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Originally Posted by Busy Bee
Bruh yes. An Eisenhower Blue Line extension makes total sense, as was briefly discussed several months ago. Bellwood and Maywood are just as dense as any city proper bungalow belt 'hood and this extension would be used. Should have been done decades ago. I actually think extension even further to the 88/290/294 interchange @ Hillside would be justifiable. An enormous park and ride with direct highway access could be built there which would encourage even more ridership. Tangentually related is that that same triangle would make an interesting site for a major sports/entertainment facility.
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There's not much demand for suburban CTA park and rides. The garage at Cumberland is pretty empty most of the time. If you're that far out trying to commute downtown, Metra is gonna offer much faster service while CTA will stop every half-mile on a long, slow, bumpy ride. The L isn't BART or the DC Metro which were built for long distances and high average speeds. Cost isn't even a consideration anymore - if Metra keeps offering a $6 Day Pass, it's only $1.50 more than a CTA round trip.
Any new CTA extensions should focus on catalyzing development and TOD, or at least on a feeder network of CTA and Pace buses. Unfortunately even the Red Line extension will include significant park-and-ride lots and garages at all 4 Roseland stations, going in the exact spot where the city should be building affordable housing.
I don't really support extending the Forest Park Branch for this reason (chasing park-n-ride users is idiotic) but if they're gonna do it, it makes sense to piggyback on the expressway reconstruction. The expressway project was going to create the median space for future rail regardless, but it's always more expensive to come back a few years or decades later to build rail rather than just building everything at once.