Is CTA definitely raising rates? If so, how much? What will the monthly pass cost?
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All this talk about the ORD express train makes me want to ask about the current condition of the Blue Line track (redux). Every time I ride it to the airport, which is more often than I'd like, it seems to be getting worse, even on the stretches that were recently redone. You just get flung from side to side repeatedly, particularly bad as you leave ORD, but on other stretches as well. Do the tracks really take that much of a beating from the trains or is this a case of shoddy work or planned obsolesence?
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Totally reasonable. I thought train fare was $2.50 already :haha:
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David Reifman was interviewed about a month ago by Walter Burnett about development in the city, and Reifman mention that the "Division" Brown Line stop won't get rebuilt until after the Belmont Bypass project gets built. His justification was that the Brown Line is already at max capacity, and adding an additional stop which will add thousands of riders to the Brown and Purple Lines will be too much for the system until frequency can be improved by the bypass project. Unfortunately, it looks like construction for the bypass won't begin until 2019, and construction is expected to take 4-5 years.
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Will the few extra Brown Line trains from the Belmont Flyover project really add that much capacity? We just increased the capacity by 33% less than ten years ago with the increase to 8-car trains, and apparently it was filled up almost immediately. More importantly, if the Brown Line adds more trains, are there slots for them to enter the Loop? Already we have significant rush hour delays at Tower 18, I'm not sure more trains can be squeezed through.
If the Brown Line really is that maxed out that a station can't be added in a key area, maybe CTA should look at providing alternatives to the Brown Line like bringing back the #11 Lincoln bus, or switching the railcars back to longitudinal seating to pack more riders in. |
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Right now, this bottle neck affects three lines so even a minor increase in capacity is tripled. Next it'll be tower 18 and the loop. They'll probable need to shift Clark & Lake a bit to the east to keep trains from backing up to the junction. |
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Morning Commute Feeling More Crowded? Blue Line Sees Explosive Growth, Data Show
The California stop is seeing twice as many morning riders compared with 2002, and growth elsewhere on Blue Line’s O’Hare branch is far above average. Quote:
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I'm curious to see what CTA can do to ease congestion in the medium-long term. It's not as simple as just running more trains... the boarding process takes time, so you can only set the headways so low. Even just "running more trains" requires expensive signal upgrades to maintain safety, and require new policies to quickly deal with the inevitable disruptions like medical emergencies, crime/police activity, etc. You don't want trains running right on top of each other without really careful coordination.
The easiest quick fix is to rip out or reconfigure seating in cars. CTA did this before on the Brown Line, it eases rush hour congestion a bit but offers fewer seats for riders during off-peak periods. CTA could also go to a three-door configuration, again at the expense of seating (at this point, the cars would be very similar to those on the numbered subway lines in NYC). In Paris, I remember a lot of the seats were flip-down, which might be a good compromise, although they would require a new etiquette among riders, and might be more prone to vandalism. Open gangways could also help, by spreading out passengers more evenly among the cars. Platform doors might also help, so riders know where to stand while boarding. Thinking even more outside the box, CTA could improve bus service on Milwaukee with bus lanes on the most congested portions and encourage riders to switch to the bus. Certainly disabled persons would be more likely to switch, to avoid the vertical journey up or down to the L platforms. |
^ Expand the blue line to accommodate 10 car trains? It’s been talked about with the red line. How about blue as well?
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It seems to me like now would be a good time for the alderman and developers to get together and propose some improvements over the tracks themselves. A raised park-like path over the tracks could really tie the area together into a coherent campus. You could walk from the retail and residential area along Desplaines 5 blocks west to Morgan without ever descending to the rail level. And restoring the bridge at Sangamon as a pedestrian plaza as part of that could improve circulation and connectivity across the tracks. And the developers are already going to be paying into the neighborhood fund so they might as well find ways to spend some of that money on their own services and projects even if that means they have to kick in a bit more to get the project to happen. |
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I'd rather see the Clinton Subway to go the Brown Line and through-route to the Orange Line (with transfers to Green/Pink at Lake and Blue at Congress). That would massively decongest the Loop itself, which would just be Green, Pink and Purple. Or give Clinton Subway to Red Line, and run "Brownage" trains via State St. |
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https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/e...plandraft.html Splitting lines could provide more flexibility to the CTA without major service changes. Separately, I don't know if there would be any value to running a Midway line through as well - providing easy connections between two airports and Amtrak |
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It's butting up against capacity for three reasons. Electricity, headways and train length. They don't have enough electricty to move any more cars or trains even if they wanted to. The headways are down to 3 minutes now. I doubt that they could ever get below 2 1/2 and 2 3/4 is probably where they will end up. Which will get two more trains an hour. CTA rail already has the capacity to give every resident of the city their typical 6 mile trip every hour. The problem is they all want to ride the same six miles of the same three rails in the same direction. |
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^That's been the standard for decades.
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And we cannot produce or obtain more electricity why? |
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CTA trains don't run on batteries. Electricity at 600 volts DC has to be distributed to points all along the lines. That means constructing new substations and distribution lines.
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And we can't do that why again? Is it only cost or will, politics, or even the dreaded shadows?
Or is there a physical reason why we cannot produce enough electricity for the said line? |
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Cue the transit electric traction engineer wonk with all the DC this AC that and 13,000 Mhz this and 25,000 Mhz that... god knows I don't understand most of it...
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The kind of money it takes a decade to get and the kind of money that get put off whenever you go, hat in hand, to beg for money to deal with any of the other emergencies that will happen during that decade. Here, read this: http://chi.streetsblog.org/wp-conten..._FINAL_002.pdf |
Not to push my version of the Clinton/Larabee subway, but I think branching it from the red line would make the most sense initially. I'd eventually like to see it extended beneath Clybourn along the North Branch. The North Branch won't truly be competitive as an office market until it's more easily accessible to people who don't live on the north side or in north shore suburbs. Allowing people to get there from Union and Ogilvie at a minimum is crucial in my opinion.
