Having local matching funds available allows your senior Senator or Representative to include a "pork" project during the joint conference committee making two separate appropriation bills into one. Of course, your State will need a senior member on that joint conference committee - which I believe Illinois has....

Pretty much all of the region's Federal dollars for the last decade have gone into the huge money pit known as O'Hare.

My point is that there's no new transportation bill in Congress, and as long as they keep passing extensions to the old one, FTA can't really make new commitments to transit agencies. When there's a snowball's chance in hell of Chicago actually getting a few billion out of the Feds, then I'm sure Rahm will find a way to make it happen.

Remember, Daley wasn't really interested in expanding CTA, which is why several times CTA had to run to the Feds and find a loophole so they could use money intended for new transit lines to pay for rebuilding old ones.

ardecila hit the nail on the head with respect to federal funding, and it should be noted that the big Red-Purple Modernization project isn’t in Emanuel’s speech, either (though he makes note of the smaller interim modernization project). And even if we did have a secure federal funding environment, neither is yet ready for a New Starts application (though they’re getting pretty far along on the Red Line extension).

I’ve voiced my Red Line/Gray Line preferences on this board previously, but I think it’s worth reiterating that the Red Line project’s more expensive than it needs to be. A big factor is the yard—according to the EIS it’s not necessary—there’s already sufficient yard capacity on the Red Line—and is a nice-to-have for the CTA (not in a freeway median, connection with national rail network for easier transportation of new railcars and such), not a need to-have. Get rid of that you’re saving ~$300 million. Furthermore, I’m not convinced that it’s really necessary to go past 115th—while it would be nice for Altgeld Gardens to get 24 hours railservice, do we really have to roll eight steel cars all the way down to 130th? And if we want park-and-ride, why not strike a deal with NICTD to put a facility there? Although it won’t be as nice in some ways—commuters would be bound to NICTD’s schedules—park-and-riders elsewhere in the Metro area have to put up with similar constraints and still choose the train. I don’t think it’s a bad project, but it does seem to have suffered from some scope creep.

If there needs to be a park-and-ride, put it next to Kensington and eliminate a mile of L structure. It would kickstart the revival of the 115th St commercial district, give direct L access to historic Pullman, and spur major redevelopment in the vast brownfields south of 115th. Plus, you'd get direct transfers to Metra Electric and South Shore.

CTA could probably turn Kensington Ave itself into a direct access route from 94.

On the flipside, though, a TON of the community support comes from the Altgeld residents. I went to two community meetings and they packed both of them with Altgeld residents to speak in support.

Here is a link to a graphic I created demonstrating the extent of coverage, and the relative costs - of the Red Line Extension versus the Gray Line Conversion:

http://www.grayline.20m.com/photo.html

No relation to surface transportation funds.

It's different this time: there are no more earmarks. (This has the unintended consequence of making the transportation bill, previously the lardiest of all pork barrels, politically unpalatable.) OTOH, Congresscritters keep whining about the technocrats in the administration, but of course no one's ever told them that they can't have it both ways.

^ The Gray Line idea sounds better to me.

How come there isn't much support for it?

My only beef with the Gray Line as currently proposed is that it doesn't make connections to any of the CTA's other rail lines

I believe the last time that the Gray Line came up, it turned out that there weren't many people who would transfer from Metra Electric to other CTA lines. For example, here it would be much better to upgrade the Metra line than extend the Red line.

Only in a budgetary sense. Chicago's and Illinois' political delegation have to spend time and political capital to get support for these megaprojects, and they can't get funding for everything. We've been extraordinarily gifted with airport funding but, relative to our size, pretty poorly gifted with transit funds and especially poorly gifted with highway funds (although we've been able to self-finance roadway expansion through tolls).

I was in fact speaking of having the Red Line terminate at 115th/MLK. However, even if the route continues SE I still think having a station at 115th/MLK would be beneficial. It provides a connection to the ME, in on a commercial (however defunct) strip and provides a rapid transit connection for Pullman (which is far more deserving than Altgeld IMO)

Interesting. Seems like a good project.
Loop Track Renewal Project starting this month

Mayor, CTA privately talked about $300 million no-bid deal

Plans fell through after disclosures about poor quality work surfaced


By Jon Hilkevitch and David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune reporters

8:26 a.m. CDT, April 12, 2012
The Emanuel administration and the CTA engaged in private discussions on a $300 million no-bid contract with the maker of the transit agency's new rail cars, but the talks collapsed amid disclosures about the poor quality of the company's work, the Tribune has learned.

