestrian to this area in the past, I can definitely see how submerging these ramps will be an aesthetic improvement to the area.

Will it be a great boost to the pedestrian experience? I doubt it, but from the standpoint of putting automobile infrastructure and accompanied belching fumes where it belongs, this looks like a great and much-needed investment for this part of town.

Is the connection from Congress to Franklin really so important that it must be retained? I agree that if it must be retained then a grade separation is preferable, but it looks awfully expensive for something so redundant (there's already a grade separated connection to Wacker and a left turn to Wells.) I notice they've completely done away with the connection from Franklin TO Wacker.

I agree. Do you think it was ever discussed to eliminate the ramps altogether and open the two parcels to development? I can't imagine eliminating the ramps would inconvenience too many motorists when all they have to do is hang a few turns to get to/from Congress.

They haven't done away with a Franklin/Wacker connection - it's there, from the Harrison/Franklin intersection (Franklin is 1-way, so there wouldn't be a south-bound one).

Franklin to westbound Congress now is only very lightly used, since Franlin is one-way northbound and only starts one block south at Harrison - doesn't seem like much lost there to me since one block east at Wells you can get on it via a normal light.

Those loops are there primarily to provide the bulk of the traffic to Lower Wacker for people coming from the west and going to Michigan Avenue or Streeterville - for that, they are very well used and quite useful and, I dare say, quite important at times.

About 1993, there was a proposal to develop a building on air rights over the "park" south of Congress. A few months later, a sign suddenly appeared, saying Oscar D'Angelo Park. That's more than a little odd, as Oscar is still living. Maybe he put it up himself . . .

^ He's that infamous shady mafia-ish west loop character, I believe. No surprises there.

Yea... I just googled D'Angelo, and he seems EXACTLY like the kind of person who WOULD put up such a sign, and then call in some favors to prevent the city from taking it down.

On the other hand, it's pretty far from Little Italy. I assume he'd want to be memorialized on his own turf rather than the middle of a highway interchange.

Navy Pier Flyover
 

http://img697.imageshack.us/img697/3848/8081.jpg

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/2724/npf121709b.jpg

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8571/npf121709.jpg

Looks promising. I've lost complete track, but is the Calatrava designed footbridge for the river completely dead? Is this question like 4 years old?

There was discussion, but no money, in the early 90s, when most of that land was still vacant. Unlike the Harrison curve, straightening the North/Halsted curve would have required condemning probably 8 or 10 different parcels.

I don't know that I particularly care for that ped bridge... I don't like what appears to be a blue wall that blocks the view of Lake Michigan (or are those just blue slats that from the angle of the first photo make it appear to be a wall?) and it looks rather narrow for runners, walkers, bikers, and bladers to share. How does the width compare to that of the running/biking path on the Diversey Harbor bridge?

^^^ That's what I thought too. It would be kind of stupid to block the view of the lake.