My mistake, for some reason I thought they did away with the transfers, with all the budget cuts.

Yes, just look how dilapidated Streeterville, Hyde Park, Belmont Harbor, or Bucktown are, especially when compared to the bustling areas next to stations along the Green Line.

Yes. Weekday ridership is about 760,000 on rail, about 460,000 on buses.

Can't buy a transfer on the bus, but that's really the only major change to them, and that went into effect last year.

I used the term commuter rail because it is a familiar american term, and a lot of commuters do use the system. But most of the rail lines in London have multiple routes running along the same lines. All services in London are have a half hour service pattern throughout the day. Many stations are serviced by several different routes and so have 4 to 8 trains an hour off peak. While that is not the 18 to 32 trains an hour of the tube network it is good enough to attract a lot of off peak riders. The fastest growth in passengers for all public transport use has been in the off peak hours. I'm astonished that New York's or Chicago's commuter system does not provide frequent service outside the rush hours.

If you follow the link provided and go to the report page for Transport for London and read the latest 2007 report, it has a wealth of data for the nerdiest transport geek. Information of different transport use patterns of different races, ages, sex, occupation. Modal shares between inner and outer districts, maps showing where jobs are concentrated, where most walk or cycle to work.


Another way of looking at the transport for London is to look at journey stages across the city. Many peoples journeys are made up of different modes of travel. The previous figures quoted were just for the main mode people used. When looking at all modes used, the figures break down as this:

23.8 million journeys stages per day.

39% car and truck

20% Walk

20% Bus and Tram

11% Underground and DLR

8% Rail

2% Bike

^^^ That's not true, Most of Chicago's trains run almost all night (except between like 2am and 4am on weeknights) and the Main Lines (Red and Blue) have at least 4 trains an hour even in the dead of night and service stations that are shared with another line (red and brown) or near/within walking distance of another line and capable of serving it (Blue and Green to the west or how the subways still serve the loop and river north when the elveated trains are not running at night.)

And there's equally plenty more that are bustling because of mass transit. I was moreso speaking to the areas very close to downtown on the north side that are not in close proximity to trains, specifically the Elston and Clyborn corridors.

And FYI, Bucktown is served by the Blue Line.

I've put way too much though and time into this too. I've noticed you fixed the tragedy of the blue line moving off Milwaukee. And dammit, every time I take the metra electric, I wish it could just push across the river to Claire st (might be possible with the Canadian national railway abandoning 2 of their tracks after the EJ&E acquisition). BTW, as a someone without a car who has lived in both NY and Chicago, east-west line would by no means be underutilized or underappretiated. Buses are less frequent, less reliable, get delayed through traffic, and don't run from many night spots after-hours.

Changes I would suggest:

Where your orange line begins to turn southwest at Cermack, I would like to see the red line cross over to the metra tracks running along the 400W block. I think communities west of the highway would use it more if they didn't have to stand atop of 94. (the tracks running between the Dan Ryan could then be used for other things like POV lanes or, dare i say it, a dedicated high speed rail corridor.)

Much of the North ave track west of 94 can be run along an abandoned rail line two blocks to the north.

If Chicago persuade the residents Lincolnwood, I'd like to see your Lincoln ave Line to the yellow line. I'd also like to see it connect the other way to North and Clark (BTW, I think that line's stretch from Lawrence to downtown would become the new busiest subway in chicago)

Finally, and many might disagree, but I'd like to see a line run along Cicero if the city could expand or secure rights to the tracks that run along the 4600 block.

You're talking about rapid transit or metro, and Chicago was historically second only to New York in having late-night or 24-hour service. In London, Washington, etc., late-night revelers must keep track of the last train.

Rational Plan3 was talking about commuter trains or suburban rail, which in Chicago run very infrequently (every two hours, or worse) in midday and after the PM rush. Service is better during off-peak hours in cities that run their systems as regional rail rather than commuter trains, but I'm not aware of any city where those run all night. Tokyo's capsule hotels are for salarymen who've missed the last train.

I think the 79th bus is the busiest bus route in the city. I would think a rail line down 79th to the Red Line would be pretty busy, and actually the Mid-City corridor (the one that would use the tracks east of Cicero) would turn east around Ford City and run on the tracks near 75th, then southeast to the 79th Red Line stop. Maybe in your dream scenario it could continue east from there--four miles east it would hit the north end of the South Works site that supposedly will some day be developed. That would be a pretty serious east-west line.

79th is always, by far, the busiest single route in the city, occasionally surpassing 1 million riders per month. A rail line down 79th, plus linking to Ford City and Midway *cough* mid-city transitway's south leg*cough* would be huge with ridership. The next busiest route is often the #9 Ashland, which of course has additional riders on the X9, that are not tallied onto the local route's high count.

Thinking about something like the Paris RER system, perhaps? Ah, to dream.