Bombardier Transportation's pitch to build and operate a South Side rail car overhaul facility on vacant city and CTA land in a CTA rail yard took off in May 2011 after Mayor Rahm Emanuel was elected, CTA officials told the newspaper.

The talks over the public-private partnership continued for 10 months, "in keeping with the mayor's priority of creating jobs and generating economic development," CTA spokeswoman Molly Sullivan said.

CTA lawyers had been working to justify the unusual practice of awarding such a large contract without competitive bids, the transit agency said.

But the city and CTA backed away from the talks in recent weeks amid Tribune reports that disclosed defective-parts problems with Bombardier's ongoing production of 706 new rail cars under a contract that totals $1.14 billion.


Rest of Article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,5215344.story





Kinda a bummer as it would have been nice to have the refurb shops in Chicago. I'm sure they'll work something out though in the long run even if they have to bid it out.

In other news, they started refurbishing the Belmont Blue Line Station yesterday. Can't wait for that dingy POS to be shinny and white inside like the Logan Sqaure stop is.

Are there any plans to electrify the La Salle Station network and merge it into the Metra Electric network.

CTA EVM at MED 55/56/57th St. Station
 

http://metrarail.com/content/dam/met...with%20CTA.pdf

Interesting announcement, especially the part about "future cooperation between sister agencies"!

Not that I am aware of (but of course I don't know everything)

No. However, if Metra ever actually considered the possibility of electrification, the Rock Island District would be a good first choice - it is owned by Metra, sees no regular freight service, and has closely-spaced stations served at reasonable frequency. Once the Englewood Flyover is completed, it will also be completely grade-separated from other freight lines, with the exception of the St Charles Air Line at 16th and the EJ&E in east Joliet.

I could also imagine communities along the line being strongly in favor of such a conversion. The residents of Beverly would probably throw a parade.

Does UP-North share tracks with very much freight? From a functional standpoint it seems like a good candidate for electric, too.

Since Freight does not use the line , could they use Stradler Flirt trains?

Yes, north of Lake Bluff. This suggests a French-style approach in which electrification might only extend to Lake Forest, where the local trains would terminate, and a small number of diesel or dual-mode trains would go all the way to Kenosha. Metro-North also does this, so it's not just a European thing.

That said, Union Pacific might oppose electrification.

The best candidates for electrification are the lines that Metra already owns. The Milwaukee District lines see substantial freight traffic from CP, so that poses a problem. That leaves Southwest Service, which is technically owned by NS but is used and maintained exclusively by Metra, except for a short stretch on the South Side that NS uses for yard access.

Interesting question. Rock Island is an excellent candidate for FRA waivers since it's really not a mixed environment - very occasional freights run only at night. If Caltrain got a waiver, so can the Rock. We could get some real DMUs.

That (and the Stradler Flirt idea) is just tantalizing. But may I make the observation that electrification introduces a spider's web of catenary and support pillars, along with other electrical, that I have a strong sense would be viscerally opposed by North Shore communities, and fought off as a "blight". Never mind that the eardrum-splitting diesel noise would disappear for good and shiny new railcars introduced and (I assume) acceleration/deceleration distances improved and (I assume) energy efficiency would be gained. Sometimes society just can't win for losin'.

What would be the reasons that UP itself would oppose electrification - maintenance costs and snowstorm outages?

They might be uncooperative just because UP’s UP and likes to do things the UP way.

There is still some freight still comes down to the North/Elston area (when walking down Blackhawk I was shocked to see it pull in during the day) via the UP-NW line. If we’re lucky, the amount of freight might be trivial enough that they can reschedule it to hours when passenger trains aren’t running (or maybe even stop stop it altogether). If not—or if UP’s uncooperative in rescheduling—then it makes getting a waiver more difficult.

