CHICAGO: Transit Developments

[Beta_Magellan]

It’s also worth mentioning that the original Mid-City Expressway idea only went down to Eisenhower (then Congress) in order to connect Jefferson Park with the Oak Park. And in the Circle Line AA, south of 26th the station spacing there isn’t another stop until Archer—the west segment of the line would probably have more viability if it only stretched down to Little Village rather than all the way to Midway.

[emathias]

Although the CTA's estimates for a Red Line under Broadway are just lump sum and include work in Evanston and elevated portions, it appears they estimate the subway portion to cost $350-$400 million per mile plus $100-$150 million per station.

It is three miles from Kedzie to Central, which is just west of the Jefferson Park Blue Line station. There'd probably be a station stretching west from Kimball, at Pulaski, at Elston and then the station at Jefferson Park would certainly require a lot of rework.

Three miles of subway would threfore be $1.05 - $1.2 billion, plus $400 - $600 million for stations, so $1.45 - $1.8 billion to stretch the Brown Line to JP.

That's a lot of money, but here's the deal: Running the line east under Lawrence to Broadway and merging with the the Red at Lawrence is about 2 1/2 more miles of subway. Doing that, you'd probably drop some stations and end up with stations (east of Kimball) at Sacramento, Western and Damen (I considered Ravenswood, but I don't think there's enough Metra transfers potential to make it worth the cost of a third station, and there's too much existing traffic to skip Damen) plus a new station at Clark/Ashland. So 2 1/2 miles plus four stations = $1.275 - $1.6 billion.

Total for a Lawrence subway connecting the Red Line, Brown Line and Blue Lines ends up at between $2.725 - $3.4 billion.

Benefits of doing the whole route:

1) Eliminate car/train interaction between Western and Kimball, increasing safety, decreasing liability and reducing service disruptions.

2) Reduced noise and increased quality of life for homes currently along the Brown Line.

3) Reinforcement of the commercial corridor of Lawrence Avenue by locating stations on the corridor.

4) New service at three completely new points.

5) Potential to create new airport service to O'Hare from the North Lakefront, the Northwest Side and from Evanston, opening up residential options for airline workers, and improving access to O'Hare without a downtown or bus transfer. Obviously Evanston wouldn't need frequent service there, but currently I doubt anyone from Evanston takes a train to O'Hare. A service that ran every 30 minutes and through-routed between Evanston to O'Hare via Lawrence would likely be used and would take about 50 minutes, which is a bit over half the current time, and competitive with the 35-45 minutes it takes to drive between O'Hare and Evanston. From the Western stop on the Brown Line, travel time to O'Hare could drop from nearly an hour to about 25 minutes. And from Belmont, it would go from taking about an hour to taking about 35 minutes if there was through-routing, maybe 40 if there was a transfer involved. I think this would GREATLY increase the use of the CTA to get to O'Hare, maybe to the point that the O'Hare station would need to get a couple tracks through-routed at least one more stop to the west just to find a spot where additional lay-up capacity could be added.

6) Increased transit access between the far northwest side and the north-center and north lakefront areas and even Evanston.

7) Better access to the Uptown nightlife district from the NW suburbs. Some who currently drive (or worse, just don't come), might be willing to park-and-ride from Cumberland, etc.

Downsides:

1) Cost. 60%-80% of the cost of rehabbing the entire North Main and Purple Line.

2) Disruption of existing businesses serving existing Brown Line stops.

3) Disruption of people who will be further from the subway stops that replace existing Brown Line stops.

4) Politically hard to sell a total re-do on a portion of a line that only recently had a big, expensive station rehab project.

5) Service needs for new routing may results in reduced service at some Brown Line stations (unknown).

[ardecila]

I would simply sell a subway from Kimball to Jefferson Park. No eastern extension, and no grade separation of the existing line. They could probably close the grade crossings at Spaulding and Albany and put in pedestrian bridges to increase safety and speed, leaving the line with only four grade crossings. The street layout gives drivers easy alternatives to the two closed ones.

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by emathias

5) Potential to create new airport service to O'Hare from the North Lakefront, the Northwest Side and from Evanston, opening up residential options for airline workers, and improving access to O'Hare without a downtown or bus transfer. Obviously Evanston wouldn't need frequent service there, but currently I doubt anyone from Evanston takes a train to O'Hare. A service that ran every 30 minutes and through-routed between Evanston to O'Hare via Lawrence would likely be used and would take about 50 minutes, which is less than half the current time, and competitive with the 35-45 minutes it takes to drive between O'Hare and Evanston. From the Western stop on the Brown Line, travel time to O'Hare could drop from over an hour to about 25 minutes. And from Belmont, it would go from taking over an hour to taking about 35 minutes if there was through-routing, maybe 40 if there was a transfer involved. I think this would GREATLY increase the use of the CTA to get to O'Hare, maybe to the point that the O'Hare station would need to get a couple tracks through-routed at least one more stop to the west just to find a spot where additional lay-up capacity could be added.
.

