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Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
CTA would love to increase services levels at any time and place where the demand elasticity to service levels warrants it. That said, I think there could be some benefits and reoriented service from a comprehensive study of the 'corridor' like CTA did on the north and south lakefronts some years ago to reroute, restructure, reallocate the various tiered express routes in an optimal fashion.
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I think my complaint isn't really with the CTA - for the most part, I think the CTA serves its mission reasonably well. Even the CTA recognizes there's room for improvement, but I don't want anyone to think I'm on the side of the CTA-haters out there.
My complaint is probably best directed at the seemingly hands-off approach to transit facilitation the City has taken. It's the CTA's role to provide service where demand exists now, but since the city controls permits and zoning and planned development creations, the City should have a subsidy budget to fund prospective corridors that it is focusing on. I think this happens occasionally, but it seems to be the exception, not the rule. The lack of that sort of involvment is probably why the West Loop/River West/Kingsbury Park/North&Clybourn districts aren't tied together better.
The City knew about all the development going on there, but it didn't provide seed funds for transit to tie those areas together, so they's developed hodge-podge, and very auto-oriented, because non-car people aren't going to live in areas that don't already have transit, and car people can't very well switch to using transit that doesn't even exist. Again, that's the City's fault, not the CTAs. Better integration in planning and seeding transit in transit-friendly area isn't rocket science, but it does take leadership from the top. Daley's done a lot of good for the city, but I think he's not really an urbanist at heart and may have maxed out his potential. It wouldn't be a bad thing to elect a real urbanist, if one can be found, next round.
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Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
Or, as you suggest, this is something the city could serve via the Free Trolley system for the sole purpose of marketing/brand image to tourists rather than on a cost-effectiveness basis.
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I actually don't like the free trolley system because a) those trolley's are horrible, and unsafe and inefficient, and b) it sends the completely wrong message to ... well, everyone. It says, "public transit is an amusing blast from the past," instead of "public transit is an integral part of well-planned urban life."
And given that a very high percentage of "tourists" in Chicago are really more like suburbanites, I don't think we need to (or should) coddle them too much. Certainly make the experience easy to understand and participate in, but we don't need to make it free, and we don't need to use mockeries of historic vehicles to do it, either.
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Originally Posted by VivaLFuego
Poor North-South through- travel through the entire corridor between Halsted on the west and the Brown Line on the east has been noted by local transportation and transit planners for some time. The #37 and now the through-routed #11 were one effort, and routing the (now-defunct) #38 as a Canal/Clinton circulator in the West Loop were some efforts at serving the corridor, but nothing attracted ridership.
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To be successful, I think it needs to be a multi-year, sustained effort and it absolutely must be combined with enhanced off-hours metra service. I recognize that it IS a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing, because if you only boost Metra service, but then it takes 30 minutes or a $8 cab ride to travel the last mile, that's not going to attract service, and if you only quietly boost bus service as a trial, you won't have the potential extra riders from commuter rail, that isn't likely to last either. That's not the CTA's fault, because they can't control development or Metra schedules, but the City could do more to seed transit use as development happens.
Ultimately, the ship may have sailed from this latest boom, the car-only people may have already dominated the opportunity areas, but I do really believe that the transit seed funding and improved coordination of planning will be necessary if Chicago wants to keep improving the urban experience it can offer.