Why involve the federal government at all then? The only rationale for federal involvement in the tax would be specifically so that you would redistribute transportation funding via some other formula such as state population and Eisenhower-Interstate-Miles, rather than gas tax receipts.

Otherwise, I agree that such a devolution would generally improve the efficiency/effectiveness of transportation spending but would also basically spell the end of our already meager interstate transportation project planning.

State DOTs don't have involvement with transit and bike/ped because they haven't had to. Urban/suburban communities have dealt directly with the feds while the state DOT focuses on rural areas and the road needs of urban areas.

There might be some hiccups transitioning, but the demand for transit and bike/ped projects by communities is still there. Those communities will simply need to use their clout in the state capital rather than in Washington.

Ultimately, I'm uncomfortable with the Federal government shouldering all the weight and enabling bad/counterproductive policy at the state and local levels. It's a co-dependent relationship, and it needs to end if we're ever gonna solve the problem and get people to think clearly about the transportation system.

There's no need to involve the Feds. They could eliminate the Federal gas tax. I guess I proposed a block-grant scenario because some states might not create their own funding source, preferring to let their roads disintegrate - including the national network of interstate highways, which really need to be in reasonably good shape to protect our national economy. Interstate commerce needs to pass through ass-backward states sometimes.

Interstate planning would occur on the metro level through planning agencies (Port Authority) and on the regional level through inter-state cooperation. But as Beta-Magellan already noted, there's no need or demand for much interstate planning. The Interstate Highway System is complete and has been for 20 years. Unless there is a national consensus about high-speed rail and the political will to implement it, I see no pressing interstate transportation issues besides the adequate maintenance of the existing highways. HSR is being dealt with regionally in those regions that are interested in building it (Midwest, Southeast, Northeast, Pacific Northwest).

^Because some states collect a lot of fuel taxes and other states have a lot of miles of highways that are essential to the national economy. The fuel taxes collected in Montana wouldn't pay for pothole repair on all the miles of I-90 in that state. Do we want to rely on the generosity of New Jersey or California to mail Montana DOT a check each year?

^^^ No, but I'm pretty sure that there shouldn't be freeways in Montana if there aren't enough people driving on them and buying enough gas to fund them. It makes no economic sense to keep open a road that is not used enough to pay for itself.

Interstate shipping isn't an excuse either because the railroads have already proven that their intermodal model of distribution is far superior to the big rig model. The railways would gladly shoulder any additional freight that would no longer be able to pass through I-90.

Besides, its not like freeways in Montana save any time. You can go 75+ on any two lane state highway there.

I am glad it is not just me too. I am only one block from both my originating and terminating stations, but I get from where I live to downtown, door to door, at least 10 minutes quicker by bike. Brown Fransicso stop to Washington/Wells vs California, Elston, Milwaukee, etc. bike route. Of course then I have to clean up and change, but still quicker. I would guess this is only good for CTA trains and not Metra.....

Anyone have any clue why CTA ridership exploded year over year in December?

http://www.transitchicago.com/assets...ts/2011-12.pdf

Good question. The calendar adjustment explains a little bit of it, but as much as I wish it were sign that the masses have all of a sudden realized what a great transit system we actually do have, my guess is that the weather in December, 2010 was just a lot colder than this year.

Maybe, but the average daily weekday ridership was up 12% from last year. That seems like a very large increase.

I just looked at 12/09 and average daily ridership was 1,499,745 so, ridership is up 7% from that year as well.

The improving economy and gas price pressure are my two guesses

The year as a whole was good, too. The first time in four years that the bus ridership rose, which is important (and all the better considering the hammering bus service has had in recent years).

Total ridership for the year is higher than 2008 for the first time, and fourth year in a row where total ridership was over a half million riders. It could be a combination of a recovering economy and high gas prices. Whatever it is, I hope it keeps up.

The argument about gas tax always seemed rather odd since gas taxes do not equate to highway usage and are therefore not user fees. For instance, when we got that six inches of snow or so a couple of weeks ago, I walked two blocks to the gas station and bought two gallons of gas for my snowblower. In total I paid 36 cents in federal gas tax and used the interstate system 0. Moreover, I drive from my house on the north side to the southwest side everyday, its about a 7 mile drive so 14 total for the day. That equates to about one gallon of gas a day since it is all city driving. That means that I pay 18 cents in federal gas taxes a day and only use local roads that receive no federal money. So that is about $3.78 per month in taxes with zero federal road usage. Once a month, I travel to my Aunt's house for Sunday dinner and use the highway. It is about 20 miles(40 total) on the interstate but because it is on the highway and there is very rarely traffic on Sunday, I get about 30 mpg in my car depending on how I drive. That equates to about 24 cents paid in gas taxes for that trip. So as you can see, in a typical month I pay around $4.02 for gas taxes and that has very little to do with how much I actually use the interstate system. In fact it has everything to do with how much gas I use.

