just answer me one question, was the plan at B37 to develop the infrastructure of a super station, or was the plan to complete the entire project?

I found this amazing chart on a blog, exactly the info I was looking for. Since it was already on a blog, I'm hoping it's fair game. Props to the Sightline Institute.
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...nfootprint.jpg
http://www.cooltownstudios.com/mt/archives/001295.html

The chart is for Carbon Footprint, which I'm assuming correlates farily well to fuel per passenger mile. Your assumption is correct, a bus is very sensitive to passenger load, and a carpool does beat out a 1/4 full bus, but not a 3/4 full bus.

So what is the effect of a 2nd gen hybrid bus? By raising fuel economy from 2mpg to 8mpg, fuel efficiency is quadrupled and the carbon/fuel footprint of a transit bus is cut 75%.

So the 1/4 full hybrid bus goes from 0.8 to 0.2, beating out the carpool. The 3/4 bus goes from 0.25 to 0.0625, 2nd only to walking. And of course, all the compounding variables and economies of scale all work in the bus' favor for adding passengers.

EDIT: Photobucket's being flaky, just follow the link if you get the red x of death.

^I'd consider arguing against walk/bike being at 0, seeing as those actions requiring the burning of calories, which requires the consumption food, which... well, you get the idea.

And I'd retort that there is strong empirical evidence to argue that people who walk around a lot don't consume any more food than those that don't. For evidence, go stand in the middle of a crowded part of Paris for an hour, then do the same in Kansas City, MO.

Obviously, it's not Crown Hall. But why sacrifice it - trust me, it is important - when there are obvious alternatives?

Is the current render the most up-to-date proposal, Viva? Why can't the station be built on the other side of 35th, or at least the primary entrance, so that the hordes of Sox fans don't have to cross the street when they get out?

^ It seems as though the Meis structure could be reused as a station with coffee, newspaper vending and offer some protection for commuters from the elements.

I know that when I work out, my metabolism is such that for each calorie I burn in exercise I must consume approximately an additional 3 calories in food to maintain body mass. The times when I've been in good shape, my food budget has gone up 50% or so.

But yeah, I'm with you on walking (which is fairly leisurely and not too intense from a calorie-burning standpoint), but not so much on biking. Unless you're biking slowly and leisurely, in which case you're contributing to traffic congestion and ergo wasting energy from an externality standpoint...

I have read somewhere that bicyclists actually do use fewer calories per mile than pedestrians, on average. Of course it does depend on how fast you bike. The externality depends on the traffic you're biking in and the ability to separate bikes from traffic. The effect of increased food consumption from walking or biking of course depends on what you're eating; if it's predominantly red meat, your calories cost a whole lot of GHGs.

I don't disagree, but, just to be clear (which this photo I nabbed from Google Maps unfortunately is not), we are talking about this building, yeah?

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/3403/picture2gs8.png

^ Yes, that is the "building." I don't believe it ever even had any utlities beyond lighting. It's a kind of shed-like structure.

One of the most interesting things about the IIT campus is that there is a handful of small "folly" buildings that Mies did there. That really completes the picture of the campus as Mies's laboratory and not just another place where he inserted his buildings into a foreign landscape, such as at Toronto or Houston.

I don't know the exact history of why it's there or what it was used for... but it is called the "Test Cell" and I presume the IITRI used it to conduct some kind of experiments we'd maybe rather not know about. ;)

Well, it looks like they hired Gensler to design the station - the platform canopy matches the cladding on the 35th Street overpass.

I'm sorry, but maybe I just need to see the Mies "shed" in person. But to me, it really seems to lack any distinction whatsoever. I think a plumber could have designed something similar.

Honte, I guess I'll take your word for it that it's worth preserving. But if a wrecking ball accidently bumps into it, I won't exactly be "shedding" any tears.. (pun intended)

I guess I see the value of the shed, but only as part of a larger composition. It's like taking a Salvador Dali painting and cutting out the burning giraffe in the background. Most people won't notice it's missing, but it was part of the original artistic vision. However, in this case, I think the benefit to the neighborhood justifies the small loss.

