^ About Canal Street, how possible would it to use portions as a double-decked roadway? I think between roughly Harrison and Taylor it is effectively elevated and in theory could be a two-level roadway, and parts of it in the congested Madison-VanBuren stretch seem similar to that (and are closer to the elevation of the river bridges than they are to the elevation of Clinton). I assume there are station concourses underneath between Adams and Jackson, but I don't know what's underneath the rest of Canal around there.

Single transit card for CTA, Metra, Pace closer to becoming reality
 

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/...aspx?id=200925


Single transit card for CTA, Metra, Pace closer to becoming reality

BY MARISA PAULSON

FEB 22, 2012

Those commuters who use a combination of Chicago’s transit agencies—CTA, Metra and Pace—soon will only have to carry one single “open payment” smart card, or maybe even just their smartphone, instead of juggling cards, passes and stickers to transfer.

That day is a few years away, but the Regional Transportation Authority voted Wednesday to develop and implement a regional fare model that brings them much closer to that goal of seamless transfers.

One expert endorsed the move on Wednesday.

“Hopefully, they have enough time to think about it, meet, agree and do it. It can be only beneficial for riders of all service boards,” said Paul Metaxatos, associate director for research programs and research assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Urban Transportation Center.

Last July, Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation giving the RTA until 2015 to develop a fare card usable on all three transit systems. In response, RTA sought bids in the fall and selected the TransSystems Corporation team, the lowest bidder, to consult on a regional fare model. The team’s sub-consultants that will take care of 27 percent of the project are Cambridge Systematics Inc., CR Market Surveys Inc. and cmQue Inc.

The total cost of the 15-month contract that began Wednesday is $416,165, but 80 percent will be provided by the Illinois Department of Transportation through a Unified Work Program grant.

Since RTA is grappling with very different fare models—for example, Metra fares are distance-based while CTA and Pace fares are fixed—months of surveys and analysis are required to determine ridership and revenue impacts.

“It’s a complicated issue, obviously, because the fare systems for the three agencies are different,” Metaxatos said. “They have to agree how the revenue will be shared and develop an instrument that will accommodate their agreement.”

The regional fare model will be built in modular fashion, with stand-alone CTA, Metra, Pace and interagency modules, which will allow each service board to use its stand-alone module for internal budgeting and planning.

While this is an exciting move for Chicago commuters, the city is frankly a little late to the universal fare card party.

Hong Kong has the “Octopus” card, which was introduced in 1997 and can be used on the city’s railways, buses, taxis, trams and ferries, as well as for parking and many convenience and retail stores.

Paris’ “Navigo” card was introduced in 2001 and can be used across several transit agencies on the city’s metro, buses, trains and even rental bikes.

And London’s “Oyster” card was issued in 2003 and the 43 million cards that have been issued are good for journeys on the Tube, bus, tram, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and most National Rail services. More than 80 percent of all public transit trips in London are made using an Oyster card, according to a Transport for London release last year.

But regional fare cards aren’t only found across the pond: Washington, D.C.’s SmarTrip, first sold in 1999, was the first contact-less smart card for public transit in the U.S. While they could only be used on the Metrorail system at first, they soon were be able to be used on Metrobuses, as well as buses and vans across several transit agencies and some parking garages.

The San Franciso Bay Area’s “Clipper” card – formerly known as TransLink – was tested in 2002 and introduced in its current form in 2010. It can be used for seven transit agencies in the Bay Area. By the end of last year, 1 million Clipper cards had been issued, according to San Francisco’s RTA equivalent, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

Ian Savage, associate chair of Northwestern University’s economics department, has studied urban transit for decades, often focusing on revenues, costs and optimal fares.

Savage, who is affiliated with the university's Transportation Center, said that a single transit card has been a goal ever since the RTA was established back in 1974.

“Here we are, 30 or 40 years on, and you still can’t even link up in any effective way from CTA train to Metra to bus on a common card,” Savage said. “It’s kind of an embarrassment that we don’t yet have this. I think there have been some technological issues, but issues that are not insurmountable.”

Savage said that Metra may be to blame for the years of inaction on a single transit card.


CTA introduced the smart Chicago Cards in 2002, followed by the Chicago Card Plus in 2004. Savage said the cards grew out of RTA initiatives. Metra didn’t even accept credit card payments at stations until 2010.

“Metra has clearly been a sticking point here,” Savage said. “I’m in favor of the distance-based fares, but I think Metra has been a very conservative agency as far as fare technology is concerned.”

