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Originally Posted by emathias
Regardless of where the headhouse is and the elevators are, I hope they at least put stairway entrances on both sides of Clark. I would imagine they will, but sometimes you never know. In a perfect world, I'd want at least stairway entrances on both sides of Clark and on 15th, but I can only imagine the pushback that might get. Actually, why does it need a headhouse at all? This seems like one of the few places Chicago might be able to implement entrances much closer to New York-style, which seems much preferable to me.
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New York style (or State St, Dearborn Subway) stations require fare control to be underground, which means a bigger excavation and higher costs. Depending on the station and the depth of the tunnel, there is either a mezzanine squeezed between the street and the platform level, or there are separate fare controls for each platform and riders cannot cross between platforms without exiting the station and paying again.
At 15th St, the Red Line tunnel is pretty shallow, so I'm not sure there is room to build a mezzanine between grade level and the roof of the tunnel. That means two separate fare control areas underground, with two station attendants, twice as many farecard machines and turnstiles, etc plus a bigger excavation and no way to cross between platforms.
Really the head house is the better solution, and there's no reason NOT to do it since CTA already owns the land. A mixed use building atop the headhouse would be nice - it's a non-starter today, but CTA could certainly add this in 20-30 years once the grant money is paid back.
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On an unrelated note, is there ever talk of putting a new Red Line station in at Cleveland and Clybourn? By even the most conservative estimate, it's exactly a mile between Clark/Division and North/Clybourn, with Cleveland being slightly closer to Clark/Division, but the way the streets are there it looks like Cleveland would result in the most functional location. It definitely wouldn't be cheap, but, especially if combined with a redevelopment of that Jewel-anchored shopping center and the vacant lots along Scott, it could easily become one of the most-used stations in the network over the decade following its completion. Was such an addition even slightly planned for during construction? Anyone else think it'd be useful, or would you rather just see any bucket of money big enough to build that station go toward a Clinton Street subway, with a station on Division at Larrabee or Harlsted or whereever it crossed Division?
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No talk of this. The 15th St station is only being pushed because Related as a single landowner will benefit tremendously and is willing to take on all that grief. Cabrini Green is split between many different developers with CHA and Holsten being the biggest ones. Nobody is proposing the level of density that the 78 will have, because CHA's staff has basically internalized the 1990s critiques of high density public housing. Cabrini Green when built-out will have a lower average density than most old-school Chicago neighborhoods, even the gentrified ones.
I still think the Clinton St subway is a good idea, but never really had political support. IN that scenario, the Red Line would shift to the new Clinton alignment for an easy connection to Union/Ogilvie, and would have a station at Division by the Target. The rest of the State Street subway would probably become a full-time Purple Line service.