CHICAGO | General Discussions

[left of center]

^ Something needs to be done with the "superstation" down there, otherwise I believe the city and/or state will have to pay back the federal funds that went into its construction. I would imagine that those lower levels are going to remain closed until a use is found for that station.

Honestly, I'd be happy with them just reopening the Washington red line station and transfer tunnel to the blue line at this point.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by left of center

^ Something needs to be done with the "superstation" down there, otherwise I believe the city and/or state will have to pay back the federal funds that went into its construction. I would imagine that those lower levels are going to remain closed until a use is found for that station.

Honestly, I'd be happy with them just reopening the Washington red line station and transfer tunnel to the blue line at this point.

It doesn't exist. It was completely removed to build B37's lower levels.

There's really not that much potential for the superstation shell to be used for rail. Maybe there's something creative you could do with it like an Amsterdam-style underground bike garage, but the only thing it's good for on the transit front is Daley's flawed Airport Express plan. I guess you could build a non-revenue track between Red and Blue Lines so it has some kind of transit purpose, if that gets the Feds to back off...

[LouisVanDerWright]

Couldn't they route trains back and forth between the Red and Blue lines down there? It would be Amazing to have alternate routes connecting the two lines.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright

Couldn't they route trains back and forth between the Red and Blue lines down there? It would be Amazing to have alternate routes connecting the two lines.

2 problems with this.

One, there isn't actually a connection there right now. They only built the section inside of Block 37's slurry wall "bathtub". They never connected this to CTA's existing tunnels, which would have been the most complicated part of the job. What exists right now is less of a tunnel, more like a big weirdly-shaped room in the basement.

Don't ask me how they managed to piss away $217M on some framing changes to the basement. It's almost like Daley conned the Federal government into subsidizing a boondoggle shopping mall in order to avoid political embarrassment for clearing Block 37 in the first place...

But suppose CTA spent another $300M to finish the job. The track connection wouldn't really be useful, because train service is a zero-sum game. Every train you route through Block 37 is a train that can't serve the Blue Line's Forest Park branch, or a train that can't serve the North Red Line. The North Red Line is almost at capacity, so by diverting trains you're basically screwing over the North Side. There would also be knock-on effects, since you're adding a flat junction to the busiest part of both Red and Blue Lines (after CTA just spent $1B to eliminate the last flat junction on the Red Line up at Belmont). The flat junctions reduce the absolute number of trains you can run.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by ardecila

2 problems with this.

One, there isn't actually a connection there right now. They only built the section inside of Block 37's slurry wall "bathtub". They never connected this to CTA's existing tunnels, which would have been the most complicated part of the job. What exists right now is less of a tunnel, more like a big weirdly-shaped room in the basement.

Don't ask me how they managed to piss away $217M on some framing changes to the basement. It's almost like Daley conned the Federal government into subsidizing a boondoggle shopping mall in order to avoid political embarrassment for clearing Block 37 in the first place...

But suppose CTA spent another $300M to finish the job. The track connection wouldn't really be useful, because train service is a zero-sum game. Every train you route through Block 37 is a train that can't serve the Blue Line's Forest Park branch, or a train that can't serve the North Red Line. The North Red Line is almost at capacity, so by diverting trains you're basically screwing over the North Side. There would also be knock-on effects, since you're adding a flat junction to the busiest part of both Red and Blue Lines (after CTA just spent $1B to eliminate the last flat junction on the Red Line up at Belmont). The flat junctions reduce the absolute number of trains you can run.

Too bad we can't use those freight tunnels for anything .

[ardecila]

Many of them are used as utilidors for the Loop. So you get telephone, gas, chilled water, fiber optic, etc stuffed in them taking up a lot of the available space. They're also pretty small to begin with, so unless you're planning on running these trains in them they wouldn't be much use for transit:


src

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Many of them are used as utilidors for the Loop. So you get telephone, gas, chilled water, fiber optic, etc stuffed in them taking up a lot of the available space. They're also pretty small to begin with, so unless you're planning on running these trains in them they wouldn't be much use for transit:


src

Oooooh that looks fun!!

[left of center]

Originally Posted by ardecila

It doesn't exist. It was completely removed to build B37's lower levels.

There's really not that much potential for the superstation shell to be used for rail. Maybe there's something creative you could do with it like an Amsterdam-style underground bike garage, but the only thing it's good for on the transit front is Daley's flawed Airport Express plan. I guess you could build a non-revenue track between Red and Blue Lines so it has some kind of transit purpose, if that gets the Feds to back off...

No kidding, I had absolutely no idea!

So the red line Washington station was demolished then as well? If the B37 Superstation tunnel isn't connected to the red or blue lines currently, shouldn't the station still be intact then? Or did the construction of B37 remove access to the station from the street or somehow make the station inaccessible?

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by left of center

No kidding, I had absolutely no idea!

So the red line Washington station was demolished then as well? If the B37 Superstation tunnel isn't connected to the red or blue lines currently, shouldn't the station still be intact then? Or did the construction of B37 remove access to the station from the street or somehow make the station inaccessible?

OK, so I'm actually mistaken - sort of. I thought the paid transfer tunnel was mid-block, but it's actually directly under Washington St as shown in the diagram above. So it's likely the tunnel still exists.

However, there is a problem at the east (Red Line) end. The Red Line through downtown was built as one long, continuous platform with mezzanines under the middle of each block. So there aren't discrete "stations", just stopping positions on that long platform and mezzanines every block. Those get assigned a certain name for maps.

Anyway, they demolished the section of the Red Line platform right where the stairs down to the transfer tunnel were located, and they likely filled in those stairs with concrete. This was in preparation to make the track connection to the B37 basement level. As far as I know, they stopped work shortly after and never went any further. This made the Washington-Madison mezzanine obsolete, and the Washington-Randolph mezzanine was re-signed for the Lake station.