In terms of NIMBYS, it helps that a lot of the UP-North line is elevated or trenched, and I’d say quicker deceleration and braking would be a big selling point for communities with grade crossings. You’re probably right about there still being opposition to catenary as blight, though, plus there’s be the awful “electromagnetic radiation” canard.

Stadler Rail, not Stradler.
Flirts are single level EMUs. KISSs are double level EMUs. GTWs are single level DMUs. They don't make double level DMUs.
GTWs are being used in Austin and will enter service later this year in Denton.
Any line without freight trains can qualify for exemptions from the FRA. Often lightly used freight lines can get temporal separation waivers so non compliant FRA passenger trains can be used. The answer to your question is yes.

But should they? There are FRA complaint double decker EMUs already being used in the Chicago area. Why add a new parts supply chain to the inventory?

Because FRA compliance adds a ton of weight that has to be pushed using expensive energy. The Highliners also require high-level platforms (which I like, but the costs of building up platforms around Chicago is unlikely).

Ugh. They'd throw that out there too probably.

I have a crazy question. Has anyone ever thought of storing electric power aboard trainsets so that overhead power lines can be omitted over certain stretches (whether just 100s of feet or over much longer stretches)? You could even have a separate "battery car" which would be 1 added railcar just as a diesel locomotive today is 1 additional railcar. The way battery technology is evolving due to the electric-car boom, maybe this could be become practicable before long. I can't think of a major impetus to invest in the technology other than deleting catenaries for urban aesthetics, though. But if we get to a point where somewhere needed electrification is forestalled for years and years by NIMBYs, maybe it could be a solution.

So with energy prices rising and greenhouse emissions being debated, are we getting close to a world where avoiding this compliance is increasingly possible? Presumably sympathy for this would be at an all-time high under the current Transportation Department?

Which could be offset by the threat of the alterative which is the status quo high diesel soot particle levels which came out in reports by the Tribune a few years ago. The exposure to all the little children and moms who pass by the line and station everyday when a train passes would make many villagers open to a change.

^^ Various manufacturers have been developing such a technology for trams/streetcars... I know DC was considering it because of a century-old ordinance banning overhead wires anywhere in the central city. They ended up passing a bill to allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis, but never on the Mall or Pennsylania Ave.

The net emissions benefits of electrification depends on the type of power generation used. ComEd uses 58% nuclear power, so we're good on that aspect. Exelon has lobbied vehemently for cap-and-trade, so they strongly see themselves on a track towards carbon-lite or carbon-neutral. Plus, since an electric train doesn't have to lug its fuel around, it's automatically more lightweight and therefore more energy-efficient than a diesel train, regardless of whether it's loco-hauled or multiple-unit.

Numerous wealthy communities exist alongside electric wires, especially around NY and Philly.

On the flipside, UP has drastically reduced its budget for tree-trimming. The fear of fallen branches was the cited reason for all the thunderstorm closures of Metra. Funny, there wouldn't have fallen branches if UP was trimming the trees properly... but a fallen tree would wreak havoc on an overhead wire system.

Many electric trains coming on line these days use regenerative breaking, and at least some of them use batteries to store it instead of just dumping it back onto the grid. So the answer to your question, at least in terms of the "100s of feet" would be that they already exist. I'm not sure how many hundreds of feet currently use batteries would support, though, certainly not miles worth.

Would bio-diesel be a more acceptable alternative to using the current diesel fuel? Has it ever been tried on a Metra train?

I tried promoting something like that a few years back, it went over like a Hang Glider made of concrete: http://regenerativehybridunit.yolasite.com/

A lot of trains, maybe even most, coming online these days do have regenerative braking. I'm a big fan, Mike, but that regenerative website of yours isn't exactly a work of marketing genius :)

It was put together in one day for a Transit Seminar at NWU in Evanston, so it is not very sophisticated; and I had forgotten it even existed until your hybrid question came up.

Viva, you seem to have a fairly good grip on municipal finance...

I don't know if you can comment or not, but can you make heads or tails out of the infrastructure bank? Why would a bunch of magical-fairy investors pop up to fund city projects when they wouldn't just buy bonds? What is the role of "user fees"?

in yellow line news:


Council OKs Asbury for Evanston Yellow Line stop
Tuesday, April 17, 2012, at 10:53 am by Bill Smith

Evanston's City Council voted Monday night to accept a report selecting Asbury Avenue as the preferred site for a new CTA Yellow Line station in the city.

