Well, technically you can get to either outbound or inbound from either side via the bridge. I would assume that almost everyone who came inbound in the morning would also be going outbound after work.. so I would say a lot at that time... just as in the reverse of the morning commute but obviously not as dramatic as at a busier loop L station.

Either way, was just a minor thing that seemed weird given that the plans are mirror images aside from that. I frequently encounter out of order turnstiles, so adding even just one extra one where there is obviously space makes sense to me. One morning at the Damen stop going inbound two of the three turnstiles were not functioning and there was a long slow line proceeding into the station...

Glad to see that the platforms are being built to accommodate 8-car trains from the outset. If the Brown Line is any indication, that's probably something that you don't wanna have to retrofit.

I can't tell from the renderings... I'm guessing the canopies will be the same Kalwall that's used at Belmont and Fullerton?

Also, how sick would it be if the metal cladding was made of Cor-Ten?

Perforated
http://www.dailytonic.com/wp-content...-mandrup_1.jpg
Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter

Vertical Slats
http://www.seangodsell.com/sites/def...03%201024w.jpg
Sean Godsell Architects

I have a question... I probably asked this before, but it's been awhile.

Land use changes can improve the ridership of any transit line, but realistically, upzoning is unlikely in most areas of Chicagoland. Where is there a high-volume demand, currently not served adequately by transit, that can be improved by the expansion of transit services? This can be either in the city, the suburbs, or both.

None of the current proposals by any of the three service agencies are likely to make a dent in regional traffic patterns. The Circle Line probably does not have enough density around it to justify its enormous capital cost. The Mid-City Transitway has a chance... it doesn't need to link up with the existing L system, so it could be built as light rail or BRT instead of heavy rail. This may bring the costs in line with the ridership potential.

^Do you mean not served by rail transit, or not served by any transit? As sometimes noted here, several CTA bus corridors have boardings substantially greater than a number of new start light-rail lines around the country. The North Lake Shore Drive buses have boardings that are several times greater than the Green (South) or Pink Lines.

Do you think additional investment is necessary in those corridors to handle growth? Or does the current system provide an adequate level of service?

Light-rail along Lake Shore Drive might be successful, but the trains would not be able to zag westward into neighborhoods like the buses do, so riders would be stuck with a transfer or a significant walk to get to their homes.

My question is really motivated by transportation campaigns in LA, Denver, Houston, and elsewhere. In these cities, planners were able to latch onto the public distaste and annoyance with congestion to sell the public on a dedicated package of improvements and a tax increase to go along with them. Not all of the projects proposed in these cities are slam-dunk ideas, but many of them will serve transit-poor areas where the introduction of transit has the potential to effect great change. Look at LA's subway to the sea... it's not just a congestion reliever, it's a clear concept and an almost romantic idea.

Could Chicagoans be sold on a similar massive transportation package? If so, what should it contain?

In Sunbelt cities, there's a lot of wishful thinking that if I vote for this, everyone else on the freeway will take the train so I can drive to work faster. Chicagoans already have a well-rounded transit system, so there's no slam-dunk idea that everyone agrees is a crying need.

As we've discussed, the lakefront express buses are a tradeoff between convenience and legibility. Everyday commuters like the convenience of stops at their corner; casual users and fanboys like the legibility of seeing a big thick line on the map. I do wish there were a way to get the north lakefront buses in and out of downtown faster than mixed traffic on LaSalle or Michigan.

LA's Wilshire Line should have been built decades ago; the corridor has had a bus scheduled every 90 seconds for many years.

I'm a near-daily user of transit in Chicago, and a rainfan, but I would never support any rail along Lake Shore Drive. Too much of LSD is too far from the population of residents for that to be a reasonable choice, ever. Either put rail under Clark and/or Broadway, or keep using buses, perhaps creating express bus lanes in some areas to expedite things. But rail, even light rail, along LSD would hinder, not help, transit on the North Side.