Chicago's final Olympic bid announced yesterday lacks any transit redevelopment plans. The Olympic financial costs and guarantees were pushed through because of the promised transit improvements that were to go along with the bid. Now, Chicago essentially gave the Olympic Committee a "take it or leave it" stance on its transit. A clear case of bait and switch. For the money the city is promising to spend on the Olympics and the inevitable cost overruns, I'd rather take a functioning transit network and pass on the 2 week global pep rally known as the Olympics. Frankly, it's shocking that more people on this board aren't outraged.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2...ympic-bid.html

^ Most of the Olympics-transportation discussion has been going on in the Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid thread under City Discussions. Maybe you should check that out first before you judge people's reactions.

^ That thread has devolves to arguments about whether the Tribune is anti Daley or not. And I thought this thread would be more appropriate for a transit discussion, since it is entitled "Transit Developments".

Yes, well why not. Chicago is a great city, and should have a great rail system. But the problem seems to be that the politicians don't seem to care that much about public transport. Or am I misreading the situation?

Chicago has a strong city centre with, for america, a good commuter rail system. The Metro has its strengths and weaknesses. The lines built in the favoured Northern neigbourhoods are seriously overcrowded, while the some of the Southern and Western lines, now serve relatively depopulated neighbourhoods and have poor loadings.

Recent trends in Chicagos development, has seen a massive rise in city centre living, but crucially this has not been followed by a massive rise city centre employment, (In comparison to the growth of suburban employment).

What is the solution towards a more sustainable future?

If people want Chicago to go down this route, then the city centre has to become more important in the region. Employers need to have a reason to stay in the centre and there needs to be a good reason for suburban jobs to relocate there as well. Employers will locate where there the best advantage to them.

In the UK the trend in recent years has been for employers to locate in areas that staff want to work. This has meant that locations with good public transport and decent retail and restaurants have seen the highest growth. The largest out of business parks have tried to respond by providing retail on their sites but these are hard to sustain with just a few office buildings, so sites with sufficient land banks have diverisfied their development plans and now often propose a thousand housing units or two to proved the base for some shops and a school. But trends in office locations are favouring truely urban environments whether that is in existing town centres or in new Urban Office parks built next to existing rail stations (i.e. Chiswick Park in London).

Smaller employers draw on a smaller commuter hinterland, but the bigger the employer or the more specialised his workforce the bigger the commuter hinterland needed to provide a recruitable skills base. Chicago's extensive freeway system has allowed large office complexs to disperse next to major interchanges to provide a good catchment area, but what is going to happen to these supposed locational advantages when traffic becomes unbearable.

For the city to stay competitive it needs more transport infrastructure. What transport it provides will the shape the future. Since the 70's the USA has not spent very much on infrastructure and it shows. No one has been willing to spend the money. But things have come to pass, that the political landscape is changing, people want their roads and rail lines fixed, and the money may now come. If a massive increase in spending occurs on rail infrastructure then locational advantges will shift towards the centre.

You guys know Chicago better than I, where should that money be spent? Sure the existing maintenence shortfalls need to be made good, but where should new capacity go? Towards high transit dependent neighbourhoods (i.e. the poor) or towards areas where the highly skilled and paid actually live. Bus, Metro or Metra? For the city centre to grow in importance, it needs to maximise the skill base it grows on.

My preference would be for a sustained investment in the Metra system. Starting with good off peak services, but eventually providing a near Metro frequency on most lines, to at least a ten to fifteen mile radius. This would require more four tracking and grade seperation of lines and eventually new tunnels near the city centre.

The eventual aim would provide frequent local stopping trains between the centre and all stations in at least Cook and Du Page counties, 4 trains an hour off peak and 6 to 8 per hour peak. Alongside this the outer stations would have semi express service bypassing the inner sections of track, shortening commute time from the outer suburbs, thereby boosting patronage. These lines should, were possible run at half hourly service through out the day, with longer trains in peak.

With such intensive service, not only would it attract more office occupiers, but retail and leisure would grow as more people travelled to the centre for entertainment or shopping.

Some would argue that by developing around the Southside lines better use would be made of existing infra-structure. And while it would boost the the usage of these lines it would not widen the cities catchment area that much.

To get there from here is the difficult part. New signalling is needed to boost train frequency and as more lines are rehabilitated longer trains can be run.

To really boost numbers on the system integrated ticketing between the Bus, Metro and Metra system needs to be introduced. It was the introduction of the Travel Card in the London area in the 1980's that caused massive growth in public transport usage. The ability to buy this a one day, weekly, monthly or annual card meant it was so much easier to pop into London by train and if you needed to go to several different places, then no big deal. It made shopping and leisure trips more likely as it was ease to nip between different districts for a museum or lunch or a particular shop.

^ Recent years have seen plenty of companies moving offices downtown.