Savage said he just hopes that RTA and its service boards can move fast enough. He said that credit card companies are examining small payments, which would allow public transit riders to pay their fare with the same card they already use for larger purchases.

“In some ways, they could see an effective credit card company doing this for them,” Savage said. “The more that they dally, the more likely they may get taken over by technology.”

You're right that Canal is at an artificially high level because it has to cross the approaches for the river bridges. There's actually one track underneath Canal - Union Station comes as far west as the centerline of Canal.

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/2080/canalm.jpg

^I thought one of the tracks actually came under Canal, and I looked up those same diagrams this morning, but I'm not sure those dotted lines were ever actually built. I think that former baggage tunnel that's now a pedway to the parking garage might be the only intrusion under Canal—other than the passageway from concourse to headhouse waiting room. That, of course, is a pretty big obstacle to roadway use.

Incidentally, Canal is scheduled to be completely rebuilt in the next few years by CDOT. I think that's one of the impetuses for the Union Station master plan.

I was looking for a better diagram earlier, and now I found it... Tracks 1, 2, 3, and 4 are directly under the ROW of Canal. Track 6 straddles the eastern edge.

As much as I like the megalomaniacal implications of an even bigger Union Station, I just don't think we need an expansion. It would be a far better use of dollars to change operating practices in order to turn around Metra trains faster - even if they have to lobby the FRA for a waiver or rules change. Shifting SWS to LaSalle will free up capacity too.

If they do rebuild Canal, supports should be shifted to the edges where possible so that there are no necessary supports in the center of the street. Later, the area underneath could be excavated for through platforms, either at the level of (i.e. severing) the Union Station concourse or one level below.

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/511/cus1h.jpg

Isn't Metra the only system that isn't part of a unified fare card? I use a ChicagoPlus card on everything except Metra. Theoretically couldn't they just implement this in a matter of weeks?

Just looking at the 'newer' portion of Union Station gives me a headache. Maybe it doesn't need to get bigger in trackage, but the layout and congestive nature is awful. I take Amtrak regularly, I'm embarrassed as to what visitors first see...and what they are likely to never see, the Great Hall.

If I were to re-design based off this diagram, I'd move Metra and Amtrak offices into the older Union Station...anywhere that says "vacant." Also located baggage claim areas into the closest vacant space near the tracks and close by those service corridors. Create parallel ticket counters that flank each side of the circulation datum between old and new terminals, and then entirely open up the rest of the space with waiting, surrounded by a secure trackside circulation ring. BTW, notice the major security flaw with trackside escalators which lead upstairs to the food court? Ideally, the trackside circulation ring should be for ticketed passengers only, and the upstairs should only accessible when they exit the secure area.

Does anyone think it's possible to merge the food and waiting areas to one floor to raise the ceiling height? It would eliminate the cave like feeling and the warren of passageways and concourses would be resolved by opening the space up. I think the future of Union Station needs to be thought of like an airport terminal.

The solution is painfully obvious. All the vacant areas around the Great Hall become lounges, the concourse becomes open again. I'm not sure how intensively the sub-basement is used, but they could depress the floor of the concourse to make it more spacious.

Be careful what you wish for. As long as Amtrak continues to treat boarding as a pseudo-airport experience, I think it will be hard to draw passengers very far away from the gates. Even worse, imagine the entire passenger manifest for the Chief shuffling from the Great Hall through the underpass and out to the gate, as commuters rush in to board their afternoon trains. As disappointing as the 1991 remodel was, it was driven by the serious problem of separating the commuter flows from the Amtrak boarders.

There are real questions that need to be answered, real decisions to be made and equipment to be ordered, but in theory probably 3-6 months could happen if Metra was under enough pressure to make decisions quickly and the RTA ordered things quickly. More realistic would probably be 6-12 months, maybe as long as 18 months or more.

There are solutions for all the sticking points, but decisions need to be made on which solutions are most suitable. With the CTA you pay before or while boarding and it doesn't matter how long you're on the train or bus. With Metra you pay either before boarding or after you've boarded and get in trouble if you stay on longer than you'd paid for. The difference is not difficult to understand conceptually, but when trying to design a uniform payment system there are processes and equipment changes that would need to happen.

