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So to answer your question, yes its funding, and its also expectations of the agency (i.e. people have realistic expecations of Metra, so Metra isn't criticized for running 4 trains per day on the Heritage Corridor, or running trains every 2 hours off-peak on other lines, for example). Of course I don't want to take any money from Metra, since it is a major asset to the Chicago region, especially in its current well-run state (though I'm surprised people give them a pass on their failure to have any interest in integrating downtown services with CTA). But regional transit needs more funding, period. |
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http://metrarail.com/Sched/cnw_n/cnwn_wki.shtml They only try to run a train every 10 minutes at peak times. The rest of the day it is every hour or so. Compare that to the CTA's Green line: http://transitchicago.com/maps/rail/gp_clinton.html Even though the green line is one of the least ridden lines in the system, it is still running a train every 8 minutes for most of the day. When the CTA has tried to trim service on these lines, they met with stiff opposition from community groups, "help the poor" organizations, etc. pretty much forcing them to keep a high level of service. Imagine if Metra was told it had to run 6 times as many trains on all of its lines. They would never recoup that in ticket sales. Welcome to the CTA's world. On an unrelated note, does anyone have stats on how much the CTA spends on bus service vs. train? I'm not sure I've ever seen the breakdown. Given their massive bus fleet, I'd imagine bus maintenance is a huge cost. But tracks are costly, too. Taft |
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Anyhow, what would really be nice would be some more circular movement in the El system, you can't get anywhere that is not along your line with any efficiancy right now, its really annoying, trasferring to a bunch of busses every time you need to go West from the Red line! I agree with your points on how many more costs CTA has to deal with, but I really think they are worth it, I would hate not having 24 hr service on the main lines and the frequency of one train every <5 minutes durring rush hour! |
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The circle line is one piece of that puzzle but it's just a small piece. |
http://www.chicagotribune.com/techno...l=chi-news-hed
Streaming video to aid CTA buses, train stops By Charles Sheehan Tribune staff reporter Published December 3, 2006 Dozens of city buses and rail stations will be outfitted with streaming video technology as part of a pilot project that Mayor Richard Daley said will vastly improve security in Chicago. The Chicago Transit Authority this month will install wireless transmitters in 40 buses--as well as at select rail stops--that will be linked to laptop computers and monitors in CTA security vehicles and the CTA command center. An impetus for the $2.4 million pilot project, funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, was the mass-transit bombings in Madrid and London, Daley said Saturday. "Let's be realistic. London was always at the forefront, and you see the detection recently in the London bombings and the reaction, how they found out who [the bombers] were so quickly," he said. CTA President Frank Kruesi said cameras already installed in buses will be used to transmit the data over the new wireless network. "The mobile security network expands the capabilities of security cameras on our buses." Images from onboard a bus can be viewed by a moving vehicle within 600 feet of the bus, giving emergency personnel better, more up-to-date information about what may be happening. Each bus is fitted with internal and external cameras, and the same technology can be used to space buses between stops and provide better service, Kruesi said. Officials hope to expand the system throughout the city after a six-month test. The two mass-transit incidents in Europe have spurred security concerns. In 2004, train bombings in Madrid left 191 people dead and injured more than 1,700. In July 2005, a series of coordinated bomb blasts on underground trains and a bus killed 52 people in London. |
Does the CTA have any plans for adding stations along existing lines, especially in areas of increasing density?
With the explosive growth of the Central Station area, it looks to me that it would make a lot of sense to add a station at 16th street, right before the red, orange and green lines all split. There's a whole bunch of new customers moving into this neighborhood who'd be a lot more likely to jump on a CTA train if a stop is a right there instead of having to walk up to Roosevelt. Just wondering if any plans were in the works. |
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The only short term new station will be Oakton on the Yellow Line in Skokie. The city eventually wants to build Green Line stations at 18th or Cermak (to serve McCormick Place and South Loop), and then at either Western or Damen. As part of the Circle Line Project, CTA wants to add a station at Roosevelt on the Douglas branch, a transfer station over the Eisenhower to the Forest Park branch, a station at Madison for the United Center, and a transfer station at Archer between the Circle, Red, and Orange lines (the north part of the station would have an entrance around 18th/Archer, which would serve some of the South Loop). |
^ Were the West Loopers ever successful in persuading the CTA to consider a Green Line stop near Racine?