The English language has a name for a tax that is based on how much you consume and it is called an excise tax. The gas tax is an excise tax, not a use tax. I imagine that states with large cities have greater gas tax collection per lane mile than less densely populated states because more people burn gas less efficiently and use more local roads. Even though states like Montana are critical to the interstate system, they do not have the large number of people consuming gas off the highway to subsidize the highway users. Furthermore, consumers gas purchase might not match up to where they use the highway. If I bought gas on the state line between North Dakota and Montana, I would only have to fill up once in Montana even though I used 700 miles of Interstate in Montana. If we want to switch over to a user funded system then that is fine but we would have to switch over to tolls. The gas tax is not a user funded system, it has only a small relationship with usage.

Rail is great for a lot of products but not all products ship well over rail. If we do not fund the interstates and airports, then those products will have to ship less efficiently over rail. Having a diversified transportation system paid for by the greatest number of people, therefore lowering the cost per person, is the best system because it allows for flexibility and efficiency. Relying on one system leads to bad planning, i.e. road planning for the last 50 years. We just need to elect or appoint better people to actually implement a better system.

Central planning, i.e. the feds, is needed because you know that Indiana will screw us over if they were allowed. Illinois would end up having to pay for highways in Indiana if we wanted a usable network. Indiana screwed us with rail, pollution, etc. I do not trust them. I rather have Washington make the decisions than Indianapolis.

What makes you think they receive no federal money?

The fuel excise tax is not an absolutely perfect user tax, but it's a good compromise between easy-to-collect (especially in a pre-GPS world) and based-on-usage.

You might want to talk with someone at BNSF or a logistics firm about that assumption. Railroads gave up the loose-car business decades ago to focus on bulk movement from one big yard to another, and operate very close to maximum capacity these days. The shippers are also unlikely to be too keen about a system (loading and unloading of container trains) that adds several days to their cross-country journey times.

We should also remember that railroads, unlike highways, have to pay property taxes and are taxed by volume, so there’s actually a pretty strong disincentive to add capacity (or maintain any more infrastructure than is absolutely needed). I don’t think that’s necessarily a good thing—I think in the end it probably forces more freight onto roads (and over our nice, underfunded bridges and overpasses) than necessary, but if you want to see an expansion of intermodal freight it’s necessary to understand why it isn’t expanding quicker now.

It would be a fascinating thought experiment to think about how something closer to European freight rail—which is faster and carries more high-valued goods—could be overlayed on our existing rail network, and what sort of effect it could have on the further development of cargo transport in this country. My first guess would be that it wouldn’t do much per dollar invested—rail freight’s even more of a niche operation in Europe than it is here—but I’d love to see someone work something like this out.

As you mention, you'd have to change the tax structure for railroads. Maybe if we ever get serious about high-speed rail, we could pass the freight tax reforms in return for more leverage over rights-of-way and shared operations.

Obviously the freight railroads will always be resistant to mixing freight/passenger on the same track, but UP and CSX have flat-out resisted any attempt to add passenger tracks to their ROWs.

Otherwise known as "where wealthy people with smartphones travel". The $25000/year single mom living in Back of the Yards is probably not gonna be tweeting on her way to work.

Graphically, this is a pretty weird map, too. Chicago is a perfect grid but the lines are all zig-zag like an EKG line. I know the mapmaker was just connecting dots but it doesn't really make sense relative to Chicago's geography. Is there really a huge demand for travel down Fullerton from Clark to Pulaski and then diagonally to Oak Park? Even if there was, why should we care? The extreme cost of building a transit line that diverges substantially from the existing street grid/railroad network makes it pretty much futile. We're not gonna be cutting new diagonal routes across the city like Baron von Haussman. Even in the mad rush of expressway building, we didn't diverge from existing N/S/E/W or railroad lines.

