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Originally Posted by ardecila
I know it's not sexy, but if we came into a few billion dollars, it needs to go towards rebuilding the north Red/Purple Line and renovating downtown stations.
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I dispute this being “not sexy.” Have we already forgotten the Wilson renovation renderings? What we’ll probably see is essentially a slow-motion new rail line constructed north of Addison, which is a lot of stuff to salivate over even if it is just modernization.
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As I mentioned a few pages back, decent transfer facilities at Jackson/Van Buren and State/Lake would be huge, even better than the one at Roosevelt.
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I actually think this would be pretty marginal—although you’d be sheltered from the weather, distances would be about the same and constructing a shallow mezzanine to allow people to transfer without going through faregates could get expensive. I think the window for doing this has already passed—
it was considered during the mid-nineties but ultimately not done, either due to lack of funds or local opposition (can’t remember, or find a cite, for which).
Emathias and Justin Chicago’s ideas—or ones very similar to them—were suggested in
the 1980 transit expansion plan. I could possibly see it gaining traction as a means of relieving pressure on Tower 18, but unless you add another a bunch of new trains it would likely involve either sacrificing frequency along the local stations and near north side elevated or getting rid of them altogether (if the CTA ever judges Tower 18 completely unmanageable I think a grade-separated Clark Junction plus diversions to a Larrabee-Clinton Street line—likely terminating at Union or Harrison—more probable).