Who gives a crap about airline workers (I say this only to add effect, they too would benefit), how about the fact that the O'Hare office market is the second largest conglomeration of jobs and office space in the entire Chicagoland area? How about the hundreds of thousands of workers that work in the area and are currently completely restricted from taking mass transit from the entire north side of the metro to their jobs? I work in an office building by O'Hare and about half of my co-workers live on the north lake shore stretching from the Gold Coast to Wilmette. All of them are forced to drive or spend 2 hours each way transferring on buses to get to work. Even with the best traffic it takes my co-worker 45 minutes to get from his condo right downtown Evanston to work. A 20 minute ride to Lawrence 5 min transfer and 20 min ride to Cumberland would easily compete with driving for him and probably save him an hour or two a week.

I live in Portage Park right now and would love having the ability to take transit whenever I go to visit my friends in Edgewater and Lincoln Park. It takes me 45 minutes to an hour for me to get over there by car and then I could drink when going out with them and not have to crash on their couch. It would do wonders for reducing the traffic on streets like Peterson, Foster, and Irving Park.

I think that a Lawrence subway would likely provide the biggest "bang for our buck" out of any expansion of the current system. I mean the O'Hare area has nearly as many jobs and nearly as much density as Downtown, yet is the end of one line of the transit system. I believe that area would rapidly increase in density if connected to the North Side by transit because it would open so many new options to those who prefer a car free life style. This isn't even considering the obvious benefits of connecting O'Hare to the densest residential areas of the city and allowing everyone to take the train to the airport instead of driving and leaving their cars to roast in the sun for a week while on vacation or business.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280

I think that a Lawrence subway would likely provide the biggest "bang for our buck" out of any expansion of the current system. I mean the O'Hare area has nearly as many jobs and nearly as much density as Downtown, yet is the end of one line of the transit system. I believe that area would rapidly increase in density if connected to the North Side by transit because it would open so many new options to those who prefer a car free life style. This isn't even considering the obvious benefits of connecting O'Hare to the densest residential areas of the city and allowing everyone to take the train to the airport instead of driving and leaving their cars to roast in the sun for a week while on vacation or business.

^ Personally, I prefer focusing heavy rail transit on downtown & the urban core, not on outlying job centers.

But this is an old debate. I just have a fundamental problem with spending billions creating heavy rail transit to serve sprawled out suburban towns (who themselves spent decades draining the city of its mass transit funding so that they could enjoy their wasteful, car-centric lifestyle) and essentially rewarding them with train service. That's why I am opposed to the STAR Line.

Reality is, the design of job centers in the suburbs is not conducive to the pedestrian. It is focused on the automobile. You get off the train and....walk through a sea of parking lots to get to your job? Doesn't make much sense.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280

how about the fact that the O'Hare office market is the second largest conglomeration of jobs and office space in the entire Chicagoland area?

Is that true? I'm pretty sure Oakbrook/I-88 corridor tops O'Hare. I guess it depends on how you define "conglomeration.".

[emathias]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I would simply sell a subway from Kimball to Jefferson Park. No eastern extension, and no grade separation of the existing line. They could probably close the grade crossings at Spaulding and Albany and put in pedestrian bridges to increase safety and speed, leaving the line with only four grade crossings. The street layout gives drivers easy alternatives to the two closed ones.

The trouble with that, is that you spend 50% of the cost of doing a full run from the Red Line to the Blue Line, but you get significantly less than 50% of the benefit. Your travel time from Evanston would be well over an hour. Your travel time from Belmont would still be over an hour. You get no good connection to the Uptown district from the suburbs and NW side. In short, you waste a lot of money providing only limited benefit for a much smaller range of ridership.

I say do it right, or do nothing. If you're going to spend $1.5 billion and get very little, there's no point in spending $1.5 billion. But spending $3 billion and getting what really is a vast potential for improved ridership should at least be considered.

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ Personally, I prefer focusing heavy rail transit on downtown & the urban core, not on outlying job centers.

But this is an old debate. I just have a fundamental problem with spending billions creating heavy rail transit to serve sprawled out suburban towns (who themselves spent decades draining the city of its mass transit funding so that they could enjoy their wasteful, car-centric lifestyle) and essentially rewarding them with train service. That's why I am opposed to the STAR Line.