What I'd really like to see is a map that showed CTA's bus routes, with the lineweight corresponding to the peak loading on the transit vehicle. That way you could see the busiest parts of each route, and maybe start to determine segments where BRT improvements would have the greatest impact. If the farebox was somehow linked to the Bus Tracker GPS, it could measure boardings per stop and thereby know exactly how many people are on the bus at each point along the route. Average that out over time, and you start to have some valuable information that doesn't have the socio-economic bias of a Twitter map.

I don't know that solo drivers do much tweeting. So it seems that what we're actually seeing are the cell towers used by young people riding the Blue and Red lines.

I believe this is already possible. Every bus has infrared passenger counting devices that link up to the same computer system that powers Bus Tracker.

Interesting. So CTA already has this data... I guess the trick would be to start recording it over a period of time and then format it for analysis.

It would be awesome to see capital investment for the bus system being data-driven instead of ego-driven, now that there's actually some political will to reformat the streets for better bus service. That's probably too much to ask. :shrug:

Just returned from the open house in Evanston about the Red-Purple Modernization—the boards can found in pdf form here. Short version:

•Underground screened out due to risk issues and poor phasing options. Womp-womp.

•As compensation we get a Clark flyover. Hooray!

•3-track elevated screened out—didn’t see why, but I’m supposing it’s because the CTA’s too frequent for 3-track-type services to be done without being needlessly complicated. That leaves no build, basic rehab, and full rehab (4 track) from the original screening.

•A new option was added—full rebuild with all existing stations (plus new entrances-exits for some existing stations). This takes a big chunk out of the time savings from the new four-track elevated. People seemed pretty much split on speed-vs.-stations everywhere issues, though the all-stations types seemed more adamant.

•No new cost estimates as of yet, which is disappointing since it would be nice to see the difference between full rehab w/station consolidation and full rehab without.

The current situation is untenable, but if CTA plans to introduce true express trains on the Purple Line, then keeping all Red Line stops in place is much more acceptable.

What I still don't see is any kind of big-picture planning from CTA about how an express service might work. The plan still seems to be simply extending the operating hours of the Purple Line and adding new stops at Loyola and Wilson. This doesn't do anything to improve travel times, though, since the Purple Line will still slog its way to the Loop making all stops on the elevated south of Belmont. The Clark flyover allows for much more Brown Line frequency, so the Purple Line won't need to stop at all the local stations anymore.

I'm just guessing here, but the decision to completely rebuild Wilson up front might have cleared up enough room in the hypothetical budget to build the Clark flyover. IIRC the projected cost of the Clark flyover as determined during the early phases of the Brown Line Project was roughly $150 million, which is close to the amount currently being spent on Wilson.

One last bit: it's really too early to start talking about specific designs, but I'd much rather see the solid-fill embankment replaced in kind, instead of an aerial structure. This has been done recently (PDF) at a cost of $53 million/mile for a conventional freight railroad. Perhaps they could switch to an aerial structure at stations to allow for a stationhouse underneath. A continuous elevated viaduct would just invite crime and littering.

Except in this area it really hasn't. It is an incredibly useful and interesting space... and the aerial viaduct, unlike a solid fill embankment, does not create a boundary within neighborhoods.

The viaduct is already there, so replacing it in kind won't "create" a boundary.

I don't really see it as a boundary, though. The neighborhood has a grain, and the viaduct mostly runs with that grain. The only places where an open viaduct might improve the adjacent neighborhood are in the business districts around stations, which I agree should have such a design. Jarvis, Morse, and Loyola would all be much better with open space underneath them. The stations paralleling Broadway are fine with solid embankments, and in fact the design there allows for an unbroken streetscape with CTA retail space bridging the gap beneath the tracks.

The spaces underneath Fullerton and Belmont kinda suck, apart from the fancy fare-controlled portions that are part of the station. They're well-lit but there's no good use for that space except more parking.

It seems to me if you reconfigured it so that the alleys near the stations functioned more like narrow streets that you could make them commercial strips. This would work especially well if more intense development were encouraged with up-zoning. If a major renovation of the line is completed and adds express service and the Clark flyover and so travel times are greatly reduced, it will induce interest in the area and support additional demand. Good planning could yield areas around stations with additional retail and intense use. It would create some challenges, but the benefit to area residents could be pretty high.

The areas that are currently solid fill I agree are fine the way they are. The neighborhood has developed and adapted to their existence and a change to an open viaduct at this point would have negligible effects. But going from an open viaduct to a solid fill for the stretch under consideration in the RPM project, Belmont to Wilson would be disruptive in spots. Most notably I am thinking of the stretch from Clark to Irving Park where the viaduct occupies active alley ways and crosses (checks Gmaps) 11 streets.