On the other hand, there's a good reason why the station has been placed where it is. That site allows for a generous, attractive plaza, which may attract riders, along with amenities like benches and bike racks. The plaza allows for enough space to possibly expand the bike racks or add a stationhouse, too, if traffic levels call for it. (I think that little ghosted building in front of the smokestack IS a stationhouse, since there's no building there right now).

There's not enough room on the west side of the railroad tracks, and putting the station on the south side of 35th means that transit riders making a transfer to the Red Line have to wait for a crossing signal across a relatively busy street. Also, if they were to add a canopy over the LaSalle Street/Ryan onramp crosswalk, then the transfer would be protected from rain, since the Red Line station and the Ryan overpass sidewalk already are covered.

Carbon footprint is an interesting metric, but the usual source for comparing energy use among modes is The Transportation Energy Data Book published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/8...tensityxd8.png

The national picture for transit buses is a little bit skewed by all the small-city systems with dismal numbers of riders per bus. CTA's numbers would be somewhat better than this average.

Yep, and of course it varies route-to-route, but could probably best be compared system by system as a function of passenger-miles and vehicle-miles. Part of what's cool about transit is that at the margin, an additional trip has close to zero marginal increase in energy expenditure/pollution. Of course, many additional marginal trips would require more transit service, so it would be a stepped curve.

For personal transport, that is one person making a single trip for a given O-D pair, it's very hard to beat moped/scooter for energy efficiency. Transit takes the lead when the volume for a given O-D pair is high enough to fill a transit vehicle.

Cars, well, are more comfortable I guess, but generally not the most efficient means except where a handful people make a trip, e.g. 5 people packing into a smaller car for a unique O-D pair vs. 5 scooters or an empty buses.

The new Metra station at 35th is an SOM design.

The building that Honte points out is more than just a regular rectangular yellow brick building. It leads to an underground shooting range under the Dan Ryan. I don't know for sure that it's a Mies building. It is certainly possible, because the power/heating plant down the street is and the historical significance of that yellow brick wall fronting that junkyard along Federal was in question, and the following research/negotiations with the IHPA may well be what held the Metra project up. If the rendering is correct (I've never seen it before) then the ultimate decision was that the wall (and, I guess, the building) were not significant.

My first guess is that the shooting range was built when the Dan Ryan was - since the Dan Ryan leveled a neighborhood and it was unlikely that a shooting range was previously under that neighborhood. If it was in fact built at that time, the mid 60s, then this building is not a Mies building and not historically significant - otherwise, it was likely built when the IIT power plant was in 1949, a time when IIT was a major military training ground, and in that case it may well be a Mies. Either way, I'd love to get down into that shooting range. I bet it's cool.

While the little building is ugly, in my opinion, IIT has caught some flack for tearing down the Mies gas station that stood where the McCormick Tribune Campus Center currently stands, so it would probably be unwise (as a matter of legacy) to tear down any more Mies buildings, no matter how small.

Sorry, I'm in Paris right now, otherwise I could access IIT's extensive archives on this topic and give you answers for sure. I'll ask some people though and let you guys know if I find anything.

An underground shooting range under a below-grade superhighway built 15 years after the war ended? Maybe there's a revolving bookcase in the back that leads to Judge Crater's hideout and from there you can walk through the Keebler Elves' hollow tree to come out in Toontown.

Well, if the underground range exists, it was most likely built for the Cold War, not World War II. But it may well have been built earlier. I'll leave that because I can't prove its existence yet...though I have heard of its existence from decently reliable sources.

But no Mies building should be torn down, even if it is not great architecture. There are plenty of lesser Mies buildings on IIT's campus and they need to be preserved to get a full picture of his rise to prominence, and his ability to fuck up just like anyone else. If they're not preserved at IIT, there's nowhere else in the world they can be.

^ That's a pretty interesting spin on it.

The problem with preserving bad buildings is that you're condemning people to be forced to use them every day. It's especially problematic when you're forcing a school to live with them. (I'm more concerned about this argument in UIC's context than in IIT's--I don't know that IIT suffers greatly from its lesser Mies buildings.)