Quote:
Originally Posted by le_brew
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heck, the ravenswood was just refurbished but it still runs slow as a snail. to me, that's a waste of resources. (i am not a regular commuter on this line, so someone who actually commutes would be better qualified to really assess.)
the downtown el is a nice symbol, and makes a great tourist attraction, however in modern terms, its very inefficient.
but hell, you're asking someone who adores the expressway median transit flyers which most on this board hate.
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Well, you illustrate one of the challenges the CTA experiences is that people *think* they understand what the CTA does/has done but people *don't* understand what it is the CTA has done.
That's in reference to the Brown Line - the CTA has NOT refurbished the Brown Line tracks - some really basic track work to keep it running, but the big money project you're referring to was only a rebuilding and extension of the stations and platforms so that they could accommodate longer trains (8-car trains instead of 6-car trains). That work did not include any serious work on the tracks in between stations.
The Pink Line did include complete rebuilding of the tracks and it does run a lot faster than it used to. The Brown Line tracks are not in as bad of shape as the Pink Line was. One could argue that the Brown Line could stand to be rebuilt in the same fashion, but it's been maintained better and it has more curves and would be a much bigger impact on riders during construction. I think the CTA would do better to propose extending the Brown to meet the Blue as a subway and, at the same time, converting the current ground-level portions of the line to a subway so that the entire length is grade-separated. One can dream, anyway.