Since I was the idjiot who started vicious unsubstantiated rumors about the Wellington L stop not being built I feel I should come clean and say it appears to be being worked on. They already have support beams going into place.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/transpo...nsit28.article

In the stimulus bill, they have allocated $1.545B for Illinois transportation. That's $1B for roads, and $545mm for mass transit. Out of $90B, Illinois gets 1.7% of the total allocation...for a state that comprises 4.3% of the country's population. We need some representation.

I thought our $1.545B in transportation money is out of a total of approximately $30B, which is a more respectable 5% of the total. The $90B figure included some other non-transportation infrastructure spending, like upgrades to the power grid.

...I think.

Well, I have looked around, and every media outlet is posting a different number. Some say that the $90B includes funding of rthe electrical grid and federal buildings.

This website says the number is $43B. I suppose it’s always a bad sign when they can’t even decide how big the money tree is…

http://www.newsday.com/news/printedi...,2061659.story

And this website has infrastructure spending at $334B.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/165009/Obama's-900B-Stimulus-'Post-Partisan'-It's-Not-But-Congress-Set-to-Approve?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,TLT,QQQQ,SPY,DIA

^ I heard $43 billion, which is directly for transportation

^^^
Ok, the number pushed through the House was $1.8B. The breakdown is as follows:

The stimulus package earmarks, in Illinois:
• $1 billion for highways and bridges;
• $262.5 million for the clean water state revolving fund;
• $352.8 million for transit capital;
• $191.8 million for light rail or other fixed route mass transit.

From - http://www.bnd.com/372/story/634547.html

To me, that is woefully inadequate on the mass transit side. I hate to berate Daley, but he’s done the city a huge disservice taking Huberman out of the top spot right as the CTA stands to gain a boatload from infrastructure spending.

I emailed CTA about this a few weeks ago. Here's what I heard:

I don't know, its pretty good considering the massive hard-on the federal government has for subsidizing the automobile.

We could build quite a bit of transit with that money. Also take into account we may still be getting another 100 million for the BRT as well.

I agree. Don't forget that this is NOT the federal transportation budget, it is the stimulus package. There will be separate bills to give additional money for long term transit projects. A lot of these projects are geared towards the type of employment they will create as well. There is a huge chunk for rebuilding schools, which makes a lot of sense since

a) it needs to be done
b) There are a lot of residential construction workers who can jump right into a school rebuilding job without much (if any) additional training.

.

That total amount is basically what it cost to rehab the Brown Line.

I'm glad they re-did the Brown Line, but this package is being talked about like it's the next New Deal. For the entire state of Illinois...Metra, CTA, Pace, all those other cities, Metro East.....the equivient of funding for a Brown Line reconstruction really isn't too special.

That money would vaporize in a heartbeat concidering all the issues that desperately need money, let alone expanding any systems.

It's like winning the jackpot in the lottery and getting $200. Sure it's great to get it....but not really what you invisioned "winning the lottery".

^ I think the point people are making is that this is essentially extra money, which is on top of the money Chicago will already get from a separate Federal Transportation Bill. I imagine this kind of money could be used to buy badly needed buses, rail cars, perhaps upgrade some basic infrastructure (signals, etc)?

Plus, with Bagofshit finally out of office, perhaps there's hope that Quinn will work with the State legislature to pass a badly needed infrastructure bill. Fingers crossed, there is yet hope that Chicago area transit will finally get at least a chunk of what it needs towards becoming a better system.

Acting CTA President designated

Dorval Carter. Anyone know anything about him? The press release about his initial hiring in 2000 is still on the CTA's website. Reading that, I'm not especially hopeful about him, to be honest.

It's good he has federal experience, but it's kinda old unless he's done more with it lately. That he was hired by Kruesi almost 9 years ago doesn't bode well for infrastructure and service maintenance. If he's just interim, I guess that's fine, but I kinda hope the CTA goes outside the City to get a new permanent chief.

It's interesting that our new Secy of Transportation and, now, the head of Amtrak are from Illinois. Bode well?

Downstate mayor to be new Amtrak chairman
By: Paul Merrion Jan. 30, 2009
(Crain’s) — Amtrak’s new conductor is from Illinois: Thomas C. Carper, former mayor of downstate Macomb, was unanimously named chairman by Amtrak’s board of directors yesterday.
Mr. Carper, a long-time supporter of passenger rail, has served on Amtrak’s board since last March. He was nominated to be a director by Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Il., a leading advocate of Amtrak in Congress.