It should include a program of integrating existing systems, active encouragement of TOD near rail stations and major bus interchanges, rejuvenating existing lines that are in need of it (North Main), and the selective addition of a few additional lines in the central area to link major centers (again, in conjunction with TOD zoning and incentives). It should be planned as a continuous expansion of existing services, with well-defined projects that developers and residents can plan for, depend on and work around. Planning as continuous projects will help keep costs controlled by eliminating stop/start costs, and getting better rates on products and labor both.

I have ideas on what I'd like to see happen over time, depending on what we're willing to spend and how much population and business growth they can spur. The key idea should be to build a city that attracts businesses, attracts residents, and builds on the urbanity we already have.

I also recognize that there should be parts of the city that remain low-density, with fewer services, and that are relatively car-friendly. But these should not be the majority of the city, and they should be served in such a way that, when they need to, they can choose to get to and from the higher-density areas without a car.

What exactly I think should be done varies by how much money a "massive" funding contains. At a minimum, I think rail lines should be brought into full-speed capability ($4 billion), that certain bus lines should be brought into BRT standards of speed and service ($500 million), that the existing express service the Purple Line provides should be made more of a true express and less of a commuter service ($200 million). Intentionally tie Metra service better into CTA service, including compatible fare methods and station locations ($100 milllion++). Almost any "massive" funding project would have enough money to do those things.

Past that, There are things I think are important but expensive, and other things that would be useful with good zoning if we could spur business and residential growth sufficient to fill additional TOD near new services. Below are some items I think are or could be important and useful, in roughly the order I personally think they are important. Some seem pie-in-the sky, but nearly all are dependant on achieving both business and residential growth within the City of Chicago. The more growth, the more of these will be both possible and necessary.

- Eliminate most left turns (maybe Ontario and Oak as the only exception) on North Michigan Avenue, and put a bus corridor in the center to expedite bus service through that corridor. ($125 million)
- Clinton Street subway ($4 billion)
- West Loop Transportation Center ($3 billion over the subway cost)
- Improve Peterson/Ridge for auto traffic to provide a faster, more reliable connection between the end of LSD and the Edens expressway. ($150 million)
- Elimination of all street-level crossings of CTA rail lines ($500 million)
- Distributor Subway as described in the Central Area Transit Project (CATP) of 1968 (the UIC/Monroe to Streeterville and McCormick place portions only) ($4 billion)
- Conversion of existing Metra Electric service to rapid transit levels ($250 million)
- Circle Line ($2 billion)
- Add light rail to the entire boulevard system. ($2.5 billion)
- Create a "I-190" spur from the curve by Chinatown north to connect to Wacker ($500 million)
- Send the Orange Line into a Dearborn/Clinton subway loop formed with the Clinton Street subway. ($350 million)
- Extend Brown Line to connect with the rails at the Blue Line. ($1 billion)
- Send Pink Line east along 15th Street to join the CATP lines, turning north to Streeterville, with transfers at the Circle Line and the Clinton Street Subway and the Green Line ($500 million)
- Increase through-routing capacity between Union Station and Northwestern. ($350 million)
- Convert Metra lines running through dense areas to electric, increase service to be at least every 20 minutes for 20 hours a day. ($2 billion)
- Convert all rail lines to be capable of automated operation ($4 billion)
- Mid-City Transit line, built in conjunction with a Mid-City expressway. Normally I'm against doing rail and transit together, but I think this could be done, but it MUST be done with TOD programs. ($3.2 billion)
- Curl the Mid-City Transit and Expressways east along around 79th to Red Line. ($1 billion)
- Build a connection capable of through-routing between the electrified north and northwest Metra lines to the current Metra Electric Millennium station. ($1.75 billion)
- Extend the Monroe-Streeterville subway north under Delaware and Clark to Fullerton and west , eventually jogging back south to Bloomingdale west of the River. ($3.0 billion - including Bloomingdale to Kedzie)
- Instead of joining the Clinton Street subway to the Red Line, run it along the rail ROW between Canal and Stewart, providing better service to Bridgeport. ($1.25 billion)
- Run the Circle Line south of the Orange Line near Ashland and then east near 35th ($2.5 billion)
- Extend the subway under Clark/Broadway to Wilson and then west to join the Brown Line ($2.5 billion)

That comes to an estimated $45.225 billion. Doing all that would likely take 20 years if really planned tightly. 40 years might make a better goal. That's $1-2 billion per year, most of which would be new spending. Even if, with financing, we spread some of the costs over 60 years at a low rate of interest, and get the feds to contribute 50% of the costs, we'd be looking at a best case annual cost of around $500 million.