That's why I'm not suggesting the Great Hall be waiting space in my previous post. It would be okay to move baggage claim and any ancillary support services to that area, but it should not be the place for departing passengers. Actually the waiting areas are not technically for ticketed passengers. Trackside perimeter circulation is. You can maintain this configuration, and create gates between the perimeter trackside circulation and waiting where passengers are checked by agents. It's not much different than the current process.

Interesting you mention a sub-basement ardecila. I don't think dropping the floor level is the most economical or practical option. The last thing we want to do is have passengers go down, then back up. When planning terminals and stations, you generally want to try and keep all related program on one floor level to allow for future flexibility. For example, during the holidays you may have to create temporary queues to manage passenger demand. If you have a ton of ramps to take passengers up to trackside circulation, you might have some issue setting up your queues.

It might be possible to use that sub-basement to run your mechanical under floor. Instead of above ceiling in the basement. It might give you a couple more feet of height, but probably won't fix the issue. I'd rather see a double height space with the restaurants arranged in a more logical layout...perhaps on a mezzanine that overlooks the waiting areas. It allows public access to food court areas, but still maintains some separation from the waiting areas. A new layout would also permit relocation of escalators away from trackside circulation.

What I'm suggesting is a pretty big (and expensive) overhaul of Union Station, but I think it's needed and will be worth the effort in improving passenger rail experience.

Since all systems are pretty much computerized, even when you purchase tickets from an agent, you could select your destinations or number of rides and either pay with credit/cash or wave your ChicagoPlus card. I have a SmartCard for DC and it works the same way. Bus fares are flat rate, Metro rates depend on distance. Now of course you swipe in/swipe out in DC, but the idea here isn't really different from Chicago. Point is you need an electronic terminal to either print a ticket or "check in" with a plus card via a handheld device carried by an agent.

Just order the equipment, train the conductors on the technology, done.

I guess I never realized the extent of the Canal viaduct... Madison to Taylor! Wow. How wide is it? On Google Maps it looks like the street is about 80-100' wide. If it's through tracks they're after, why not just build them under Canal Street? Surely they could fit at least three or four tracks under there (two platforms.) Much less expensive than WLTC craziness under Clinton or demolishing 222 Riverside.

Canal ROW is 80 feet wide. But how would you connect the concourse to the headhouse if you have tracks under Canal?

By the way, I understand Canal is the current preferred alternative for a WLTC tunnel. But that would go much deeper than just adding some through tracks at the same level as the current tracks.

But Metra doesn't have faregates. So you have to have some sort of RFID validator carried by the conductor.

2 or possibly 4 through tracks would be one level below the concourse-headhouse connector. To save cost and simplify excavation, you would probably want to make the tracks as close to the surface as possible, so whereas most of the Canal platform would be somewhat spacious, you'd have a low ceiling where the concourse-headhouse connector passes across on a bridge.

Serious questions need to be considered if we're gonna build anything like this. Does there need to be clearance for Metra's gallery cars, or can we live with smaller tunnels and less-tall rolling stock? The difference could be billions or at least hundreds of millions of dollars.

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...-bus-priority/

Chicago Commits to Downtown Bus Priority

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/w...ator-Route.png

How much clearance is there under the Canal viaduct? Could they dig out a few feet under it to lower the tracks, and then design the viaduct to have the thinnest possible substructure, and wind up with enough clearance for both the connector AND the tracks? I'm guessing probably not.

It's probably easiest to raise the height clearance through cutting out structural depth as opposed to long sloping track approaches to gain maybe inches. I think Canal is basically your traditional steel bridge girders and could be replaced with slab and column like Wacker Drive.

For vehicular traffic, unrestricted clearance is anything above 14'-6." I think a good clearance for passenger rail is around 18'

Metra bilevels are 15'10". The slab on Wacker is 13" thick. The "ribs" functioning as the beams increase the total thickness to 2', but the passageway could be built between the "ribs". So:

13" slab
7'6" clearance for the connecting passageway
5" thickness for the floor,
16' from the bottom of the floor to the top of the rail

That makes a bare minimum of 25' from top of rail to surface of Canal Street.

Not sure what the current clearance is, but slab track can be pretty low profile. Shaving a couple feet of dirt could help if necessary. Orders of magnitude cheaper than WLTC. Unlike WLTC, this does not address congestion at the northern throat, but on this thread I've seen folks speculate that at least a fourth track might be possible.

Lol! No way you can allow 2 inches of breathing space for train clearances. Even if you don't run Exhaust ducts over tracks there needs to be space for conduit runs and likely fire suppression since these are semi occupiable spaces.