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Last I "heard", the leaning was towards Cermak to serve McCormick place and all the planned development in the Cermak corridor. |
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18th is longer then half a mile. From Indiana to Western. Unless there's an 18th n/s running street that I've never heard of.
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major streets in chicago tend to be 1 mile apart...18th St. and a few others create a half-mile pattern IIRC
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18ths isn't actually halfway between Roosevelt and Cermak (it's closer to Cermak), but it serves as the "half-mile" street, i.e. a secondary arterial. |
Roosevelt to Cermak is 1 mile?!? Jeez, I thought we could rely on a standard measuring unit of 800 street numbers = 1 mile. Where else is it bastardized on the north-south axis -- is it, say, 1 mile from Roosevelt to Congress (only 700 numbers)?
If you can't trust the 800 = 1 mile rule, whom can you trust? :irked: |
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Another delay....
I'm sick of the constant delays, it's almost everyday now. The CTA is becoming a joke of its former self. The system is going to calapse if more money isn't found. Just think how much worse the issue will be if the CTA is forced to defer another half billion away from maintainece over the next four years if the funding formula is not fixed... CTA Red Line service back to normal By Dan P. Blake Tribune staff reporter Published December 12, 2006, 3:47 PM CST Southbound trains on the CTA's Red Line have resumed their regular route after a problem with the track this morning, but Orange Line trains will continue to travel in reverse direction around the Loop through the end of the day because of a defective switch, a transit spokeswoman said. Southbound Red Line trains are again running through the subway, CTA spokeswoman Wanda Taylor said just after noon. The trains had been traveling along elevated tracks between the Fullerton Avenue and Cermak Road stations because of a cracked rail in the subway. Northbound trains were not affected. Meanwhile, CTA Orange Line trains will keep traveling in a reverse direction from their normal routing around the Loop through early Wednesday morning, Taylor said. Orange Line trains normally enter the Loop from the south and run clockwise around the inside elevated tracks beginning at the Library station, at State and Van Buren Streets. But because of the malfunctioning switch, trains are running counterclockwise on the outer tracks, beginning at the Adams Street-Wabash Avenue stop and exiting the Loop after leaving Library, according to the CTA. Customers will have to board Orange Line trains on the opposite side of the platform from which they normally board. Taylor said repairs will be made to the Orange Line overnight. Also starting at 9 p.m., Pink Line trains will be re-rerouted on the outer elevated track for repairs to install a new switch, Taylor said. Once they enter the Loop, trains will operate in the reverse direction, and riders will have to board trains on the outer platforms in the Loop, the same platform as Brown Line trains. The Red Line problem was the latest on that subway in a little more than a month. On Nov. 10, passengers were stranded on eight CTA trains in the subway for more than an hour after a loose part near the wheels of one train knocked about 100 feet of electrified third rail slightly out of alignment near the North-Clybourn station. A number of passengers put themselves at risk by evacuating the trains. Other trains were re-routed over the elevated structure, as they were today, until the problem was fixed. The Red Line incident came nearly four months after a train derailment and fire in the Blue Line subway sent more than 150 people to hospitals. |
The rail system is a disaster. They knew, back in the 90s, that the O'hare branch would need major track work by the mid 2000s. However, this project was deferred in order to roll it into the Airport Express, which itself was planned and executed incredibly poorly, so far using $100 million in capital funds, much of which could have been spent on track maintenance.
And all the while, 1) no one has made a serious political effort to find funding to fix the north part of the red line, hence much of it is slow-zoned and 2)track maintenance hasn't been as good systemwide the last few years because CTA is undertaking so many major construction projects simultaneously that track maintenance crews have been diverted (Cermak, Dan Ryan, Ravenswood). More funding would of course help immensely, by allowing more budget for track, structural, railcar, and infrastructural maintenance. But it's also very clear that a series of bad decisions, that will take along time to correct, were made (or maybe not made) at the upper levels of CTA management, and these need to be identified and acknowledged. The sad news is that even if CTA really got on the ball tomorrow about properly maintaining the rail system, I fear we're looking at probably 2008 or 2009 before we'd be looking at significant reliability improvements. |
I wonder when I was living in Chicago for 5 years, When will the CTA start rehabbing the Elevated Loop. That part is the oldest and most used part of the system.
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How do you think ridership on the rail portion of the system is doing this year?