In a city of 3 million, a region of 10 million, is that a lot of money? Over 60 years of payment, if the Feds pick up half the tab, that works out to about $40/month for every household in Chicago - not even making the suburbs pick up any of the cost. That's less than what most households spend on mobile phones. It seems reasonable to me, but it might not to someone who makes $10/hr.

Some of these programs would likely result in additional operating costs, too, which have to be factored in. I don't know how to factor that cost, though. I think with a strong push to pull jobs into the city and to create spaces people want to and can afford to live in the city, in those 40 years of construction, we could end up with a city that comfortably holds a new population of 5 million. 1.5% annual growth is what that would take. That's high, but not unattainable.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...0,174357.story


Metra safety equipment to cost $100 million

High-tech devices could have overridden human error in fatal crashes

By Richard Wronski, Tribune reporter

March 22, 2010

Metra plans to spend $100 million to install a high-tech system that would keep trains from colliding or prevent a distracted engineer from speeding through a warning signal to slow down or stop.

Such a safety system would have overridden the engineer's error that caused the September 2005 derailment of a Metra train, killing two women and injuring 117 others on Chicago's South Side, federal officials said.

...

Metra officials said Friday that they expect to have the system running sooner than 2015.

...

The $100 million to pay for the PTC system will come from the state's capital program, officials said.

Installing PTC throughout the Chicago area faces enormous technical challenges, officials said. "We have the most complicated freight/commuter system in the United States," Pagano said.

Each day, the region handles more than 1,300 trains, 800 passenger and 500 freight. Six of the continent's seven largest railroads operate here.

"Everybody's locomotives need to work with each other," said Bill Tupper, Metra's director of operations.

The BNSF Railway Co. got federal approval to install the high-tech system in its locomotives in January 2007.

Amtrak has spent $20 million over the last 10 years installing PTC on its high-speed rail line from Porter, Ind., to Kalamazoo, Mich., spokesman Marc Magliari said.
...

Dunno why I'm so fascinated by this silly little projects...but I am. ;) The latest news on everybody's favorite idea: the garden car!

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/cta-...or-a-year.html

I noticed walking home the other night that the CTA has finally added secondary *entrance* capability to the Merchandise Mart station. They had those exits, but only recently have I noticed them added entrances. Granted it's a lot of stairs, but I think it was overdue to add the entrance capability in that area.

Anyone know when exactly they were added?

Farecard-only entrances at Merchandise Mart station supposedly opened March 6.

[continued from General Development thread]

The 72 bus—at the height of morning rush hour—takes nine minutes from Red Line to Blue Line. So, for only a billion dollars, the Circle Line would "massively cut down the length of such a commute via transit" from 55 minutes to 52.

^^^ That's nine minutes subject to massive unreliability. As we all know, bus bunching and other CTA phenomena can greatly affect the official schedule. Also if there is any unplanned obstruction, the bus will be caught up in it. We all know that snowy weather or a car accident can completely choke up the bus system here and snarl it for hours.

Whereas nothing, like an unattended backpack or sick passenger, ever delays a train. Or all the trains on a particular line.

But you know, we can now do actual empirical research. Name the half-hour that you think is the height of morning rush hour, and tomorrow morning we can watch the progress of three North Avenue buses in a row on Bustracker to see if nine minutes is accurate.

I've been stuck with more train delays than bus delays over the years.

From an admittedly anecdotal viewpoint: train delays happen far less frequently than bus delays, but when they happen, they take much longer to resolve. Bus delays are much more frequent but are less severe in the general case. Again, just my experience. But think about every time you've seen bus bunching on your route: that's likely an indication of delay. (Though I'll admit--as biased against busses as I am ;)--that the bunching issue has gotten better in the last couple years.)

