Belmont Flyover
 

Demolition of Lakeview buildings to begin this week for CTA 'flyover' project

The CTA this week will start knocking down buildings in the Lakeview neighborhood to make way for the controversial “flyover,” an elevated bypass that agency officials say will cut down delays along a congested stretch of public transit on the North Side.

The demolition begins more than a year before the city plans to break ground on the flyover, which aims to unclog the bottleneck of Red, Brown and Purple Line trains that flow in and out of the Belmont Avenue station.

“The work we’re doing is an important part of the preparation we need to accomplish to begin construction on the project next year,” said Chris Bushell, the CTA’s chief infrastructure officer, in an interview with reporters Tuesday...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...306-story.html

Moving fast on this. They’re trying to get all the demolitions done in the 3200 and 3300 blocks before the Cubs season begins, and the 3400 block will be torn down in the fall after the season ends (guess Beer on Clark wanted one more season...)

Kinda bummed about these demolitions though.

I'm worried they will remain vacant lots for a long time :(

That's my worry too; and when they are finally developed they'll likely be the same schlock that goes up around the city. We are loosing a couple great buildings for this project, and the area will ultimately change for the worse when complete.
Also, were the massive concrete structures always part of the plan? Why doesn't the CTA use steel support beams, like the rest of the system? These hulking concrete structures are terrible.

For us it is situational. We do tend to take the CTA, but let me give a recent example where Uber won the day.

We were out for dinner and had taken CTA to the restaurant. Dinner dragged on longer than it needed to, we were tired after a long day of work, it was cold and raining and the CTA meant a 10 minute walk from the stations at each end with a 20 minute ride (not figuring wait time for a train). It could have been 40-50 minutes door to door.

Or, an Uber was 2 minutes away and the fare around $10.

The choices were 2 walks in the rain as part of the 40 minute trip on CTA - $5.00. Or, 10 minutes by Uber, get home dry, $10. Uber won.

That makes sense. I should have been more clear. I was talking about a commute to/from work during rush hours. Yes, definitely after a night of eating and drinking we will generally take a cab/lyft home.

Concrete is generally quieter, I think that's the main reason: it's mass just dampens vibrations better than steel. I don't think they'll feel as "hulking" once built. Even if they used steel, I don't think it would necessarily be some light, airy thing once completed.

Plus, the price of steel will be going up 25% or so.

As will the price of rebar that goes into the concrete structures.

Great, ain't it?

America is getting so great again, it just gives me the goosebumps!

Hopefully it won't feel hulking, though it does worry me a bit. I've been out in Tysons, Virginia, several times and the concrete structure for Metro's relatively new silver line extension feels very massive/hulking. At the same time, concrete certainly does help dampen the noise. You can tell just from the moment the train moves from the steel tracks to the north/south of Belmont to the concrete track that's part of the overall Belmont station. It immediately becomes much quieter at that time.

Well, the rebar is a fraction of the weight of a steel support structure. Virtually all new CTA structures in the last 50 years have been steel beams on concrete bents. Then a concrete deck atop the steel beams.

The Pink Line was an exception, they skipped the concrete deck for that one and doomed Pilsen/LV to another 100 years of earsplitting noise.

I doubt the fluctuations in steel price will affect the design of this project. The increased cost can (probably) be absorbed in the existing contingency... if the increase is too high, we might see a switch to precast concrete beams.

That would depend. How much more is American steel vs Chinese steel? If that number is like 10% more, then that will be how much more it is.

Or Canadian steel, since apparently that's where most of our steel comes from.

China isn't even top 10 in terms of US steel imports. Canada is our biggest supplier at 16% of total. Brazil is number 2 at 13%. India is number 10 at 2%. Can't wait for increased costs, inflation and job loss as a result of Trump's silly policy.

Yonah Freemark went off today on the lack of vision for the CTA/Metra.

https://twitter.com/yfreemark/status/983408296928448513

I would tend to agree with his assessment. I've already commented on the need for rapid transit along the Chicago River's North Branch, where plenty of development is planned. When it comes to the future of transit, it seems the region's leaders are ignoring Daniel Burnham's sage advice:

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency."

Should we propose expansion just for expansion’s sake? After all, Chicago is not growing. Average annual boardings per CTA station is only 1.6 million, less than Atlanta and only a bit better than Miami and Baltimore. New York is 5.8 million boardings per station—systemwide average.