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^visionary,
re: the loop, They basically do it in bits and pieces. The structure and track in the loop is all in good shape. They are about to start upgrading the signaling and switch system (finally!). Re: stations, the only ones that haven't been rehabbed are State/Lake, Randolph/Wabash, Madison/Wabash, and Lasalle/Van Buren. Randolph and Madison will be demolished to build a Washington/Wabash station, which I think is somewhere in the design phase. State/Lake is also in the design phase. I don't know about LaSalle/Van Buren. CDOT is lead on the downtown station projects, so maybe ask LA21st if he knows anything about it. ^pottebaum, believe it or not, it's still going up! I credit ever growing school enrollments and continued revitalization and residential construction. Of course, it probably would have grown even more if service had been more reliable for the last year. . . |
Nothing on LaSalle/Van Buren.
The next big thing will be State/Grand. That station really sucks right now.:yuck: |
:previous: Yeah it does. And I should know, as I'm always stuck in that damp dungeon of a station. Speaking of which, will they ever redo Harrison? You'd think with all the college students using it that it would be better.
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UGHHHHH!!!!! Here we go agian, a power failure on the red line. I have had it. Third World Countries have better systems than this. SO fucking pathetic.
The Illinois portion of that new expressway better be built as a toll road. No more wasting public money on this garbage with the never ending traffic paradox. As the news explains today, there are other infrastructure projects in the region far more worthy. |
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Great question. Hmm...that would be awesome if it happens. I will ask around.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...l=chi-news-hed
Highway plan gets a boost Routes to be studied for new Indiana link By Stanley Ziemba Tribune staff reporter Published December 14, 2006 Illinois and Indiana have signed an agreement to study potential routes for the long-discussed Illiana Expressway, but actual construction and a formula to finance it are at least a couple of years away, Illinois transportation officials said Wednesday. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels announced the agreement during a Rotary Club luncheon Tuesday in northwest Indiana. Illinois Department of Transportation spokesman Matt Vanover on Wednesday confirmed the accord was reached in November. The 63-mile roadway, as proposed by Daniels, would run 13 miles in eastern Will County and link Interstate Highway 57 with Interstate Highway 65 near Lowell, Ind. It also would connect with the Indiana Toll Road and Interstate Highway 94 in Michigan City, Ind. First proposed by architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham nearly 100 years ago, the highway has been on transportation officials' wish list since the 1960s to relieve increasing traffic on Interstate Highways 80/94 between the two states. "The Illiana Expressway would not only alleviate congestion, but also stimulate jobs all along its route, helping both the economy and quality of life throughout Chicagoland," Daniels said at the Rotary luncheon. Under the agreement, an engineering firm is to be selected early next year to perform an environmental impact analysis and identify a final highway alignment, Daniels said in a news release. The study, estimated to cost between $5 million and $10 million, is expected to take no more than three years. The Indiana Department of Transportation will be the lead agency on the study, and the two states will share its cost, Daniels said. Neither Indiana nor Illinois transportation officials have estimated how much the expressway might cost. But Daniels said the Indiana portion of the expressway would be built with private money, not tax dollars, and would be operated by a private firm as a toll road. The state would retain ownership of the expressway in Indiana, he said. Illinois officials have yet to consider how the state might finance its portion, Vanover said. "At this point, it's too early to look at financing," he said. "We don't even know yet if [the expressway] is feasible, although we believe it is, what it might look like and what its potential alignment might be." He added that with the state's financial woes, "our main focus now is maintaining our existing interstate system." A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), a longtime Illiana Expressway proponent, said the congressman is "very pleased" that the project appears to be moving forward. He and other officials have warned that with each passing year, the cost of building goes up and potential routes are eliminated as development spreads farther from Chicago. "It's been talked about a long time, and the longer it is delayed, the more it is needed," said Weller spokesman Andy Fuller. Village officials in Crete and Beecher in eastern Will County, whose roads are often inundated with trucks seeking to avoid traffic backups on I-80/94, also welcomed the announcement. According to Daniels' office, 300,000 vehicles travel between Chicago and Indiana each day on I-80/94, the Indiana Toll Road, U.S. Highways 6 and 30 and local streets--and the number keeps growing. The number of trucks using the Borman Expressway (I-80/94 in Indiana), now 28,000 a day, is expected to increase by 50 percent in the next 20 years. An Illiana Expressway would reduce truck traffic on the Borman by 22 percent and on U.S. 30 by 59 percent, according to the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission. ---------- sziemba@tribune.com Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune |
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Oh lovely, more expressways! Meanwhile, our rapid transit system crumbles to dust. . .