Reality is, the design of job centers in the suburbs is not conducive to the pedestrian. It is focused on the automobile. You get off the train and....walk through a sea of parking lots to get to your job? Doesn't make much sense.

Have you ever been to the North Side of Chicago? The area between O'Hare and the lake is not "car-centric" in the least bit. Do you realize that Edgewater (which is north of Lawrence) is the second densest part of the entire city after downtown? On top of that, if you'd ever been off of the freeway in the O'Hare corridor you'd realize that its not really that "car-centric". In fact, you have a ton of highrises that have a few parking lots directly surrounding them and then blocks of densely packed post war apartment blocks that comprise some extremely walkable neighborhoods. Even the "suburbs" that lie adjacent to this area are extremely walkable and quite dense.

When you get off the train at Cumberland or Rosemont you actually don't walk through a single parking lot to get to a building. What actually happens is you walk through a pedway over the freeway off ramp and are deposited right in front of a row of about 10 500,000 SF office highrises. I work in one of them and my walk is about 3 blocks during which I pass maybe 100 parking spaces and don't have to cross a single road or lot. In fact, its rare that I even encounter a moving vehicle.

The reason I advocate the city putting an emphasis on transit to O'Hare is that it really isn't that un-walkable. All of the parking lots are isolated in neat rows that are easily separated from the existing buildings and could be replaced with parking decks and a mix of additional towers and retail if it ever became profitable. In fact, many of the complexes there have been designed with the intent of eventually replacing the parking with additional towers.

I know this market well. One of my side projects at work is managing a 800,000 SF two building office complex in Rosemont. It has two towers and two, two story parking decks. These decks are designed so one can be demolished and replaced with a third tower and the other deck can have levels added to make up for the lost parking. However, it is unlikely that we would even expand the deck as we are currently extremely under parked as about 75% of the employees that work in our buildings live in the city and take the Blue Line in to work. This certainly is not the case for two other buildings I'm in charge of in Deerfield and Downers Grove.

Originally Posted by ardecila

Is that true? I'm pretty sure Oakbrook/I-88 corridor tops O'Hare. I guess it depends on how you define "conglomeration.".

The "Eastern East/West Corridor" technically contains about three times more office space, but it is also about half the size of Cook County. O'Hare contains nearly 20,000,000 SF of office in an area the size of downtown Chicago. Of that 20,000,000 SF, about 10,000,000 is contained in the city limits of Chicago with most of the rest being in Park Ridge or Rosemont. Granted it pales in comparison to Downtown Chicago which has about 170,000,000 SF alone.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280

...
The "Eastern East/West Corridor" technically contains about three times more office space, but it is also about half the size of Cook County. O'Hare contains nearly 20,000,000 SF of office in an area the size of downtown Chicago. Of that 20,000,000 SF, about 10,000,000 is contained in the city limits of Chicago with most of the rest being in Park Ridge or Rosemont. Granted it pales in comparison to Downtown Chicago which has about 170,000,000 SF alone.

20 million square feet makes it close to a mid-sized city's CBD. Chicago would benefit from having multiple well-served cores. And the stronger a business area there is near O'Hare, the more justification you'd start to have for rail along Cicero, too.

Granted, I still do think downtown needs more rail, too - Chicago should find a way to fund plans with steady income, make a big plan, and then execute it as monies become available, whether they only be the local source, or funds from the State or Federal government.

[Nowhereman1280]

^^^ Exactly. I think it would be worth investing in connecting Chicago's largest population center with its second largest business district because it would encourage growth in both. How nice would it be to see the O'Hare area parking lots replaced with more towers like we saw happen in and around downtown over the last 15 years? I could see the O'Hare market easily supporting 50,000,000 square feet of Office in 20 years if the City did more to invest it in. I could also see a doubling of office space leading to an extremely walkable environment (parts of Park Ridge are already a delight to walk in) which would lead to the development of a bigger population center there as well.

At a very minimum it would steal demand from the Schaumberg area and other North suburban business districts by offering the benefits of a downtown-style business district with the convince of easy access for suburban workers.

PS, you are wrong about it being about the size of a mid sized city CBD, O'Hare would actually be a good deal bigger than most Mid-sized CBD's. For example, Milwaukee's entire CBD contains only 10,000,000 square feet. The entire Milwaukee metro area has only 27,000,000 square feet. Pretty amazing that Chicagoland has almost 20 times as much office space yet only four or five times the population of Milwaukee Metro.

