Quote:
Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21
Looks like a colossal waste of money. For the money you would be better off connecting Brown to Blue and triple tracking most of the way out to O'hare from there. THAT would provide much better access to O'hare AND add a lot of value to the everyday riders along those routes. I have no idea the obsession with the express train. It is just not worth it in my book.
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Looks like a colossal expenditure of money. For less money you probably could just TBM a mile or two tunnel from the NCS.
Also, do you have any clue what you're responding to? Those renderings could be exactly what you yourself are suggesting, just with a new terminal station.
If Brown is connected to Blue, that's nice, but it has extremely little to do with solving the airport access issue. If the Kennedy is widened, that would indeed be a wet dream of triple or twin double-tracking, but the concept of highway expansion hasn't been broached at all, so it's like a discussion where money is no object.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nomarandlee
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Those
renders are 12 months old, before Parsons Brinckerhoff was hired to examine routes, so they indeed reflect ideas that are now just place-holders. However they do remind us that the the idea of demolishing the Hilton could really open up space for better rail connections, even if just improving the pokey ATS and its podunk-scaled stations (only 1 tiny elevator and 1 narrow escalator per station) or, say, extending the CTA tunnel a couple hundred feet and have a modern-spec station where even express trains (with separate fare control) could berth.
Tantalizingly, demolishing the Hilton would also finally make productive all the under-used space on its north side, which is now just an intercity bus depot occupying what used to be Terminal 4 plus like 5 roadway lanes. The T4 bus depot could easily -- and should -- be relocated to the CONRAC area, so when combined with the dead space south of the Hilton, there's a very large area of land with tremendous potential.
Demolishing the Hilton would be somewhat of an architecture and planning loss. However new hotel construction is already being planned on the massive surface lot nearby. Afterwards, a modern hotel structure could even be erected in the space left over after redevelopment, nicely monetizing that land and providing amenities. I don't think any contractual terms with Hilton would be an obstacle.