So - I think the city has officially begun working on this....

I was walking from Clark/Lake to WeWork this morning and saw yellow barriers with fresh paint on Wacker between Clark/Dearborn (I think?). Not sure how I feel about the look about the yellow barriers though. In any event, definitely reflects this effort from what I can tell.

I believe the yellow jersey barriers on Wacker are part of temporary bike lane detour while the Dearborn bridge is under construction, and were put up before the announcement about adding concrete to all protected bike lanes.

You should not expect the concrete protections elsewhere to look like that.

From what I understand the concrete barriers are basically going to be similar to the ones in parking lots that are anchored into the ground.

Oh thank god.....

I was worried that was going to be how the city was going to implement all of this. It looks tacky..... Thanks for clarifying!

fyi:
APTA first quarter ridership report for major systems was posted recently. Ridership will show sizable increases compared to height of COVID. Digging through the archive provides a sense of longer-term trends.

https://www.apta.com/research-techni...ership-report/

I noticed a new el line track or something (?) near Wrigley field yesterday. What the hell is that?

The Red Line is being reconstructed

https://www.transitchicago.com/asset...tion_FINAL.png

https://www.transitchicago.com/asset..._Map_(002).jpg
https://www.transitchicago.com/rpm/

Chicago Union Station upgrades

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FXEou3eW...pg&name=medium
source

A $418 million price tag to implement new flyovers, through-running, and purchase freight tracks is surprisingly cheap. If trains from the East Coast are using the South Shore Line tracks, it might justify reopening South Bend's Union Station as well.

This is wildly overstating what the grant will fund.

-1 new single-track ramp from the St Charles Air Line into Union Station
-refurbishment of 4 Union Station mail platforms for Amtrak
-rebuild of 16th St Junction
-new Amtrak platform at Joliet on the Rock Island tracks
-purchase of UP's Canal St Yard in Chinatown
-a few miles of double-track along the Wolverine in Michigan

That's it. No through-running, no purchase of freight tracks from CN. Those will require hundred of millions more. Even the Amtrak connection to the South Shore in Indiana is not funded yet. As for South Bend, that's a whole separate thing.

Ah gotcha, Metra CEO's said in a press release that this would be opportunity to consider through-running, so I assumed that was folded into this grant.

Press release: https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsro...access-project

There are so many corridors in the southside that could be like 53rd st in HP, 18th st in Pilsen, Clark in Wrigleyville, etc. but the leadership is simply not there. The alderman in these neighborhoods are content with failing schools, rampant crime, car centric development, and any type of progression. There are parts of the southside that look the same as it did in the 70s and 80s. sad

One of the quickest ways to attract investment to a neighborhood is by making it more walkable and transit friendly. The red line extension should be coming, but they arent gonna start on that until 2025 which is a joke. It's been months since Biden passed his trillion dollar infrasturcture bill, they should at the minimum have some workers down at the sites right now.

Because their voting constituents are car crazy, just as much as the other bungalow neighborhoods and suburbs.

The nostalgia for post-war Englewood would have been the nice cars and department stores. Not the apartments or CTA.

A lot of my neighbors in South Chicago view taking the Metra as an eccentric activity for young people with money. The kindergartners next door regularly ask why I don’t take the car.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/histo...jqa-story.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/histo...jqa-story.html

The best answer to this is that Federal money is like a food court... CTA has had Red Line Extension waiting in the (very long/slow) New Starts line for many years, and now is getting close to the head of the line. They probably believe it's better to keep waiting in line rather than rush over to a different funding program where they might end up in the back of the line again.

That doesn't mean they aren't submitting other projects for the new pots of money, though! A few years ago, Dick Durbin created Core Capacity as a new pot of money... RPM on the North Side was the first project to be funded. Likewise in the Biden infra bill, Tammy Duckworth created ASAP for accessibility upgrades... I'm sure CTA will get a big chunk of that.

:haha:

Has the CTA even secured the property and entitlements needed for the Red Line extension? I honestly don't know...

Honestly wish the CTA would fire Dorval Carter and bring in a Scandinavian, Asian, or other European transit expert who actually know what they're doing. Or an Andy Byford type who is clearly passionate and wants to improve the system. I think I read most of the people in CTA management barely have any transit experience, pathetic. Has anybody ever seen Dorval Carter on a train?

If I was CEO, I would make it a requirement for every employee to have to use the system. We never see the mayor, the ceo, or any other higher up figures on the trains, no wonder they could care less about it

Expanding the Redline? Fix what you have now first. Clean it up and get the trains clean and safer and faster

Agree, but I'm guessing the monies are earmarked towards certain uses like infrastructure improvements or expansion. AFAIK, the issues about the headways are more to do with staff shortages than anything else and not really to do with the infrastructure itself.

Reasoning is recent with staffing shortages. This was an issue before too, though not as bad.

I know the money from the Feds is for expansion and such. I wish it could be applied to fixing what is current before expanding.