The problems seems not to be lack of infrastructure (sorry, but when it comes to commuting to Chicago's central area, I think it's incredibly well served by transit--arguably as well as any city out there), but lack of utilization.

Those major lines running through half-abandoned neighborhoods, yet still costing tons of money to maintain and keep active, are a leech on the system. Chicago could perhaps add a million people to its population and not overburden its transit system (IMO) much by simply attracting more development to its south and west sides.

Amen. The new slums will probably be the first-ring suburbs like Dolton, Harvey, etc. (I don't know much about this though).

It's hard to do a direct comparison. As finding the percentage of employment in of the Urban area has proved impossible for me to find for Chicago, and was quite difficult for me to find for London. London's city area has 7.6 million people (8.6 built up area and 13.2 in Metro) and 4.6 million jobs in the city. One third of which are based in Central London. I don't know, but I don't think that a third of Cooks counties jobs are in central Chicago.

This chicken and egg problem, it's difficult enough to fund maintenance of the existing system, never mind expand. To increase funding you need to increase political support, if there is nothing for the suburbs, why will they care.

Investment in the Metra system is scalable, expansion in capacity does not have to run too far ahead of demand. If the system was constantly investing in trains, extra track and grade separation schemes, before you knew it, you would have a regional metro system. The easier and quicker it is for people to commute from the ever further flung suburbs the more companies will locate in the centre.

That's not to say that the Western and Southern neighbourhoods can't be revived. But what is actually being done about it? Inner London lost over half of its population between the end of the War and the 1970's. It was official government policy. 2 million people were resettled in New Towns in this era. During this time it was government policy to force employers out of London. While this worked for the London's industrial base, it luckily did not work for its office sector.

This meant that when government woke up to the problems it had created in the inner city, there was still a strong employment base in the centre to attract people back, trading their commute for city life. It did not matter for many that a lot of inner London schools as are atrocious. For the upper middle class in inner London the cost of Private education is the price of living in the city. To get a million people to move back to Chicago, what is going to drag them back? To me, it is employment growth at the centre that will do it.

A dozen different strategies are probably needed. Your policy response will have to suit Chicago's current situation. If these areas are still losing population, it can't because of their existing transport. The problem is that the people their are not employable in the city centre. Blue collar jobs have moved to the suburbs and they are following them. Unless the schools in these areas can equip for employment in what future is there for them?

To get more jobs in the centre does not just mean improving transport from the suburbs.

Business taxes need to fall, and residential will taxes will need to rise. I know in New York and Philadelphia, their city governments have raised taxes on employers much faster than residential rates. After all businesses don't vote, oops except they can move. Are there enough upper middle class jobs able to pay for private education? Public schools need to improve in the city, you won't attract the middles classes back from the suburbs if the schools are not good. I know there is a charter movement in Chicago. Do surburbanites think they are good enough?

^ A very complicated discussion that is beyond my scale. I do not have a Masters in Urban Studies ;)

Having said that, I think it is simply unfair to compare a European city to an American one. I do know this:

Chicago's downtown has a very healthy chunk of the region's office space and professional employment (if not total employment--but then how many car mechanics, gas station attendants, car salesmen, factory workers, etc can you employ downtown?) especially for an American city.

Chicago's infrastructure for getting people downtown from the tri-state metropolitan area is far beyond adequate. If you take a look at the CTA, Metra, and South Shore Commuter Line maps as well as its dozens of bus routes you simply cannot ask for much more.

But getting back to my original point, the kinds of top-down Government-mandated policy-making that is the way of life in Europe just doesn't work in America. You've got cities pitted against suburbs, suburbs pitted against suburbs, metros versus rural areas, State Govts against metros, and a Federal Govt that is completely out of touch with urban issues. One size fits all is the way our Govt deals with issues such as transportation and development (lets build more beltways!). As long as American political leaders prioritize highway over rail spending, there is no chance in hell that Chicago can improve at more than a snail's pace.

You talk about the British Govt "making" employers move from A to B, etc but it just doesn't work that way in the US. Cities have advantages and disadvantages in this arena, and they are pitted against their suburban hinterlands to attract jobs; there is really only so much the Government can do about it. Right now, if a corporation in downtown Chicago wants to decamp to the suburbs and build a huge, sprawling office park in the midst of a cornfield, the Govt simply will not stand in its way.

In the same fashion, a city can't simply make people move into its south and west sides, nor can it simply make employers move to these areas so as to attract more residents. Is that something that can be done in Europe?

Taking all that in, and when comparing Chicago to other American cities, I think it has been remarkably successful. In fact, I believe its central area is the most balanced & successful one in the US outside of New York. Special mention goes to Washington, DC but in fairness, DC will never have to deal with the Federal Govt decamping to the suburbs; that is a luxury Chicago will never have--and it shows in Chicago's aggressive, top-heavy leadership.

Dolton and Harvey are going to be the "new" slums? Ha!