This is more than a little dishonest - hard to say METRA servers River North, but not the West loop. Not really seeing River North as having more El stations than the West Loop. --- and --- really not seeing how driving in the west loop/Fulton market is any more difficult than in the loop or River North.

The only development recently that is truly tranisit challenged - and that being AUTO challenged - is Wolf Point.

The West Loop is really the second best transit served district in Chicago.

It’s closer to the main expressways, it has L stops, it is walkable to the main Metra depots and probably will have a new Metra station in a couple of years.

It even isn’t too far by Water Taxi (on a nice day).

It will never be as good as the Loop, but it can serve as an offshoot much better than River North can. It’s a bitch getting to RN from the burbs.

Plus, having a vibrant West Loop can also increase the appeal of IMD and those Pink Line hoods that are dying to gentrify.

Keep these projects coming, I say

Yeah I don't get why anyone says the West Loop lacks transit. In addition to the Pink and Green Line Stations it's also served by the Blue Line (UIC Halsted and IMD) and has one advantage no part of downtown has: bus through routes to other parts of the city. Being able to hop on the Halsted or Ashland bus puts you 15 minutes from the densest parts of the North side and Pilsen.

And, like you mention, it's far more accessible by car than most of downtown. No need to pile onto the Ohio Feeder or wait in gridlocked traffic on Lake Street trying to get into the Loop. There's probably a dozen ramps directly into the neighborhood from Ashland and 290 to Chicago and Ogden on the Kennedy.

Expanding DX zoning across the entire West Loop and making people pay into the South and West side to get it was one of the most brilliant urban planning moves in the last 20 years in the US. Other cities currently struggling with crippling affordability crises would kill to be able to do something like that. As far as I'm concerned they should do it again in 5 years and push the Western border of downtown at least to Damen, probably Western. The entire IMD should be included in that.

If people think there's not enough transit, simply add more stops on the Blue, Pink, and Green Line. Add a Metra Station between Pilsen and the IMD, add more along Kinzie. No downtown district needs more than three transit lines and multiple commuter stations.

Try the 151 bus and 147 buses If you are 1blk from LSD

Great round up Harry.

Pink Line United Center stop would be helpful

On odgen and jackson for sure. :D

My understanding is that Wirtz (and possibly Reinsdorf?) has an ownership stake in the UC's adjacent lots, and probably wants to keep the ancillary parking income flowing while watching the adjacent areas in two directions canyonize with highrises.

CTA studied the Near West area about 15 years ago and looked at the pros and cons of various station sites around the UC. Given the realities today, the Green Line at Damen makes more sense than Pink at Madison because:
1) Green Line covers more of the city, out to Oak Park and the South Side
2) there is a major bus transfer to the #50
3) the combination of #50 bus + Green Line is a reliever for the overcrowded Blue Line esp. for Fulton Market workers.

Providing the best service to the United Center is like the 4th-level priority here, it really is an investment in restoring a missing link in the citywide network. The United Center just explains why they are building a new stop at Damen and not Western, which would also serve goals #1-3 equally well.

If they built a Pink Line stop at Madison, it would serve the UC very well but wouldn't add much to the overall CTA network. There would be a transfer to the #20 bus, but that wouldn't be a busy transfer because both the #20 and the Pink Line go to the Loop. There isn't much residential development in that area either; outside of game days, the station would be very poorly used unless the UC parking lots ever fill in with dense residential. Lastly, the Pink Line isn't really set up for gameday crowds. It only runs 4-car trains and the headways aren't that great. The Green Line runs 6-car trains, so there's a lot more capacity to hold sports fans and concert-goers.

but i think the point others are making is that a in less ass-backwards city, a centrally-located 20,000 seat arena that hosts an average of 200 events a year and sits within 750 feet of a rapid transit ROW would've had a direct-access station added there ages ago.

priorities or not, chicago just seems really fucking bad at picking off some of the lowest hanging fruit sometimes.