The engineering feasibility study considered three possible locations for the new station -- including Ridge and Dodge Avenues.

....

Tom Coleman of the city's engineering consultant for the study, Parsons Brinckerhoff, said that assuming funding was found to actually build the station, the earliest it might be completed would be sometime between 2016 and 2018.


full article: http://evanstonnow.com/story/governm...llow-line-stop

Does anyone know if the Chicago River has ever been seriously considered for frequent transit service? I imagine something like the Khlong in Bangkok, where long boats run on the river at high frequencies and have regular stops. There is the river taxi, but it only serves a tiny area and is quite expensive. Routes going along both the north and south branches of the river could connect some of the train lines and provide transit to a large section of the city that goes without it.

At $2 per ride, the river taxis are the cheapest transit in Chicago. But patronage drops off dramatically when the temperature drops below 0, or when the river is frozen. That's less of a problem in Bangkok.

Long runs up the North and South Branches would be hampered by the fact that those were traditionally lined with industry rather than residential areas, and have paralleling rapid transit lines.

^^^ While freezing obviously is prohibative, the North Branch runs almost nowhere near transit unless you live in Lincoln Square. In fact, for much of it's length, the river is about as far as you can get from the EL on the North side of the city.

I wonder if a Yellow Line station at Ridge would be an acceptable trade-off for a closure of South Boulevard?

I’d think so, but based on what relatives in Evanston have told me (they live near Washington and South Boulevard) it probably wouldn’t be—a lot of the people who were upset over the proposed closure lived east of South Boulevard and weren’t necessarily willing to walk the extra couple of blocks to Washington (said relatives are around 70).

From an actual planning perspective, though, I’d say it would make an excellent trade for the CTA—about a quarter of the station’s catchment area is taken up by Calvary, whereas Ridge is not only better surrounded by housing but is within reach of the Howard Street strip and closer to St. Francis too.

Given the how close Ridge and Asbury are, though, I doubt we’ll see a station there.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird to have new stops added when almost every station in Evanston has declining ridership and there's like 100 people within walking distance of that station? I mean, it's not my money so I don't really care, but it just seems like a really odd decision to me.

Yeah, true enough about the weather. But I think if they could figure it out, it could provide quite an affordable rapid transit service to a huge section of the north side that currently goes without.

Heated boats with little wet bars on them, powerful engines to get you downtown fast, and very little traffic to block the way. Seems like a winner to me. :D

If Evanston is paying for this station I don't care but if the CTA is I be pissed. I'd rather see more stations built on the southside. Adding more stations on the south red would have ten times the ridership that this station would.

How exactly do you plan to heat the river such that the boat wouldn't be frozen in the dock every night? How would you even keep the dock in the water over the winter?

No part of the North Branch of the Chicago River (south of Devon, anyway) is more than two miles from an existing rapid transit line.

Yes, certainly there would be challenges in the coldest months, but the service does exist currently in a limited capacity. I imagine Wendella has figured out how to store their boats in the winter. Perhaps the boats would have to be dry docked for a couple months out of the year. I think it's an interesting idea at least. What could possibly go wrong? :Titanic:

I kind of doubt many people like walking more than a half mile to get to the train, and of course rush hour can make the train quite crowded, so an alternate mode may be appreciated. Some people might just enjoy taking a boat to work!

I like the idea, but boats are much slower than trains, especially given the time it takes to dock. On the North side, what would the stops be? The Diversey/Logan/Elston area might be good for access to the Costco and big box shopping there.

OMG! That was be so freaking cool to take a boat to work. Fullerton, Diversey, and Belmont are all pretty far from the L. Belmont at the river would be closer to Roscoe Village than the Brown line is.

^But what's the point of a transit line that runs where nobody lives or works:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1938060/rivercorridor.jpg

2010 census block groups, each dot represents 100 inhabitants

That only counts where people live, not where they work. The loop is incredibly sparse. Would blue-collar workers who work in the industrial corridor take the ferries?