[Beta_Magellan]

Even with a Brown Line extension, you’d probably still be dealing with a multiple-transfer trip. For capacity reasons, I have trouble imagining the Brown Line actually running onto the Blue Line tracks—there would probably need to be a separate Brown Line terminal platform at Jefferson Park which would be integrated into the transit center. Additionally, even though that gets you to Cumberland, Rosemont and O’Hare, getting beyond O’Hare is another issue. The Northwest Corridor Study backs your argument about that transit would be successful in the Rosemont-Schaumburg corridor, between 35-55,000 riders for LRT, BRT and Blue Line extension, IIRC (that this was before the STAR Line, although if the the northwest segment connected to the Blue Line it might be at the low end of the other northwest corridor options), but with the exception of a Blue Line extension that’s another transfer again.

Speaking of Jefferson Park, what’s the potential of the UP-Northwest for reverse commutes? It’s explicitly mentioned as a rationale for the big UP-Northwest extension, but I’d imagine any reverse commuters would be dependent on shuttle bug service.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Beta_Magellan

Speaking of Jefferson Park, what’s the potential of the UP-Northwest for reverse commutes? It’s explicitly mentioned as a rationale for the big UP-Northwest extension, but I’d imagine any reverse commuters would be dependent on shuttle bug service.

It already sees a surprising number of reverse commuters. Most of them aren't dependent on connecting bus services, though. Either they work within walking distance of a suburban train station (lots of professional offices and schools near the suburban downtowns), or they have deals with friends/co-workers to meet them at the station.

The main thing holding it back is not the frequency of the reverse-commute service (although that needs improvement) but the accessibility of the UP-NW line in the city. Currently it stops at Clybourn, Irving Park, and Jefferson Park. These aren't high-density areas, and there's no convenient way to get from the lakefront neighborhoods to a UP-NW station - there's only the agonizingly slow Armitage, Irving Park, and Foster/Lawrence buses (bring back the X80!) Even transferring downtown is a pain, because the people who built the L network never thought people might want to transfer from the L to a suburban railroad in the West Loop.

Regardless of this, Metra needs to make more of its express trains stop at Jefferson Park. Transferring at JP is really difficult during peak periods because most of the trains run express past the station. Increasing the number of trains that stop at JP would increase ridership on both the Metra line and Blue Line.

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by Beta_Magellan

Even with a Brown Line extension, you’d probably still be dealing with a multiple-transfer trip. For capacity reasons, I have trouble imagining the Brown Line actually running onto the Blue Line tracks—there would probably need to be a separate Brown Line terminal platform at Jefferson Park which would be integrated into the transit center. Additionally, even though that gets you to Cumberland, Rosemont and O’Hare, getting beyond O’Hare is another issue. The Northwest Corridor Study backs your argument about that transit would be successful in the Rosemont-Schaumburg corridor, between 35-55,000 riders for LRT, BRT and Blue Line extension, IIRC (that this was before the STAR Line, although if the the northwest segment connected to the Blue Line it might be at the low end of the other northwest corridor options), but with the exception of a Blue Line extension that’s another transfer again.

Naw, any such line certainly would not be stand-alone. There would be 0 added value for a train that just goes back and forth from Jeff Park to Uptown. The subway would be used to create a variety of new potential lines. For example every other blue line train could be routed to the Loop across the subway while every other Red Line train could be routed to the Loop via the Blue line providing access to the North West Side and O'Hare from the North Side and Evanston. Such cross routing would be made possible by the tunnel that is currently lying fallow that was intended for the CTA Superstation. Such cross routes would be extremely beneficial and open up all parts of the city that are currently accessible to each other by car.

Such cross routing would also cause explosive growth along Lawrence and at Jeff Park which could be upzoned for more density which would lead to more property tax revenue which would help pay for the expense of constructing the line. I can tell you one thing about rebuilding the Red Line and eliminating stops, its certainly not going to tip off any new growth in the tax base, something providing crosstown service to a previously unserved section of the city will.

[Via Chicago]

Red, Purple Line stations safe

[Beta_Magellan]

Proving once and for all that Americans aren’t capable of walking an extra block. Wait for people to complain, post-renovation, about how they spent billions of dollars, nothing’s got any quicker, and how the “new” stations are cramped. So, I guess this means the subway and full rebuild are completely off the table, then?

EDIT:

Okay, looked at the article again, so they’re still accepting feedback—based on the headline and a quick skim I thought that the CTA had completely taken consolidation off of the table. Still, I really hope that the CTA doesn’t cave to the hysteria that’s been generating, and is able to capably explain the benefits of consolidating at least some of the stations (I’d guess Jarvis is staying put) and note that the number of station entrances (especially in Uptown and Edgewater) would actually go up if they built new platforms.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by Beta_Magellan

...
Okay, looked at the article again, so they’re still accepting feedback—based on the headline and a quick skim I thought that the CTA had completely taken consolidation off of the table. Still, I really hope that the CTA doesn’t cave to the hysteria that’s been generating, and is able to capably explain the benefits of consolidating at least some of the stations (I’d guess Jarvis is staying put) and note that the number of station entrances (especially in Uptown and Edgewater) would actually go up if they built new platforms.