It would be interesting to see if the stretch along Graceland could be solid fill and shifted West to directly abut the cemetery wall, which should free up the Kenmore's active alley way

As for the space under Belmont... if they can ever get someone to come in and rebuild along Wilton that area will return to its original use as an active alley way... but that might be a long ways from now.

And another thing I am rather curious about... does anyone have an idea of how the CTA could rebuild this line, either going from solid fill to open viaduct, or open viaduct to solid fill or even solid fill to solid fill without completely shutting down stretches of the branch? Or is it inevitable that they will just shut down stretches and run shuttle buses between stops for the duration of the project?

^One half at a time, with temporary side-platform stations. That's one of the reasons the track centers shift a bit in all the rebuilding schemes.

So judging by the RPM pdf, the two full modernization plans only consider entirely replacing the earthen viaducts within Chicago rather than just building new retaining walls? As others have noted, the earthen viaduct in certain locations fits in with the neighborhood (or rather the neighborhood naturally developed with it in place). Are they not going to study whether it's worthwhile to do a mixture, with certain areas having the earthen retaining walls rebuilt and other areas receiving a full replacement with an aerial concrete structure? Is it just too difficult to rebuild the earthen retaining walls due to the close proximity of surrounding structures?

Overall, the station consolidation looks reasonable since reconstruction of the remaining stations would allow additional entrances to be located generally within a block or two of stations being closed. Eliminating Thorndale doesn't seem like much of a loss, particularly with a new entrance to the Granville station just one block north of Thorndale. The loss of Lawrence creates somewhat of a hassle for direct bus connections to the red line. Would Lawrence bus service be diverted two blocks south to Wilson (preferable)? Or maybe one block north to the new south entrance to Argyle on Ainslie? My one reservation regarding station consolidation is the removal of Jarvis as I'm reluctant to see *direct* rail access removed from the businesses near the station. Even with the addition of an entrance at Rogers, the location of the main platform at Howard Street would still require basically walking all the way to/from Howard Street. And for anyone living along Jarvis, Sherwin, and Chase Avenues, particularly eastward toward the Lakefront, the loss of Jarvis will very much increase their time spent just walking to the next nearest station (Howard angles further northwest away from residents east of Jarvis, and Morse, despite an entrance added at Lunt, is a bit too far south for convenience).

I'm no engineer, but couldn't they just tear up on side of the Purple line tracks at a time and then drill down with rigs to make one of those overlapping circle retaining walls (forget what they are called) along each side of the existing embankment just inside the current walls and then demolish the existing wall and clad it with precast or something?

Seems to me that something like that could be worked out and would be far cheaper and the rebuilding the whole thing at the expense of clogging up the purple line on an off for a few years.

From Ald. Fioretti's newsletter today:


Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project

TIF funding has just been approved for the Central Loop BRT Project, which includes the Union Station Transportation Center and transit improvements on sections of Canal, Clinton, Washington and Madison streets as well as bicycle improvements on these streets and Randolph. $7,342,500 in funding will be matched with federal funds for engineering, construction and Transportation Center property acquisition.

This project will improve speed and reliability for users of the downtown segments of a great number of bus routes, and encourage access to Navy Pier, Millenium Park, the Near East Side and Streeterville through combined Metra-CTA trips rather than by car. It will also improve bicycle facilities in the Loop.

But how exactly does one go about removing... or adding half of an solid fill embankment? Its just two retaining walls and the fill correct?

^Temporary sheet piling down the center.

Am I correct in assuming that design/engineering work is done, and now CDOT is free to bid the work?

Except for the Union Station bus depot, this is basically just paint and signage. Given how long they've taken to design the damn thing, these bus lanes better be pretty damn rapid.

^ $7.3 million dollars for paint?

Damn, that paint better look good! ;)

Since there's a federal match, the total is presumably $14m, but note that covers acquisition of the off-street terminal site at CUS, and construction of the facility. I'm usually the first to protest cost, but this seems like a very cost-effective improvement for CUS.

