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Originally Posted by left of center
I'm all for expanding 290 to 4 lanes between Hillside and Austin. It doesnt make sense for it to go from 4 lanes to 3 lanes for a few miles and then back to 4 lanes again. It causes such a traffic nightmare at most hours of the day.
Definitely happy to see they want to rebuild the Congress branch of the blue. It would be great to get rid of the block long "ramps" to the stations, and simply replace them with stairs and elevators, ala the UIC-Halsted station. Removing the eyesore abandoned stations would be great too. I wonder how feasible it would be to add express service from Forest Park to the Loop as well? The Congress line was initially planned to be a 4 track line, which is evident from the unused subway portals just west of the Jane Byrne. Space would definitely be an issue, especially through Oak Park where there is barely enough room to widen 290 to 4 lanes and reorganize the off ramps from the left to the right lane.
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The Congress Line is built for 4 tracks from Halsted to Central, and then 3 tracks from Central to Desplaines.
Judging from the recent section of the Kennedy they widened to 8 lanes, they would need about 136' of total width to widen the Ike. Looks like they are planning to take the CTA's 3rd trackway through the Oak Park trench, but they would leave the 4-track section east of Central. To be honest, 3-track railroads kinda suck since they just pile up trains at one end of the line (this is why NYC subway doesn't use a lot of its center express tracks on 3-track sections). A mix of 4 and 2-track sections is better for an express/local service pattern.
One other aspect of the Eisenhower project that's not talked about is that they will build a regional path through the corridor, basically extending the Illinois Prairie Path eastward to Columbus Park. And the city is now working to convert part of the CSX Altenheim Line to a trail through North Lawndale too. That's two huge chunks of a West Side "bike superhighway" that would get built and could eventually extend to downtown.