Or to put it another way: the way I use the system is to know the routes, leave my house to go to a pickup point on the route of my choice and expect a bus or train to get me shortly after arriving at that point. While maybe not the most realistic expectation in the world (esp. after the recent service cuts), this is how a lot of people use the system and how they set their expectations. The bus tracker is nice enough, but I really don't want to wait around in my house until the next bus is coming...I want to leave when I'm ready and get picked up shortly after I arrive at my stop. Given those expectations, which mode of transport is most likely to meet my expectations? Based on experience, I'd pick trains every time.

Has anyone seen the 5000 series test train running with the blue cta cab graphics?:

http://www.railwayage.com/images/sto...uce-moffat.jpg
*

Interesting branding. I guess the rumors of a paintjob weren't unfounded. This also answers (somewhat) the question of how to quickly identify a train at a transfer station now that roll signs are gone. Presumably, the end caps of each car would be painted with the line's color. Since the Blue Line is getting the first batch of 5000s, this endcap is painted blue.

Doing this makes it more time-consuming to move cars from one line to another, but that isn't really a problem with the isolated but well-patronized Blue Line fleet that is more likely to have cars moved onto it than off of it.

If this just uses the same wrapping technology used for the advertising campaigns, I can see this becoming a very cheap way to modernize and continually update the look of L trains.

Are the CTA pensions for new hires subject to the state rules the legislature just revised? If so, how will the new rules affect the CTA's budgeting process?

I saw it at O'hare over spring break. All I have to say is "Helvetica strikes again!" :(

No, but a series of broadly similar reforms were put in place for the CTA pension plan as part of the 2008 legislation. On one hand, some of the CTA pension reforms weren't as steep - I think the unreduced retirement age was raised to 65 instead of the state's 67, and the pension is still based on final 4 rather than final 8 as with the state. On the other hand, the CTA pensions also now statutorily trigger automatic adjustments to the employee and employer contributions to the pension fund to achieve an actuarial funding balance, which I haven't heard mentioned regarding the current state pension legislation. This means that, for example, in 2010 CTA employees had to increase their paycheck deduction for pension contributions because the fund missed it's funding target during 2009.

Stuff like retirement age and double-dipping is just window dressing - requiring that ongoing contributions to the fund match actuarial calculations on fund liabilities is really the only true way to stabilize a pension fund. A big part of why all the pension funds got in such a wreck of a position is that the employee contributions were simply set as a fixed percentage of pay in labor contracts, with employer contributions simply set as a fixed multiple of the employee contributions - with exactly zero regard as to how those contributions related to the actuarial liabilities of the fund as manifested by the retirement benefits promised in the same labor contracts that specified the contributions.

Why get ride of the roll signs for the train cars? How do you tell what train line it is if you don't happen to see the very front of the train if you are running to catch it?

That was exactly my thought: how do you tell if you can't see the front? I'm guessing they must have some solution for this.

^I'm sure the cars will have digital signs in place of the roller curtains. You can see one on the front of that 5000 series photo.

You can also familiarize yourself with the marker lights on a approaching train as I have. The top set of 8 lights on the front of each train has a distinct pair of illuminated lights to identify where the train will be terminating on each line. This has been done since the 1940's to let the tower operators know in advance which way to through the switches.

RED LINE
Double Yellow- Howard, Dan Ryan
Red, White- Roosevelt, Wilson

GREEN LINE
Double Yellow- Harlem/Lake, Ashland/63
Double Green- 63rd/Cottage Grove
Green, White- to Loop only

BROWN LINE
Green, Red- Kimball to Loop
Red, Yellow- Belmont

ORANGE LINE
Red, Yellow

PINK LINE
Red, White

YELLOW LINE
Double Red

PURPLE LINE
Double White- Linden to Loop
Yellow, Red- to Howard only

BLUE LINE
Double Yellow- O'Hare, Forest Park
Double White- Jefferson Park, Belmont/Kimball, UIC-Halsted
Double Green- Former runs to 54/Cermak

Run in Express Mode..
Flashing Double White

Extra readings
Double White for out of service and lay ups
Double Green for the CTA logos

For more info on marker lights check out http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/...s/markers.html

Great info, Shawn! Thanks.