^^^^I am curious since we are on the topic of money / expenditures......
just for shits and grins does anybody have any informed estimates of how much it would cost to say run line down ashland or western or both...?

Preferably subway.....I mean I think it would be great to allow transport among all the spoke lines instead of having to schlep downtown or at least to Belmont all the time

Subsidize it with doubling allowable density with say 2 blocks of a rail stop

Thoughts

Studies of this were done as part of the Circle Line planning. You can find comparisons of bus, light rail, and heavy rail along both Western and Ashland here.

I think Western heavy rail subway makes the most sense, but the study determined it was not cost effective.

I hate those mandated bullshit comparison studies. Anybody with a brain knows that heavy rail is this obvious solution. All these federal mandated studies do is spend double digit millions telling us something we already know.

On a side note, can anyone tell me if quasi-federal socialist countries, i.e. France, Germany and to some extent UK are required to do these silly things or does it go from expert and political consensus to digging dirt?

You act as if cities don't try to get more than what they need. The process is intended to prevent cities from building expensive transit systems when they don't have the density or the public consensus to build them.

For example, Miami's expensive heavy-rail line has 67,000 riders per day over 22.4 miles of track, or 3000 riders per mile. In contrast, Chicago's L has 620,000 riders over 106 miles of track for 6000 riders per mile.

On average, every mile of track built in Chicago serves TWICE as many people as a mile of track in Miami.

Let's look at Portland, which chose to build a cheaper light-rail system. They also have 3000 riders per mile per day, but because their transit system is cheaper to build and operate, the residents of Portland have gotten the same benefit as the residents of Miami for far less money.

Now look at New York City. They have a whopping 22,000 riders per mile per day, yet their system, with its extensive areas of 3 and 4-tracked lines, is to the L what the L is to Portland MAX Light Rail, an entire grade above.


Finally, let's take a critical perspective on this. Along the Western Corridor, from Berwyn to 79th, there is the 49 and the X49, which together have 31480 riders per day over 15.6 miles, or 2000 riders per mile per day. This isn't even high enough to justify a Portland-like light rail system, but even that would make more sense than a super-expensive subway line. Now, the ridership may be more concentrated within the Circle Line study area, but right now, it seems like the buses are doing a good job handling the traffic. The Circle Line alignment as it is currently chosen along Ashland allows costs to be reduced by using part of the Pink Line and by building elevated tracks through Pilsen instead of subway. Plus it avoids duplicating the bus service on Western.

^^^ What you seem to be forgetting is that buses are the less preferable choice for most commuters. What really drives people to take the train is traffic, which grade separated trains are immune to. Western is absolute hell during rush hours, bumper to bumper gridlock. Who is going to take a bus when you can practically out walk it? Also, a Western or Ashland Subway (would probably have to be subway because of the scores of NIMBY's that would protest a noisy El in their neighborhood) or El would be way faster than busses without traffic and completely blow them away with traffic. Not to mention the fact that an Ashland would provide a connection to all the lines, driving up ridership on all other lines as well by making the El an even more convenient way to get around Chicago.

I really like the idea of running something down Ashland because you could run it along the Metra Row and have it meet up with the Red Line at Howard while retaining an optimal ~1 mile distance between the lines most of the way. It would also be able to run along the Pink Line tracks by United Center and could terminate at the Orange line Ashland Station.

I have a feeling that a subway down Ashland or Western from the Brown Line to the Orange Line would cost at least $5 billion, much more if the line went further north. The #7 subway extension in New York is costing about $2 billion for about two miles of tunnel. I imagine a 5 mile stretch with no major corners in Chicago would cost a little under 5 billion assuming there is nothing in our soil that makes it more expensive. Now I would be much happier with a $5 billion stimulus to build a new subway from the Federal government!

^ @ Ardecila: To me, admittedly a total novice, the problem with this kind of analysis is that it cannot factor in true ridership increases or the potential upside to better improvements. In a city with extensive existing public transit ridership and poor interconnectivity, something like the Circle Line could draw far more ridership than current systems serve. Similarly, I do not trust the projected ridership studies very much.

Just to clarify, I was stating that heavy rail was the obvious solution for a Western or Ashland alignment in Chicago, Illinois and was not referring to a preference of heavy rail for any and all other random cities.