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Oakton was kind of a special case... I believe it was value-engineered down to a 4-car platform, but was designed in such a way that it can be expanded to 8 cars later by converting a walkway leading to the north headhouse. On the Red Line specifically, CTA has been doing some advance planning for ten-car trains. I believe Howard was the first station to open with an actual ten-car platform, the length is 520'. The new Wilson also has a 520' platform. Probably the new 95th will, as well, and any new stations built as part of RPM. Fullerton and Belmont only have a 420' platform, but have the structure in place to extend the platforms later at minimal cost. They may choose to build this extension as part of the Belmont Flyover contract. |
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Outside of rush hour, the Forest Park trains are pretty lightly used, especially in the overnight hours. The trains literally run empty along Congress between 11 pm to 5 am. Service adjustments could be made independent of the volume on the O'Hare branch if they were 2 separate lines. It would give the CTA a lot more flexibility. |
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Are the non-loop subway platforms on the 420' format (so Clybourne, Division, Chicago, Grand, Harrison, Roosevelt)? |
Don't they turn some Forest Park trains back West of Racine or IMD to reduce excess capacity on Forest Park line? I know they can, and I thought they actually do.
Edit: off-rush, they do turn back half of the trains West of Halsted according to the published schedule. |
What blows my mind is that the Pink Line only runs 4 car trains. You'd think a line plowing through the heart of super dense areas like West Loop, IMD, Pilsen, and Little Village (not to mention all the way out into Cicero) would have the ridership to require bigger trains. That line quite possibly has the most slack for TOD type developments out of any in the system besides the Green Line which just runs through vacant lots for 75% of it's course.
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As for the Pink Line, all platforms are already capable of 8 car trains. I have to imagine CTA would run longer trains in a heartbeat if they thought the demand was there. The only limitation is the size of the fleet, but with a new rail car order in process, now would be the time to order more. We’ll see what CTA does once the new 7000s get delivered. I ride the Pink Line a decent amount, and it’s rarely crowded to the point of being uncomfortable, even at peak. Yes, it goes through dense neighborhoods, but not ones with a ton of downtown workers who commute at the peak of the peak. A lot of the commuters on the Pink Line are medical workers, students, and service workers who probably don’t work a regular 9-5. I’m worried that CTA will eventually decide to run 6-car trains, but less often, to free up more spots for the Brown and Purple Line on the Loop. I’d rather cram into a more crowded train that comes more often, if I get where I’m going sooner. |
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Van Buren Street Bridge Reconstruction
November 29, 2017
December 21, 2017 |
O wow, that’s cool. I’m so confused by that circle project, though. The staging on that project has to be intense.
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There are roughly 30 lanes of traffic that will be contained inside the Harrison, Van Buren, Halsted, Des Plaines block of roads. |
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The Pink Line could use stops at Roosevelt and Madison, but that'll only happen if there's a lot of infill. I also think it'd be beneficial if the Pink Line took a counter clockwise course after entering at Lake/Wells and instead of making the full loop, went south at Van Buren/Wabash and out to 63rd and Ashland. That would address issues of infrequent on the far south side and decrease congestion in the Loop since there'd be fewer trains making left turns at junctions (maybe inbound trains could use Wabash/Lake legs and not Wells/Van Buren?). Passengers would still have access to both sides of the Loop if they were coming on a Pink Line train that didn't use the Lake/Wabash legs of the Loop by transfer at four station of the shared stops on the west side. |
Does anyone know if the CTA keeps detailed data on L ridership? Can you see the ridership broken out into inbound and outbound trips? I assume the turnstiles are tracking that, but I don't have any concrete way of knowing.
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What I'd like to see is one broken down by time of day. http://www.transitchicago.com/ridership/default.aspx |
Pink Line at Roosevelt?
Sheesh... Like the fancy new investments at Blue Line and Belmont, I just have to laugh. I laugh at how much this city throws money away at auto oriented planning. Property owners of sites with auto-oriented design should be penalized, not awarded with gleaming new train stations. They should pay a hefty tax for every surface parking spot. Look at that horrible Costco just north of Pilsen. I'm so sick of this shit. The city's transit legacy is a gift from the past, but there are too many places where we squander it. As a property owner myself, here is what I think is a fair proposal: For commercial properties within 500 ft of a transit stop, the city implements a per-parking-spot tax of X dollars, beginning in 3 years, which goes up every year for 5 years until it reaches the goal rate. |
The area where the Pink Line crosses Roosevelt is very auto-oriented, yes. There's also a lot of vacant land and it's very close to downtown. We're not trying to retrofit Schaumburg here. BRT would work well on Roosevelt IMO. A Pink Line station there would only increase the area's attractiveness to multi-family/mixed use developers.
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. . . who can't build there because it's all IMD land.
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Oakley to Ashland, down to 14th is all IMD. East of Ashland, it's a dog's breakfast of instututional developments. |
Is there a reason(s) that IMD owning land has anything to do with a Pink Line stop at Roosevelt? I'm assuming that people would be working or visiting these future IMD buildings. I guess they could always add more surface parking? :shrug:
OTOH, even if all of the IMD land was developed without any residential component due to zoning and the FBI's campus remained as is, that presence plus the ongoing redevelopment to the east would make Roosevelt a good candidate for an L station. IMD's mission is to be a world leader in patient care and research while also driving economic growth. I don't see why they'd be opposed to a station there. If they are successful in their mission, it would certainly improve access to future buildings on the south side of the district. |
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