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Old Posted Jan 26, 2021, 1:38 AM
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ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,356
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tcmetro View Post
Currently, the Red Line runs every 2-3 mins for north siders and every 5-6 mins for south siders at peak. Basically, every other trip goes from Howard to 95th in the AM (and vice versa in the PM) and goes out of service instead of turning around. Cutting these trains back at 18th St makes sense operationally, but this would be a very capital intensive service. Also, to add more service to the Red Line, CTA is proposing a big yard between the Michigan/116th and 130th stations. There's going to be more need to run trains to the south side to go in and out of service. If this L stop happens it might make more sense to send the Brown, Pink, and/or Purple lines down.

I'm not a fan of the public investment they want for the development. The primary public benefit of the project is the hairbrained transit component. Amtrak does not make operational sense here, and the Grand Crossing project is going to reroute Amtrak trains to avoid the St Charles Air Line. The Chi-Line proposal makes sense but it largely uses existing infrastructure. The station will likely primarily serve Metra and South Shore riders going to Soldier Field.

My last criticism is that the podium seems to have a lot of retail space. Given how retail is trending downwards and the existence major retail districts on Michigan, State, and Roosevelt, I'm surprised that so much space has made it into the plan.
A Red Line connection actually makes sense. I'd probably use it to run full-time express trains to the North Side - essentially making the Purple Line have 22-hour service and running it in the subway instead of the Loop. But I'd swap the North Side service so Red Line trains to 95th run express and Purple Line trains to Museum Campus run local. Evanston folks can change to the Red Line for express service, since they already have a one-seat ride to downtown with Metra.

I don't know how they can physically build a Red Line connection to One Central, though. There's not a lot of room where the South Main Line crosses over the SCAL, you'd have to tear down a decent sized condo building.
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Last edited by ardecila; Jan 26, 2021 at 1:49 AM.
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