[left of center]

Wow, that's some great info! Thanks for digging up (pun intended) the story on this!

That make sense that the mezzanine was demo'd since the northbound red line tracks would connect to the B37 station and had to cross over somehow. Rebuilding that mezzanine would not make sense from a financial standpoint since something still technically needs to be done with the 200 million "station" at the basement of B37.

This entire project really was and is a total quagmire. I think express trains to Midway might be the most feasible use of this station, since building a 3rd track around orange line stations would be far easier than doing the same on the blue line, since there's very little space to do so on elevated structure on Milwaukee, the Logan Square subway or the Kennedy median. Even with the orange line, you could only potentially easily do that for the stations between Midway and Halsted. East of Halsted and the orange line becomes elevated and the costs would go up.

Thanks a lot, Daley!

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by left of center

Wow, that's some great info! Thanks for digging up (pun intended) the story on this!

That make sense that the mezzanine was demo'd since the northbound red line tracks would connect to the B37 station and had to cross over somehow. Rebuilding that mezzanine would not make sense from a financial standpoint since something still technically needs to be done with the 200 million "station" at the basement of B37.

This entire project really was and is a total quagmire. I think express trains to Midway might be the most feasible use of this station, since building a 3rd track around orange line stations would be far easier than doing the same on the blue line, since there's very little space to do so on elevated structure on Milwaukee, the Logan Square subway or the Kennedy median. Even with the orange line, you could only potentially easily do that for the stations between Midway and Halsted. East of Halsted and the orange line becomes elevated and the costs would go up.

Thanks a lot, Daley!

Trips to Midway are already pretty fast, not sure there would be much benefit to an express that was marginally faster.

[harryc]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Trips to Midway are already pretty fast, not sure there would be much benefit to an express that was marginally faster.

at the time IIRC this connection was presented as a mechanism for re-routing for trackwork and problems, not as a planned regular route.

[left of center]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Trips to Midway are already pretty fast, not sure there would be much benefit to an express that was marginally faster.

Good point.

While there is definitely value in express trains to O'Hare, the blue line is a terrible alignment for doing that. Using existing rail lines, ala Metra's NCS or MD-W, would offer much better bang for the buck. It would still require a connection with the Blue Line coming out of O'Hare station, or better yet (although obviously more costly) running the line directly to the CTA O'Hare station itself. Good luck routing the line into B37 however, especially since there is a perfectly good downtown terminus for those lines at Union.

I think the best we can hope for with the B37 station is a non revenue rail connection between the blue and red, but good luck getting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to get that operational, especially since there's an existing connection with the blue to the rest of the CTA network (Paulina Connector).

[Rizzo]

Thanks for sharing the diagram of Block 37. I had no idea how the alignment worked, considering photos of that area are confusing to understand.

Just further confirms my expectation it will never be used. If I were visiting Chicago as a tourist, I’d either take a rideshare or the blue line. Express service really interests us as Chicagoans because we are familiar with how long the ride is to and from O’hare. But visitors may opt for convenience and familiarity. They’ll memorize the blue line as that one route to get to and from downtown with a whole lot of interesting stops in between to explore. Unless one is really familiar with the layers of mass transit, which most of the general public in the US is not, they aren’t likely to mix services. It may only interest international visitors from places where complex mass transit systems exist.

I think there’s a diminishing market for it. Business professionals will take high end taxi services, many locals will take other trains or buses to the blue line and visitors will opt for single mode use, relying only on the L system instead of mixing in buses or express trains.

[Chi-Sky21]

Sell it to Musk for his starting point for hyperloop...boom, problemo solved

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21

Sell it to Musk for his starting point for hyperloop...boom, problemo solved

That doesn't work either, unless you dig two levels further down. The superstation "shell" is at the same level as the Red and Blue line tunnels.

But yes, I think part of Rahm's commitment to the Musk tunnel was to put this station shell into use somehow. The city really can't afford to pay the money back to the Feds. But it's been quiet on that front for the last few years, so maybe the Feds are gonna turn a blind eye to the colossal waste of their money.

[the urban politician]

^ Wow, what will the West Loop look like in 10 years?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Wow, what will the West Loop look like in 10 years?

Hopefully it will look cool in 10 years...a lot of tech boom fuel right now - 2 West Loop companies got $100M+ new funding each in the last 2 days. With the fact that residential can occur north of Lake St now...and all the proposals, it'll be crazy to see this area in 10 years.

[Randomguy34]

I've been keeping track of the amount of units proposed and U/C in Fulton Market from 2020-2021, thank to this map from a fellow forumer: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...638113428&z=14

In just the past 2 years, for the census region bounded by Halsted, Madison, Ashland, and Kinzie, there have been 7,027 units. Assuming a household size of 1.5 ppl, this would be about 10,540 new residents. Even if there was a 50% slowdown in residential proposals over next 8 years, that would be 14,054 additional units on top of the existing 7,027. At the end of the decade, this would translate to over 31,000 new residents, with a density of almost 75,000 ppsm, by the end of the decade! For comparison, that's on par with the average density of Manhattan.

Do note, the downtown rental supply is still low while demand is high, and as Fulton St Co. have pointed out investors are hungry for Fulton Market. The area could honestly exceed this rough estimate by the end of the decade. Fulton Market could

[marothisu]

^ I could see it happening. Fulton Market is the cool new area for people with some disposable income with ample amount of entertainment. It's the most New NYC area that Chicago has and will just continue to attract these types of people as well as startups and the like. It's interesting how much some of these areas in and around downtown have added density. There's some parts of the South Loop now that are 75K - 90K ppsm for example.