Yeah, I think the CTA just got caught offguard by the Tribune and isn't ready to do the station battle yet. I'm sure they didn't expect the Tribune to write an article that made it sound like the CTA was getting ready to shut down perfectly good stations as the lead of the story. Although I'm not sure why - as far as I'm concerned the Tribune would be better titled the Anti-Chicago Tribune.

[nomarandlee]

Originally Posted by Beta_Magellan

Even with a Brown Line extension, you’d probably still be dealing with a multiple-transfer trip. For capacity reasons, I have trouble imagining the Brown Line actually running onto the Blue Line tracks—there would probably need to be a separate Brown Line terminal platform at Jefferson Park which would be integrated into the transit center. Additionally, even though that gets you to Cumberland, Rosemont and O’Hare, getting beyond O’Hare is another issue. The Northwest Corridor Study backs your argument about that transit would be successful in the Rosemont-Schaumburg corridor, between 35-55,000 riders for LRT, BRT and Blue Line extension, IIRC (that this was before the STAR Line, although if the the northwest segment connected to the Blue Line it might be at the low end of the other northwest corridor options), but with the exception of a Blue Line extension that’s another transfer again.

Speaking of Jefferson Park, what’s the potential of the UP-Northwest for reverse commutes? It’s explicitly mentioned as a rationale for the big UP-Northwest extension, but I’d imagine any reverse commuters would be dependent on shuttle bug service.

Agreed. I agree with some nodes in the transit system to grow but I don't see the stations near O'Hare office complexes at Cumberland are ideal. One the reasons you mention about the detraction of adding another transfer for any brown/red line extension and Mid-City line.

Obviously Jefferson Park itself would make the most sense in which to have a real new commercial node given it wouldn't involve transfers for the numerous bus/train routes that converge on it. An addition its closer to the residential enclaves of the near NW Side where a plethora of young professionals reside.

Obviously the NIMBY quality to Jefferson Park seems in intractable obstacle which has been opined on many times here.

[Beta_Magellan]

Originally Posted by emathias

Yeah, I think the CTA just got caught offguard by the Tribune and isn't ready to do the station battle yet. I'm sure they didn't expect the Tribune to write an article that made it sound like the CTA was getting ready to shut down perfectly good stations as the lead of the story. Although I'm not sure why - as far as I'm concerned the Tribune would be better titled the Anti-Chicago Tribune.

Amen to that! Although I have to admit I can’t really blame them, since they have such a suburban readership. I think it’s a major problem for a lot of non-New York cities—the “city” paper of record’s main market is older suburbanites and they focus themselves accordingly, though this article was more sloppily constructed than anything else. Which has, unfortunately, become something of a Tribune hallmark as well.

[ardecila]

I think the Tribune is (sorta) taking the right tack. People should be upset that the CTA stations are not up to modern standards, and are deteriorating. That anger can be used to generate popular support for the rebuild project.

Creating hysteria about station closings, though, is not a good idea.

Maybe Jarvis should be moved a block south between Sherwin and Chase, and given a south entrance? That would give a better distribution of stations in Rogers Park, and the Greenview/Sherwin exit would still be in the Jarvis business district.

[lawfin]

I wonder if this new guy will bring any change of focus at Metra....Metra has had a nearly overt disdain for its intra-city operations....any hope that this might change with this new guy

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,5496846.story
Metra poised to name new director
Los Angeles transportation official to take top post

A top transportation official from Los Angeles is expected to be named Tuesday as Metra's new executive director, pending a formal vote by the agency's board, the Tribune has learned.

Alexander Clifford, the executive officer for high-speed rail at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Authority, is the choice to fill the vacancy left after the suicide of longtime Metra boss Phil Pagano, according to several people familiar with his background. The transit agency is scheduled to announce the selection Tuesday.

Clifford, who has been with the Los Angeles County MTA since 2001, is expected to bring strong leadership and managerial experience, sources said.

He was selected from a field of more than 40 applicants after months of interviews by Metra directors and a Georgia-based search firm, Slavin Management Consultants.

One source described Clifford as a hoped-for "change agent" at Metra. Pagano, who had led Metra for 20 years, had a one-man leadership style that was unquestioned by Metra's staff and board of directors. .