Chicago has a lot—perhaps too much—rapid transit for the size city it has shrunk to. We don't have a problem with not enough transit infrastructure. We have 146 L stations. We have a problem with all the people who count—those who have good downtown jobs—all wanting to live near the same 20 stations.

^ Gotta agree here.

The key is to increase development around our existing infrastructure. Look at all of those stations on the south side surrounded by vacant lots and little chicken joints. We need those evil developers to evilly build housing for those slimy cocktail-sippers who will then commute to their evil downtown jobs.

It’s not expansion just for expansion’s sake. I’m not talking about outward expansion such as the south red line extension or Ford City orange line extension. There’s so much development planned along both branches of the Chicago River closer in. Chicago isn’t growing in less dense areas, but closer in areas certainly appear set for major redevelopment changes over the coming decades. Meanwhile there doesn’t seem to be a vision for how to move the people living in/working in these increasingly built up areas, other than passive talk about buses.

There are a lot of dense areas with weak rail connectivity we should expand infrastructure to reach these areas in my opinion. We should also focus development around existing stations both should be prioritized.

The city has been adding back infill stations on existing rail lines which seems like the right approach given the size of the system already and current utilization. Ashland BRT will probably happen someday when more industrial users sell out in the West Loop as development marches westward. A bunch more work on the current bus system (more bus lanes, signal priority) would be nice but are also constrained by available funding.

Metra can barely keep their decades old rolling stock/infrastructure operating with their current level of funding and they're not exactly an innovative bunch to begin with.

In all honesty, I see no implicit requirement to extend the L system beyond the shockingly obvious need to connect the Brown to Blue at Jefferson Park. If the Cta had all the money in the world I would have liked to see most of the south side Green Line dive into a trench and extended by subway under 63rd all the way to the IC row or SI Ave. Ok ok, I'd take the Circle Line and Clinton Subway too.

There is some notion that rapid transit's purpose is to serve as many people as possible.

In Chicago this has never been the case.

For the last 60 years, its purpose is to serve as many people as it can afford to.

What the CTA needs is more destination development at the outside ends and middles of all lines (particularly those already heavily used) to balance the reverse commute and more development of all kinds, (destination and origin) on the under-utilized lines.

This will serve to balance existing lines, and until this happens, it is a losing proposition to invest in new imbalanced lines.

The problem for the CTA seems to be that there is a lot of rail infrastructure in places where there is no longer demand (huge swaths of the South Side) and a lack of infrastructure in places that are booming and are overcrowded.

The infrastructure is static and the city is not.

Isn't CTA rail ridership near record highs?

So, I ask yet again: why should we allow development in locations that are not served by transit?

We should probably just maintain what we have and add stations here and there as CTA has been doing. Too many other spending priorities. Is CTA the best system? Of course not.

But it is very good by US standards.

It's been falling the last couple of years.
2017 was down about 7,600,000 rides over 2016. Led mostly by the Red line which is down about 4,500,000 rides over all three segments.

Isn't ridership down mostly on weekends and off-peak hours? Mostly attributable to ride hailing. Will it last? :shrug:

System wide, rail boardings are down 7000 rides on the average Weekday. 650 average Sat (yes 650) and 7850 avg Sun.


Red North -4200 Weekday,-1800 Sat, -1000 Sun
Red Sub -3700 Weekday, -2000 Sat, -1400 Sun
Red South -1650 Weekday, -900 Sat, -700 Sun

Thanks for sharing. Do you know what those numbers as a percentage of total riders for each segment? A link to the source? I'd guess those weekend declines across the three segments are much larger percentage wise.

Yes, ridership is down slightly but still near record highs. I think it's mostly driven by Lyft and Uber rides. I did notice that December rail ridership saw a tiny increase after about a year of declines. I bet lyfr and Uber are played out.

System wide, rail boardings are down 1.3% on the average Weekday, .2% average Sat (yes .2%) and 3.1% avg Sun.


Red North -3.9% Weekday,-2.2% Sat, -1.9% Sun
Red Sub -6.9% Weekday, -6.6% Sat, -6.8 Sun
Red South -4.0% Weekday, -2.9% Sat, -3.2% Sun

Remember there are 5 weekdays.

https://www.transitchicago.com/ridership/

Wow, so weekday ridership is down over weekend ridership? Seems counterintuitive. I wonder what's driving that. I don't know of many people who regularly rely on Uber or Lyft to get to work.