I'll have to squint a little less every time I look down the tracks and wonder, "is that a Brown Line train or a Purple Line train." They are nearly indistinguishable from a distance (to me, anyway).

If you look closely in the photo, you can also see a large blue circle with "cta" written inside of it, on the side of the car. Currently, you can't really tell what kind of train is coming if you look down the tracks (a big deal at Loop stations) so this solves that problem without requiring riders to memorize the marker lights. :rolleyes:

The cars have LED destination signs, but they do not have colors, just amber lights that spell out the terminal. It sort of defeats the whole purpose of colored lines, especially for people unfamiliar with the line terminals that try to board at a transfer station.

Colored LED signs are more expensive than one-color signs, but I don't know why they couldn't do what WMATA does and install a small colored LED on either side of the one-color sign that displays the line color. WMATA's LED signs also spell out the line color, i.e. they will display the word "YELLOW" or "RED", etc. Of course, they also have the next-train countdown signs in all stations that allow riders to know the destination, as well as audio announcements.

These are testing cars, so I'm hoping that CTA makes changes to the final order (colored LEDs) before Bombardier begins mass production.

When Titian put up the LCD monitors in some stations that display ads they were also supposed to give info on when the next train would arrive. I have not seen the time on the next trains arrival for awhile, anyone know what is going on with this? This is a very nice feature that I really liked at many of the train stations I used in Europe.

Traintracker is in beta, but there apparently are some stubborn problems with track blocks near terminals.

^ It's not just the signal system, which apparently is mostly reliable at this point with only a few exceptions - there were also some basic network technology issues that weren't adequately worked out before the LCD display project was rolled out in typical Huberman-esque fashion (i.e. rushed to get the newspaper headline with approximately zero thought put into the actual project execution from a technical or financial standpoint). Train location data has to be fed from CTA's control center to Titan's own servers that distribute the advertising content to the displays, and apparently somewhere in that data flow there was too much unreliability and delay.

Why it has taken months (and counting) to work these issues out is a very good question with no official answer.

According to Crain's, the CTA is re-applying for that $150 million BRT grant that they lost last year.

Sorry, too lazy to post the article...

God I hate BRT. Is there any plan to eventually convert it to LRT after its built? (If CTA does get the grant, that is)

It would be street-running BRT, so I both think and hope they wouldn't convert it to LRT, as LRT running in traffic is slower than even local buses.

All my bitching about the service cuts and I don't even notice a difference from before. I don't own a car so the CTA is my means of getting around except a cab here and there. I am on the CTA almost everyday and so far to me nothing has changed. Thus certainly were some targeted cuts.

I've noticed less frequent buses in the morning and evenings. Enough that I've taken a few more taxis, but not enough for me to stop taking buses at all.

Helvetica bashing? you must be a graphic designer;)

My favorite bus, the 147, has had some nasty shortening of its schedule. It only runs til like 930 on weekdays now. :( Also its only until 11 or so on weekends. Thats a real shame seeing as how its probably the most useful bus in the entire city when it comes to the number of miles you travel in one trip and the time it takes. I would argue that the 147 is the most bang for your buck out of all means of public transportation. I mean RP and Edgewater are like 30-45 min from downtown by train. The 147 is like 10 min to downtown from my apt (6 miles!) during off peak hours.

Couldn't they provide a fairly accurate system based on the same GPS system that the buses use? If it is problematic to get information from the signal system, then just ignore the signal system and install relatively inexpensive GPS devices in each linked-pair of railcars.

^How would you get GPS signal in the subways? Or on the Loop, between tall buildings?

We all talk a lot about TOD here, but there is one repeat offender that rarely gets mentioned:

That little Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts combo thingy.

Yeah 5 story condo/apt buildings next to train stops is ideal, but it's kind of hard to achieve that in this market, and it sets a shitty precedent that near a handful of north side L stops you'll see one of those BR/DD strip mall combos, newly built, in place. If the city has worked with grocers and Walgreens/CVS to improve their design, why don't they go after these little guys as well? They're all over the city with their little suburban stores and accompanying drive thru. And right next to L stops, to boot.

