Brown Line Flyover is done and will be open for service starting tomorrow AM - https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/11...riday-morning/

^ I think it turned out okay. I think many were nervous it was going to be absolutely hidous and overpowering at that height. Im looking forward to the new trackway being hemmed in by the new replacement infill development. And needless to say the flyover is a major improvement that will speed service and that can never be a bad thing.

The existing elevated trackage will remain, right? I assume its needed for Loop-bound Brown line trains?

I wasn't planning to ride an early train over it this morning until a drained smoke detector battery woke me at 4am. Irritated, I decided to ride it this morning. It's very smooth and if you weren't paying attention you could totally miss it, so I think they did a great job. I'd post photos except it doesn't go high enough to see much at 5am.

No, for Kimball-bound trains. Loop ones just turn right /south into the nearest track. Kimball-bound ones used to have to turn left/west across the tracks for both directions of the Red Line and the Purple Line.

Only the southbound track will be used in revenue service. Whether they physically remove the northbound track I don't know. It may be kept for redundancy, equipment movements or temporary storage but is unlikely to ever be used again for Kimball trains with passengers.

I've been there. My sympathies. Chirp... Chirp...

Flyover porn.

https://twitter.com/keenan_mccarthy/...443798023?s=21

Oh yeah that's the good stuff.

I would imagine they keep it for redundancy. If they ever need to take Track 4 out of service (i.e. 3-tracking at Belmont) then northbound Brown Line trains won't be able to access the flyover.

But they will probably replace/upgrade all the trackwork at Clark Junction as they rebuild the Main Line structure between Belmont/Addison in phase 2.

^ agreed

The piece they slid in to make the connection also maintains the old route across the junction as an option. It's not connected now AFAIK but once they do the rebuild north of there I'm sure it will be.

Correct. They don't qualify for TOD but they are changing the underlying zoning to a DX-7 which comes with a requirement of 0.7 spaces per dwelling unit, and no required parking for office.

Since the site is planned for 971 dwelling units across both subareas, that means SB must provide at least 680 parking spots on site for the residential only. They are providing 715 parking spots total, so the extra 35 spaces are probably token parking for the office space (guest parking or reserved for execs, etc).

Really you can't blame SB for the high parking here, they are providing what they are legally required to provide. Blame the city for both a TOD ordinance that is too restrictive, and their utter failure to provide adequate transit to the fastest growing part of the city. Transit access here is even worse than Austin or Englewood, since the West Loop has no north-south bus in the entire mile between Halsted and Ashland, and because the rapid development adds traffic that slows down the buses more and more each year.

Racine would be a natural for a N/S bus route, if only it weren't so disjointed and discontinuous everywhere.

i mean, how'd it get south of cermak? jog over to loomis, cross the south branch, and then pick racine back up at 31st?

and going north, the kennedy, the river, and goose island would make for all kinds of wacky twists and turns to get a bus route back up to where racine is continuous again at armitage.

There's different ways you could do it; personally I would focus on a route that only covers between the north and south branches of the river at first, running Ashland Orange Line to Grand Blue Line (Archer-Loomis-Blue Island-Racine-Ogden). You could cover Racine thru Pilsen with a jog at Cermak, but I think it makes more sense to overlap with the #60 so they can share bus stops.

Hooking it into the existing #44 Racine bus would be difficult, but that should be the ultimate goal to fill in the missing link in the bus grid. Some planned projects like the North Branch Transitway might help extend it north in the future, ideally to Fullerton station where Red/Brown/Purple transfer is possible.

Question for those who know better: Have parking minimum exceptions been granted before? If there were a situation that warranted it, this seems to be the one. Can't be more than 100 feet away from TOD. SB has to the have the relationships with at least a few alderman to make it happen, one would think. Just don't know if that's ever been a thing.

I wouldn’t be surprised if an ada/Elizabeth cta station is proposed by some of these developers to help unlock the TOD, I mean the price of building this one 700 spot garage has to be approaching the cost of a station. A few buildings’ savings would more than pay for it…

160 N. Elizabeth got construction permits yesterday


The Fulton Market Metra station will certainly help full the gaps. The bigger and easier change that can be done is simply expanding the TOD boundaries in the city from 1/4 a mile to 1/2 a mile.

It's 0.8 miles between the Ashland and Morgan stops. I think we would have to see a ton more density in the overall area for both residential and office for them to spend all that money to build a stop there. Don't think that's about to happen anytime soon. At most you have a 0.4 mile walk to anywhere in between depending on which stop you get off at. Not a long walk at all..under 10 minutes.

A much better spot to build a station would be Madison Pink in conjunction with DX zoning for everything out to Damen...

I’ve long thought the Pink line station there should be called Arcade Place (one block south of Madison). Play up the name, turn those parking lots along the tracks (and the space underneath) into a big entertainment area for United Center. Bars, live music, etc.

Something cool, like Fremont St in Vegas.