I’d argue the Pink line station would work for another time that is not today or the near future. Maybe some day in the distant future. Anyone I know going to hawks or bulls game is grabbing drinks in the west loop beforehand and then walks over. After the game, it’s buses loading up along Damen and Ashland, and they sure do get a lot of passengers. The pink line might make sense only after the game if you needed to get back to the red line or live downtown. I bet you’d fill only 1 train though. This station felt like a priority and then I finally realized it made no sense at the moment

^ for me, the easiest way (least walking) to get from my home up in lincoln square down to the UC on PT is to take the western express (x49) or regular western bus (49) down to the madison bus (20).

i can conversely take the brown line down to the loop and transfer to pink at washington/wells and take that out to ashland and then walk over to the UC from there, but that 10 minute walk is enough of a time penalty to make the bus route faster and/or more convenient (the particularly more convenient when the weather is less than ideal, as is often the case for bulls/hawks games).

however, if there were a pink line stop at madison (only a 2 minute walk from the UC's front door), i'd never consider taking the bus again.

i STRONGLY suspect that there would be far more than one trainload of other UC attendees who would find similar such calculus advantageous to them as well.

I see it the other way - the city will build an L stop if/when the team owners are ready to get serious about developing their parking lots (and the privately owned lots run by Wirtz/Reinsdorf cronies). Remember, developing those lots probably means the overall supply of parking goes down, and many fans will have to look for alternatives. That, plus any new land uses in the parking lot area unrelated to sports (residential, bars/restaurants, hotels) might actually provide enough traffic to support a station investment.

Right now, I don’t blame the city at all for focusing in a Damen stop that only kinda serves the UC. The management of the UC has made no indications that they want to encourage fans to arrive by transit. If they’re not serious about it, the city shouldn’t be either. It has to be a partnership to turn the UC into a transit-oriented facility like MSG, Barclays or CapitalOne Arena.

again, in a less ass-backwards city, every single last lever of pressure would've have been brought to bear by the city upon the UC's shitty ownership to turn it into a more of a transit-oriented facility.

don't ask, dictate!

^ Who's priority?

Why should building an L stop to the UC be a priority to Chicago and its taxpayers?

I'm not asking why it should be a priority to Skyscraperpage enthusiasts who think trains that they hardly use are cool and that "it will make us more hip like Barcelona", although I am sure that it is from this exact perspective that my answer will arise.

The question is: why does Chicago need an L stop built today, in 2022, at 2022? It won't do diddly shit for anybody. And it will cost like $200 million.

^ because a 20,000 seat arena that hosts 200 events/year and sits within 750' of an existing rapid transit ROW would already have a dedicated stop in any city that wasn't stupid.


20,000 people.

200 days/year.

4,000,000 people total.

strictly from a mathematical perspective, it's a complete no-brainer location for rail transit.

Do you hear yourself?

Maybe tax the new sportsbook they just allowed at the UC to cover it? Then you can have all the gambling junkies have easy access...its a win win

Only someone who's lived in a time where U.S. cities are mostly getting smaller or stagnating would ask something like that. People said the exact. same. thing. about the Morgan stop just a few years ago. We have a whole neighborhood that has a train running through it and there's no stop. It's close to downtown. Why plan for failure? Put a stop there and eventually it's going to pay off by leveraging our already considerable assets with transit.

There are people who spend over 30 minutes on the Red Line now that would love to spend 15 minutes on the Green Line to get to the Loop. And if it's only a 10 minute Divy ride to Fulton Market or Wicker Park, that's how you turn development on like a spigot.

Just 10 years ago if you lived at Fulton and May people would be like, "Where?" Now is might cost you seven figures. Short memories.

Most Americans in a nutshell, right there.

Newly opened Chase Center (opened Sept 2019) also has a Muni Metro stop. The T Third Line was already there before it was built, although the platforms were split into a northbound side platform and southbound side platform. During arena construction, they redid the station and combined it into a single island extended platform, to accommodate two two-car trains in each direction.

To me it seems like a no brainer to add an infill station to an existing line to service United Center especially in a high public transit usage city like Chicago.

https://goo.gl/maps/Bw6HiRpfCLDqrdyH8

When the Central Subway extension opens, the T Third Line will merge with the Central Subway to connect to Chinatown going through downtown SF rather than looping around the Embarcadero.
https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/...ys_web_3x2.gif