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Red Line Service Returns to Normal 7:38 p.m.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Service has resumed in both directions along the Red Line at normal speeds. Thank you for your patience while we restored service to normal. So last night I was waiting for the Red Line at Belmont (6:35 p.m.) The lady on the intercom said that the next Purple Line running north would all stops to Howard The purple line came. The engineer said he was going north to Howard stopping at all stops. Everyone loaded. The Red Line pulled up. The engineer kept saying he was heading north all stops to Howard. Then he started yelling at a person holding the doors open. The person at holding the doors open had NO CTA anything visible. All he had was a radio. He was yelling something about getting the Clark tower to tell the engineer to make it express. ALL the while the red line (the first one heading north for some time) is now not moving again...because of this dispute. The Purple line is not moving either. At this point we have 2 lines heading north being stalled by CTA Managers. Finally the Purple line engineer told everyone to walk over to the red line so we all got off and got on the red line. Then to add insult to injury...the very first red line heading north (the one I was in) because of the delay in the subway was now made to WAIT until the Purple line express train continued forward (Clark Tower had to switch the tracks Purple to Red back to Purple to Purple!!!!) That is why the CTA sucks. It speaks volumes about CTA and its management. |
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What's more troubling to me are the seemingly-permanent slow zones, trains stopping and sitting for 5 minutes or more between stations, evacuating broken trains, key signals and switches breaking every couple weeks, etc. |
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I agree with you on the circle line....ideally, there would be 2 circle lines. I say one along Clinton, Roosevelt, Michigan/Columbus, and Division (close to what you propose), and the other along Western, Belmont, and 35th. But that's just a pipe dream. I know I'd rather have one circle line at Ashland, plus the Carroll Ave. BRT/street car, as opposed to nothing at all. |
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But yeah, had the Circulator project gone through, it would have been built-out by now.....how great would that be? Lakeshore east, Streeterville, the Loop, and the West Loop all connected by lightrail. |
Olympic Bids, could bid Farewell to Chicago
The major crisis with CTA will make our chance at getting the 2016 Olympics just a pleasant dream turned nightmare. It would be so sad with all the real estate boom in the city in recent years and other beautification developments, to have the rug pulled out from under us because of blatently inept CTA management officials. The slogan for the Clinton 92' Democratic Presidential Campaign was: "IT'S TIME FOR THEM TO GO!" The same is currently being shouted against cta's management.
-SapphireBlueEyes- :notacrook: |
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The fact that we have a CTA that cannot at least maintain what we have.... They are waiting for a huge accident to say we told you so give us more money. |
CTA Train Derails
***ODDLY ENOUGH THERE WAS A CTA STORY ABOUT THE RED LINE THIS MORNING THAT HAS DISAPPEARED!*** http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...,2137527.story CTA train derails By Jeremy Gorner Tribune staff reporter Published December 19, 2006, 1:03 PM CST CTA elevated tracks shared by the Orange and Green Lines in Chicago's South Loop were shut down this afternoon following a train derailment that forced the evacuation of roughly two dozen passengers, authorities said. Ten ambulances were sent to the scene of the derailed northbound Orange Line train. The rear car of the four-car train left the tracks around 11:40 a.m. just south of the Roosevelt Road station, authorities said. E-mail this story Printable format Search archives RSS Photo gallery CTA train derails Stories CTA derailment video Graphic Graphic December 19, 2006 The Chicago Fire Department escorted stranded passengers from the train and transported them to the ground using a snorkel basket, fire department spokesman Larry Langford said. One person suffered an apparent anxiety attack, and another may have had an asthma attack, Langford said. Those two individuals and other passengers were being examined by paramedics at the scene. No serious injuries were reported. Passenger Aisha Parker, 28, was in the rear car when it derailed. "The train was going around the turn, and it started shaking real loud," she said. Immediately after the derailment, the train came to a stop and passengers started to stand up, Parker said. She then noticed the car was leaning and said she feared a shift in weight might cause the train to fall off the elevated tracks. "I said, 'We're leaning, we're leaning. Everybody sit still,' "she recalled. Power was temporarily shut off along the tracks, and the CTA was providing a shuttle bus for stranded Green and Orange Line riders, said Chicago Transit Authority spokeswoman Wanda Taylor. Due to the derailment, shuttle buses were operating in both directions