It's not the biggest thing in the world for the city to tackle, but I"m kind of wondering if there is anyone in the Planning/Zoning Dept that has tried to get BR/DD to at least make their design more pedestrian-oriented, especially adjacent to a transit stop? Because from the way I'm looking at it, they are so far NOT getting the message.

Well when it gets to parts of the system that don't have GPS available it should be even easier. For example they could even use the cellphone receivers installed in the subway to tell exactly where the car is. The receivers are installed at equal increments so they could just install essentially a cell phone onto each car that would tell which antenna its closest too and then just send the location of that antenna to the traintracker system. When above ground they could just have the traintracker system triangulate the location of the car, or not even since the train travels along a fixed route, you have no need for triangulation since you can only be moving in one possible direction so the subway technique would work well here too.

Also, I don't see how this is that challenging. I mean I've looked into the booth at Howard that shows all the switches and train locations. Their signaling technology clearly knows where every train is, how does TrainTracker not know it? If they had to they could just hook whatever that computer I see is up to the TrainTracker.

Yes, the reductions in service span were generally the most impactful. Service frequency can trigger demand elasticity but only beyond a certain point - otherwise the frequency is just serving to meet demand according to a certain target vehicle load. To wit: rail ridership is still increasing on a year-over-year basis despite having had significant reductions in off-peak service.

GPS issues are part of it, though in theory not insurmountable (the bus system uses a combination of GPS, gyroscope, and odometer readings to determine the location in places where the GPS signal is poor or unreliable). I think there's also just a practical consideration of continually patching on new systems. The bus system is fully integrated: a driver sits down, punches in his ID and his run number, and the system automatically pulls up the correct route and schedule to tell him when to depart the terminal, calls out stops, tells him if he's early or late at time points, all while logging a full stream of vehicle location and passenger boarding data. In an ideal world railcars could have something similar, but ...

As with so many things, there are a number of ways to do it, and sometimes someone just needs to take complete ownership of the decision and dive in, for better or worse. Ron Huberman did that often at CTA in his short tenure, with mixed results - the rail arrival predictions is one example where his gusto hasn't worked out so well. On the flipside, the current architecture for Bus Tracker (tying into the aforementioned fully integrated bus data system) was basically Frank Kruesi's self-initiated baby, and the product has turned out well by most measures, so I consider the comparison an instructive lesson comparing the outcomes of taking the time to do it right versus rushing an implementation.

So does anyone know at which end of the Eisenhower they are going to start the 27 miles of repaving at?

I've noticed a difference, particularly on the #9 bus. The drivers are a little too cognizant of the bunching problem now. In the mornings, the #9 Ashland bus going South will stop at green lights to slow down. Even at 5:30am, it takes 30 minutes to get from Belmont to Harrison, a whopping 4.5 miles.

http://www.dot.il.gov/I290/i-290.pdf

It actually looks like it's going to be a bunch of separate projects and they are going to do them all at once. Done by the end of October.

Arriving early at a timepoint ("running hot") is considered a pretty serious offense for CTA drivers. Sitting through green lights in early morning hours is the price you pay for schedule reliability. Should the run cutters shave a few minutes off the 5:30 am run? Maybe, but in most cases it wouldn't actually "save a bus" over the entire route (allowing another trip with the same number of vehicles). So all you'd really be doing is giving the drivers longer layovers at the end of the route, with less slack if there was a problem en route.

More importantly, people who get to a stop on time might miss the bus because the bus went through the stop a couple minutes early.

I understand...but it does nothing to add riders when a bus averages 9 miles an hour with noone on the streets. That's why the express buses were important, particularly on Ashland, where there's clearly a need for them.

Ugh I am not looking forward to the traffic on the eisenhower during the resurfacing project. what does "expect major delays" mean in terms of time?

Probably an extra 30 minutes, Post Office to Mannheim at 5:30 pm.

CTA already has a software system tracking trains, probably using proximity switches intergrated into the signaling system. I see it on in the attendent's booth of the Roosevelt Red Line Station all the time. A public version of train tracker would just have to convert this information into time estimates for display in stations. A Satilite based GPS is not needed.

I've actually seen CTARailTracker operating on a CTA employee's smartphone, so we're not terribly far away from rollout.