I doubt the new cars will be sent to the most logical lines for them.

Why? Because the most logical lines are the most heavily used ones, and the most heavily used ones are on the North Side, and the North Side is the most affluent part of the city. Can't look like they're only giving the shiny new trains to the affluent people, can they?

Well, the red line is heavily used and runs on both the north and south sides. If they use these new cars for the Red in addition to either the purple or brown, they should be safe from that appearance.

Just means they won't go to the Brown Line, but either Red or Blue are pretty diverse, ethnically and income-wise. Of course, Brown is very diverse (Albany Park? Old Town?) but CTA already got enough grief on rebuilding the stations, even after doing the Cermak and Lake/South Main first.

Every single mile of trackage south of Roosevelt has been either built or rehabbed in the last 30 years. The Dan Ryan branch, the Douglas Park branch, the South Side Main Line (ie Green Line) have been rehabbed, and the Orange Line was built with a higher standard of concrete construction that won't need reconstruction for years.

The west side has seen the Lake Street branch rehabbed.

The most desperate needs for track repairs ARE on the North Side, despite what people on the South and West Sides think. The North Side Main Line (Red/Purple) is literally crumbling, and the Logan Square and O'Hare segments of the Blue Line desperately need repair. The signalling systems on the North Side need updating to handle the huge amounts of traffic.

The only line NOT on the North Side that HASN'T been rehabbed is the Forest Park branch, which despite its lack of rehab still has no slow zones other than about 3 blocks' worth going into Forest Park station.

^You're making the mistake of arguing rationally in an argument that will governed by politics and ergo, emotion. Rationally, based on need (and weighting each paying customer the same, or worse, weighting them by the average fare they're paying) would have had all the North Side lines in pristine shape years ago (with 10-car Red Line capacity and a Clark Junction flyover) and the Green Line probably would have been mothballed.

Bingo.

anyone else catch how fast the green line has grown in recent years? it's over 41k rides per weekday now.

Hmmm.. even irrationality has its limits. When EVERY SINGLE South Side line has been rehabbed, what more can they ask for? The Red/Orange Line extensions are in planning phase.

alex, I attribute the Green Line's growth to the Red Line reconstruction work that finished up relatively recently, pulling Red Line riders over to Green, and an increased development level in downtown Oak Park. If CTA really wants to live dangerously, a station or two in the West Loop and a station or two in the South Loop between Roosevelt and 35th would really tap into a whole wealth of new development and new ridership potential.

One more question... Does a Green/Orange station between Congress and Roosevelt make sense, at Balbo or 8th? The pattern established on the Loop for supporting dense development is a station roughly every three blocks.

let's look at the numbers for the green. You're right, much of the new growth is occurring towards Oak Park (Lake) but most of the growth on that line is happening from Conservatory (+11%) in. Ashland is up 37%, clinton up 24%. Those 3 stations accounted for about 317,000 added rides in 2007 (the rest of the green line combined added about 176k rides a day).

this has been for the past 4 years the fastest growing rail line in the system. A few stations on the south side (between Roosevelt and IIT) should also be heavily considered (in addition to the ones in the west side you talked about).

anyhow, it's gone from pathetic ridership numbers (in the 20k range 7 years ago) to something that's a bit more respectable.

weekday averages for October, percentages YTD.
2004: 32,414
2005: 35,884 (lake +9%, south elevated +10%, 63rd +5%, ashland +3%)
2006: 37,415 (lake +11%, south elevated +15%, 63rd +11%, ashland +7%)
2007: 41,316 (lake +8%, s. el. +3%, 63rd -5%, ashland -1%)

up 27.4% since 2004.

^ I started a thread about 2 years ago predicting that the Green Line will undergo the fastest growth in ridership in the future. I stand by that assertion. I'm not too sure about the west side, but with all of the development planned or u/c in Bronzeville, as well as with a pro-development city council and Alderman, not to mention that the south side branch of the green line has frequent stops, I'm not at all surprised by the growth we're seeing.

^ Definitely agree with you here. If anything, I would argue that the Green Line should actually have 2 stops between 12th and 35th (instead of one). One at around 20th, and a second stop at around 28th. More transit stops will certainly promote development in the near south side, where people will be attracted to the prospects of a quick train ride into the loop.

That's just station entrances, there are about 70,000 green line boardings per day (including boardings in the loop). The Lake branch is heavily dominant (accounting for about 2/3), and heavily skewed towards the end of the line (mainly between Harlem/Lake and Central). The bulk of recent growth has been at the Ashland and Clinton stops*. The skew of the ridership to the end of the line, particularly circa the early 90s when the decision was being made, suggested at the time the line should be closed because running essentially an express train over an L superstructure is quite inefficient and the demand could have been met by adding a Central station on the UP-W line. There really was just no trip density between the Loop and about Cicero. Luckily, this is now, gradually, changing. The city will be building a station at Morgan as a CMAQ project, the design is currently underway and I think they hope to award a construction contract within the next 12-18 months. A study several years ago also recommended infill stations at either Damen or Western, and one at Cermak. I'd be shocked if the Cermak station didn't get accelerated if the Olympic bid materializes.

*EDIT: I see you already added some stats to this effect

The more likely scenario I think is that when Harrison is finally rebuilt, they re-open the Polk Street entrance at the south end.

the growth of green line ridership on the west side shows how shortsighted the decision by church leaders in Woodlawn was to tear down the green line tracks over 63rd st. to build shoddy aluminum-sided townhomes on a boulevard more appropriate for retail. the tracks running over Lake St. obviously haven't halted development on the westside. there is no reason to believe they would have done so in Woodlawn, either. Furthermore, crime in Woodlawn doesn't seem to have abated at all after the El teardown.

I didnt see this scheme posted:

http://chicagoist.com/attachments/Ma..._1_24.cta2.jpg

Also, for those asking for no-fabric, I actually believe their main purpose is as an anti-graffiti measure.

.......having been away from the Brown Line rehab for a while, I was glad to see that they're rebuilding the stations (and the supporting steel under them)........but is there any plan to rebuild the steel in between the stations ? ...I mean it's 100 y.o. steel.........how long can it hold up?

63rd was once an extremely busy retail area and nobody seemed to much mind the el tracks. The idea that they could have somehow salvaged 63rd by eliminating the tracks, which were basically irrelevant to the neighborhood's problems, seems misguided. Who knows, maybe if the tracks still extended farther east, they could someday be used by people going to U of C buildings south of the midway. It seems to me that a big problem with the two branches of the Green Line is that, since the line doesn't run that frequently to begin with (understandably), people who need to use one branch or the other have to wait so long there's almost no sense in riding at all.

My friend last night was recounting how he has accidentally sat in urine three times and blood once, all in the last year. This is because the fabric obscures the liquid and makes it hard to realize the seat is wet until seated.

I personally would far prefer a little graffiti over this scenario.

^ I agree that fabric on seats is a horrible idea. I also don't like a pattern that gives individual seats some sort of identity. The seating should be more bench-like, where people take up whatever space they need and aren't actually occupying an individual 'seat' in the car.

^ I agree, me and two (lady) friends could easily share one of those double seats if it weren't for that awkward lump/separator in the middle that would be ridding up my ass...

20th is a bit too close to the existing Red Line Cermak station. I'd like to see it closer to 16th, halfway between Roosevelt and Cermak.