between the Roosevelt and 35th-Bronzeville-IIT stations for Green Line commuters, according to the CTA's Web site. At Roosevelt, customers can take a Red Line train or the No. 29 State bus to continue their commute. The two extremities of the Green Line were operating—from Oak Park/River Forest to the Loop on the north and west, and from Ashland/63rd and 63rd/Cottage Grove to 35th Street on the south. Orange Line trains were operating between Midway Airport and the Halsted station, where passengers were advised to transfer to the No. 62 Archer bus to complete their trips into the Loop. Also, shuttle buses were operating in both directions between Halsted and Roosevelt. Chicago police cordoned off Wabash and State Street for several blocks south of 13th Street. Tribune staff reporter Mitch Dudek contributed. Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune |
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...l=chi-news-hed
New Yellow Line station could bring court fight By Andrew Schroedter Special to the Tribune December 19, 2006, 8:50 PM CST Skokie may soon begin eminent domain proceedings against two landowners to make room for a new Yellow Line stop, with the Village Board approving the step Monday if negotiations to buy the properties fail. The Chicago Transit Authority railway station, expected to open on Oakton Street in 2008, could still be built without the additional parcels at 8116 and 8152-8200 Skokie Blvd., said Tom Thompson, Skokie's economic development coordinator. But acquiring the land is vital because extra space is needed for a "kiss and ride" stop, a bus turnaround and a taxi drop-off area, officials said. "You have to have more than just the property where the station sits," Thompson said. The village has made several bids to buy the properties, officials said, but the buyers have not agreed to sell at a price that was determined by the village's appraiser. "We've simply reached an impasse," said Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen. Negotiations will continue, but if an agreement is not reached soon, the village could move ahead with the eminent domain proceedings. That step, unanimously approved by the Village Board at Monday's meeting, wasn't entered into lightly, officials said. "This has been a goal of the village, to build this stop," said Trustee Randall Roberts. "This is a vital economic project for our village. This is very necessary." The Skokie Boulevard properties house an auto repair shop and a truck rental business. Attempts to reach the property owners were unsuccessful. The Oakton Street stop would be the third along the CTA's Yellow Line—also known as the Skokie Swift—which runs between Dempster and Howard Streets. The location was chosen because of its nearness to the Illinois Science and Technology Park, a major employment hub in the village. Plans for the new stop have been in the works for years. Federal and state grants totaling $10 million will offset the cost of the station, which the village hopes will spark redevelopment of the downtown area. Skokie isn't using eminent domain to seize property for residential or commercial development, Van Dusen noted. The land would hold a railway station that would shuttle hundreds of commuters to work, home or other trains. "We very much like to foster a cooperative spirit with our business community," Van Dusen said. "We don't want people to feel like they're under attack." Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune |
^They should "seize" the giant Aldi parking lot nearby, too. But as long as they don't touch the Crafty Beaver, it's all good. Downtown Skokie really needs this.
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http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/m...=n&searchType=
At Deadline Bids for CTA's Grand redo come in high Plans to renovate the CTA's Red Line subway stop at Grand Avenue have hit a financial hurdle, with the low bid coming in at $67.25 million, more than twice the city's estimate. A Chicago Department of Transportation rep says the department hopes to get more funding, but may have to seek new bids. The new station would feature bright lights, colorful tile and elevator service similar to renovated stops at Chicago Avenue and Lake Street. [Greg Hinz] |
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I know it's all too easy to call the CTA names or just expect anything the City does is full of graf but there are some real costs that can be pushed aside. |
I'd like to see the design drawings for this, they must be planning something major (Carroll Ave. streetcar hookup? :) ) otherwise I can't see how this would be so drastically higher than the Chicago rehab which I think was under $20 million about 7 years ago, which did involve significant excavation at the mezanine level as well as all the elevator, tiling, and lighting work.
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I think it's trying to find land or space to construct an elevator, that doesn't effect the existing building nearby on the street level. Also to excavate the extra dimensions needed for ADA. Also there might be some issues on finding a spot to place the elevator on the side platform since both staircase/escalators are on the middle of the platform.
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