Demographics, probably.
There was a loss of 13k 15-24 yos 2015-16. No reason to assume that isn't continuing through 2017.

Were those losses scattered across the city or concentrated on the south and west sides? It'd make sense to me that there'd be declines on the south branch of the red line, but I'm not making sense of the declines on the north branch. The only thing I can think of is that people are bypassing the red line because of congestion. I'm sure there are more forces at work here than meet the eye.

Don't know, I only drill the data that far for my own neighborhood.

It seems like all the millenials in my office take Ubers to work. Or Divvy

A lot of people in my office use ride sharing, too. If you're in a hurry or stressed, the last thing you want to do is wait for a bus or walk to the train.

The pool rides can be cost effective, but I'd still imagine that taking an uber or lyft to work once or twice a week is not an insignificant cost.

I agree, I think it's crazy.

Most parts of the city are served by transit - buses. As built, the city contained large (industrial) employment districts all over the place, and fast/frequent buses (or streetcars) connected people to them. Each vehicle had limited capacity, but the frequency was such that huge numbers of people could ride. Today, buses can't operate with the same efficiency because of traffic congestion and the increased cost of labor.

This is not a situation of building rail transit to new, remote places. It is a situation of putting in bus lanes, queue jumps, and other infrastructure to restore the surface transit system to the efficiency it once had. In some cases, like the North Branch, it makes sense to create a new bus route with a few new street connections and bridges. I don't see much need for rail expansion, either, although I do support more efficient use of the Metra system.

Any expansion the CTA embarks on should be one that further increases the connectivity of the transit systems the city has in place. Mile for mile, plans like the Circle Line (linking literally all the CTA lines and some Metra stations in a super-Loop), Clinton St subway (direct connection to Union and Ogilvie), or Brown-Blue Jefferson Park connection would add up to more than the sum of their parts, simply because you increase the ease and ability for people to go from point A to point B with the existing system you already have, without necessarily adding too many new miles of track such that a new rail line entirely would entail.

Although that being said, a line going northwest from downtown along the north branch of the river would be a smart move, especially since all that recently rezoned land is currently an blank canvas that can be molded from scratch, and there already exists rail infrastructure that can be repurposed for this use. At the very least, a ROW should be preserved by the city for potential future transit development.

Yes to all of this.

I wouldn't be opposed to passing on the circle line for the never gonna happen connector.

Seconded. Thirded. Fourthed.

This is the story of transit in Chicago. The city can dramatically boost rail ridership without increasing its population by implementing this. Make transit more useful, instead of just extending it further.

Manhattan’s subways system is so heavily used because the lines are so connected and interwoven.

A dense, interconnected subway system won't draw huge ridership unless the land use is adjusted to allow greater density. A Manhattan-like network of rail lines isn't much good unless you have the Manhattan-like carpet of dense midrise residential. Unfortunately, there's not much chance new rail projects could generate that kind of development. The Circle Line would cross many of Chicago's most virulent NIMBY hotbeds. Lincoln Park, Wicker Park, West Loop, Pilsen.

That's what Mr D is trying to suggest, I think... there's still huge room for ridership growth by simply encouraging more intense development next to our rail stations. The O'Hare Branch of the Blue Line may be largely maxed out for the moment, but there's still room for growth next to countless stations along the Brown Line, Orange Line, and certainly the Green Line. In many cases, that development wouldn't even need a zoning change.

I don't know I think having more of a dense web would be very helpful. Look at Munich. It has 1 million less people than Chicago, but the U-bahn has 1 million daily riders vs. Chicago 767 K riders.

Munich

8 lines
96 stations
64 miles of track

Chicago

8 lines
145 stations
102 miles of track

Chicago has alot more stations, more miles of track, and in a city with 1 million more people, connecting to 2 airports. But yet less riders. Munich's systems is more of a web, while Chicago is a hub and spoke. It's hard to get across the city with a hub and spoke. You can only go to the loop or along your own spoke easily. It's much less connected to all parts of the city.

yea i mean DePaul still has a soccer field directly next to one of the busiest CTA stations in the entire network