This is the most recent thing I've seen on the Damen Green Line. Haven't seen anything on here about construction at the site.

https://chicago.curbed.com/2018/7/9/...p-perkins-will

I wonder when do the new cta 7000 series go into service and when do the proterra electric bus going into revenue service

The 7000s come first to test for a period of time non-revenue I believe and then sometime after that. Best guess 2022. The Proterra's will roll sooner.

Everyone, Streetblog Chicago wrote an article talking about the dire situation for the CTA(well, all public transit really) because of Corona. There is a link to send a message to your rep for a "bailout" for public transit(70% decrease in ridership!).

Streetblog: https://chi.streetsblog.org/2020/03/...ed-protection/
Link to message rep:http://action.smartgrowthamerica.org...tion_KEY=27006

Yeah, I also sent a message regarding intercity buses/trains. If the airlines get bailed out, all transit modes should.

Stating the obvious but this really is the worst possible scenario from a sociological POV regarding the benefits of mass transit. It's irrational but those who want to take a hatchet to it will use the epidemic to hammer PT. Conveniently overlooking all the downsides of individualized transport of course.

Have any of you ever seen an analysis of the impact of the 1918 flu on mass transit use? Did it accelerate the transition to the automobile, for example?

Interesting question. I doubt there was a large 1918 transition, however, as the U.S. was still really poor at that time, cars were expensive, and jobs were still hyperconcentrated.

I think post-WW2 recovery was the era of transition to automobiles. For the UK as an example, car modal-share in 1952 was still the minority, but 10 years later it had nearly tripled to 171 billion passenger-km.

https://i.imgur.com/5FewvjG.png

The New York Subway ridership data for the 1910s-1930 shows it was still strongly growing. Perhaps what the 1918 flu did was accelerate the move away from living in central city cores with rail (and later on by car).

http://web.mta.info/nyct/110Anniversary/ridership.htm

^ NYC's system also expanded continuously through the 1920s and 1930s, so I'd be surprised if ridership didn't grow, no matter what else was going on.

Remember that Chicago 100 years ago was plagued by frequent outbreaks of disease - cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, etc. People already assumed that city living was unsanitary and their baseline expectations for health and sanitation were much lower. I doubt the 1918 flu had a major effect on public opinion one way or the other, including when it came to transit ridership.

There also wasn't a feasible way to social distance - people were forced to continue their daily commutes to work (on transit) if they wanted to earn money and eat, the government certainly wasn't gonna do a bailout in that era.

Do anyone know when are the CTA going to start construction on the Green Line Damen/Lake station

^ Is this guy a bot?

You can't come here every 2 weeks and post the same question word for word. There is no news on the Damen/Lake station, especially with CTA and the City focused on coronavirus. When there is news, one of us will post it.

Who knows? If they're a bot I'm not sure what they're angle is. If they said "does anyone know about the Damen Green Line station... Killary, the Clinton Foundation and George Soros are trying to take the money away and use it for the new world order and pedophilia dungeons" I think the agenda would be more clear cut...

LOL that was funny.

Man, I just imagine he/she is like 14 years old and is into urban planning and lives next to the station, so they REALLY want this to start!

Yeah I wish the city would get off their a$$ and build the damn station, it's been like 3-4 years since it was announced... but that's just not how transit projects work. The process is intentionally designed to make new projects move as slowly as possible.

And in Chicago especially there's no transparency in government, so we'll never get an update until there's a piece of good news that a politician can take credit for.

Transit agencies are getting a "bailout" from the Feds. I wonder if it is enough?

CTA says no, but that's because they're not willing to furlough anybody or reduce service levels (which, basically, means the same thing). I'm not sure how much cutbacks they're allowed to actually make with union rules.

Certainly I wouldn't want to see permanent layoffs, the city will need the transit system at full strength once we pull out of this and training new people is lengthy and expensive.

Are other agencies still running full service? From what I saw everyone from NYC to DC to San Fran is cutting back on service, which certainly makes sense during rush hour.

I mean why are they running headways of three minutes on the red and blue lines now when there's no on on them? I've seen the trains, they're all almost entirely empty at rush hour.

Why not just run every 8-10 minutes all day at this point on all lines?

Running full service will help with social distancing, I guess.

I can see the trains very well from my apartment, they are empty. There is no need to run them every 3 or 5 minutes. Social distancing will happen with 10-minute headways.