What speed camera legislation means for Chicago


February 8, 2012

By Steven Vance

Read More: http://gridchicago.com/2012/what-spe...rid+Chicago%29




A car crash on North Avenue at Kedzie Avenue, in the new safety zone around Humboldt Park. There’s not a red light camera here but there could be a speed camera in the near future. From 2005-2010, there have been 22 injuries to pedestrians and pedalcyclists at this intersection, inflicted in automobile crashes.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3159/...528108a76f.jpg




If there was a speed camera on Dearborn Street north of Hubbard Street, the camera would probably issue citations to 100% of automobile drivers.

http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7156/...3e6ac0fd53.jpg

Any idea which buildings would have to go to straighten the Red/Purple track at Sheridan and Irving? That intersection has seen enough carnage (Walgreen's, Thorek) in the past few years already...

Or we could just design our roads in such a manner that they don't resemble miniature freeways and people wouldn't be able to drive that fast in the first place.

This is all about revenue and not at all about safety. People are still going to drive as fast as they want as long as you keep building roads that encourage them to drive fast. I go 40 or 50 on Cicero Ave all the time because it's a freaking racetrack of a road, but on side streets I usually go 20 or 25 because they are so skinny and I want to avoid side swiping a car or hitting a kid.

The real solution would be to put all the problem spots on a road diet and implement pedestrian friendly features like bump outs and islands.

Primary thoroughfares should actually be designed so that car can legally go the speed traffic naturally flows at. Non-primary roads, sure, do some traffic calming, but the bigger problem is that some people think they should be driving at 35 on a major road even when the majority of traffic is going 45-50. Who's right? I'd say that, usually, the people going 45-50 are.

That should only apply to primary roads, but as long as that's held, primary roads can be designed for and then all non-primary roads can be better designed for pedestrians.

I don't own a car, I haven't owne done in 13 years now, so I am hardly a fanatical advocate of a driving lifestyle. But cars and roads do serve a purpose and I think it's far worse to stiffle the primary purpose of arterial roads than to simply design certain corridors for efficient and fast vehicle traffic. A large part of the reason people speed is that the authorities have proven time after time that they aren't interested in logical, rational road laws and speed limits, so drivers have no real concept of what is actually a safe speed to be driving. If road designers and lawmakers want drivers to respect their authority, then they need to actually use reason and logic to apply their authority instead of using simplistic and often just plain wrong guidellines for speed and traffic flow.

In summary, the purpose of laws should be to stop the outliers, not to punish the merely average but unlucky.

Also, it should be a helluva lot harder to get a drivers license in this country.

Yeah, these speed cameras are too oppressive. It's makes sense to slow down in school zones when children are being let out of school in the afternoon and in morning. But the rest of the day should be normal traffic flow. Why should I have to slow down for a school zone at 3am? It doesn't follow common sense. To me these cameras are worse than the parking meter fiasco. I can afford an extra $.25 for parking but getting a $100 ticket for a red light or speeding puts a hit on my bank account IMO.

^ Who's getting the money for these? If these are installed as they say there's going to be A LOT of cash coming in, along with EVEN MORE complaints.

Although I understand it’s in the spirit of this thread to dream (and I’m one of the more egregious fantasizers here), in the end the issue is that rebuilding streets to be safer costs money, whereas having Leviathan step in and threaten you with a fine raises money. Given the financial situation of the city and the fact that Emanuel’s in a strong enough position to absorb the heat that comes with those, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

Is this long-mentioned "tunnel portal" contemplated to become the entrance into the WLTC (if it is built)? If WLTC isn't built under Clinton Street and instead some kind of through-routing via Union Station is engineered, does most underground excavation (including the portal) become unnecessary?

Regarding the outbound side of the K Station area, is the HSR planned to run along the existing Amtrak alignment?

The latest PDFs show a Red Line station at Irving Park, not at Sheridan. I don't think that's a mistake or a simple renaming - I think they're gonna move the station to a spot north of Irving Park next to Graceland. Then the station won't be sandwiched between two curves of track and those curves can be widened without messing up the straight station platforms.

My best guess is that the only buildings to go will be Tropico and 945 W Dakin (nondescript garage) plus the Ann Sather Garden and the 2-flat directly east. No huge swath of destruction, just wider, smoother curves.

Yes, it's for the WLTC.

I don't think there are any firm plans. Saving the ROW is unusually prescient for city bureaucrats - probably the WLTC is the pet project of somebody at CDOT who heard about the K Station project and raised hell with Zoning to get the ROW saved.

Logically, you'd probably want four tracks for the Milwaukee District on the massive West Side viaduct. Those four tracks would run east to Peoria at grade, where the northern two tracks would continue due east to the tunnel entrance at Union, and the southern two (or three) would veer to the south using the current alignment to access Union Station at-grade.

