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Old Posted Jan 5, 2021, 7:42 PM
galleyfox galleyfox is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
Yeah I got the same impression at the last McCormick Place public meeting, talking to the Perkins + Will planner who flew in from San Francisco (the Orange Line spur idea seems suspiciously like the BART spur to SFO). But I just chalked it up to the wild-eyed spirit of the early project planning phase.

There's gotta be somebody at the agencies willing to pitch them an actually useful package of transit improvements, though. If they want to pay for something, there's no shortage of needs. At the very least, the 18th St Metra station needs rebuilding and should be accessible, and the busway runs under their site and could become a useful piece of CTA infrastructure with a few ramps and turn lanes. What have they been doing for the past 2 years? Certainly there was a pause while Emanuel and Reifman gave way to Lightfoot and Cox... so presumably a fresh team of planners got a look at this project.
I’m curious about the motivation. If the developers just want to build a shopping mall and high-rises, and some federal agency is doing some back-scratching...then go for it and drop the transit charade.

Because otherwise the only plan that would interest and benefit both the city and the developer would be to tunnel under the Loop and somehow connect the Metra Electric to either Ogilvie or Union tracks. And I can’t even imagine how many billions that would cost.

Fantasy Chicago Transit Fix-it Map
https://www.google.com/mymaps/viewer...EMUz4&hl=en_US
Source: Alon Levy
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