If through tracks were ever built at Union, that might not rule out a tunnel, but it would certainly postpone it a few decades.

Interesting. That would ever-so-slightly move the station closer for most people north of irving, or west of Clark, although it also ever-so-slightly makes it a longer hike for people coming from southeast of there. Seeing as the potential ridership growth from the area directly west of the tracks around Irving Park is pretty dead (haha) I wonder if that's a net positive.

Yikes, I really hope they don't move that station up north of Irving. I actually live on Sheridan just north of Irving. That would place the station over 500 feet west of Sheridan, and honestly because of the cemetery almost everyone who walks to that thing (most people) are coming either north or south on Sheridan or east on Irving Park.

To get to the new station walking from the north, you'd have to turn on Buena and walk 500 feet to the alley, then south about 1,100 feet until you got down near Irving Park to the station. There's no other access from the north along there since it's a very long 2 block stretch of buildings with no alley access or roads going east/west from Sheridan (because of the cemetery, no need). Even for people taking the Sheridan bus you're not going to have to either get off at Buena and walk 500 feet to the west and then up to 2 blocks south in the alley, or go to Irving Park and walk 500 feet to the west. Most everyone getting on that thing from Iriving is coming from the west, and now they're going to have to cross the street.

Basically the only way in would probably be from Irving Park, and would enter onto one end of the platform assuming they're going to be smoothing out the curve to the south. It's going to be a strange configuration, and far less efficient and handy for people than current.

Honestly, I've been taking that train from Sheridan for years, and the trains come into that curve fairly quickly, then slow down as they pull directly into the station. Then they leave the station directly into the curve and speed up again. If they're slowing down at the new Irving Park station and stopping anyway, I don't see how much time they're going to save going into a smoother curve entirely before or after the fact.

That curve now can't add more than maybe 5-10 seconds coming in and 5-10 seconds coming out because of the fact you're already pulling into or out of a station. I don't see how moving that station to an awkward place that makes it another 500 feet to get to is going to help more than it hurts.

Lots of people I see are coming from Gordan Terrace, Belle Plaine and Cuyler. They're physically going to be closer to the station, but it'll be a further walk because they have to get around that big two block stretch with no access points, and then walk down past Kenmore basically to the cemetery. The ONLY people for which it will be closer will be those living on Kenmore to the north of Irving Park.

Looked closer at the proposals. Looks like they'd do a station at Iriving Park with a slight curve reduction in one, and then probably take out everything along Iriving and some buildings on Kenmore as well as Sheridan and put in a new 10-car station that stretches between Kenmore and Sheridan at an angle. That would sure decimate that corner even more than it already has been with the hospital tearing down the entire northeast corner and the southeast corner being that set-back walgreens.

yeah, since the boards list a secondary entrance at Sheridan, I think this is correct. As nice as it would be to have an entrance on Irving Park for the bus, that would be a really high price to pay for straightened curves and a longer platform, potentially unless the CTA also acted as a developer and replaced the buildings it destroys with new, dense construction in that area around it - which seems like a long shot, since the CTA has never really shown much interest in being a developer.

It *might* be possible to accomplish that just taking 2-3 buildings on Irving closest to that curve and the building immediately to the north of the existing station plus a few back yards (not ideal, especially for the current residents of those buildings, but a lot better than totally demolishing them from a community standpoint) - remember that this WON'T be a transfer station, so it almost certainly wouldn't be rebuilt with double-islands, which means the tracks don't need to be wider than they currently are even with a wider platform.

Sheridan/Irving?
 

http://www.mathiasen.com/sheridan.jpg
Google Maps as edited by me

Maybe they have something like this in mind. The red building would be demo'd just for clearance, the yellow ones demo'd for a stationhouse. Ideally the building next to the red part might just get the sliver left and expand south, but there'd be other options. But if this is what they have in mind (I extended the platform length to 10 car-length), then it'd be the best of both world's - existing entrance on Sheridan preserved, with better access for bus transfers on Irving, plus a closer entrance for people coming from Kenmore or west of the cemetaries. Walking from the west, an entrance at Kenmore saves 2-3 minutes which may not sound like a lot, but I bet it would result in thousands of extra riders over the course of a year.

I'm in favor of building the station north of Irving Park. There could be platform extensions to an entrance on the south side of Irving, and the city could seize three properties and extend Belle Plaine to a far-north rotogate entrance.

Side note: how do you pronounce "Cuyler"?