CHICAGO: Transit Developments

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by Handro

Whats going on with the Damen green line station? Have they broken ground yet?

They put in the foundations a while ago and it's been crickets since...

[ardecila]

No idea when they will start. It’s probably a funding snafu. The Fulton Market Association was in favor of the station but didn’t want all $70M of the project cost to come from the Kinzie TIF district... they want CTA to get free money from the Federal government instead. Apparently they think the Trump administration is sitting on giant piles of transit cash, just itching to hand it out. LOL

[w.miles2000]

What the status of the Cta Green Line Damen Lake street stop

[glowrock]

On a different topic... While I appreciate the large-scale electrical, track, signal, station and other replacements/expansions/improvements all along the length of the Blue Line from O'Hare through to Downtown, the weekend delays have been absolutely absurd as of late! My normal 25 minute train trip from Belmont to Clinton and vice-versa took nearly 45 minutes because of the single-track section between Clark/Lake and Damen. This morning was roughly the same. Wouldn't one think that CTA would try to schedule trains at intervals which don't involve one train sitting for a very long period of time while one or two trains traverse the stretch in the opposite direction?

Ah well, first-world problems, I guess.

Aaron (Glowrock)

[k1052]

Originally Posted by glowrock

On a different topic... While I appreciate the large-scale electrical, track, signal, station and other replacements/expansions/improvements all along the length of the Blue Line from O'Hare through to Downtown, the weekend delays have been absolutely absurd as of late! My normal 25 minute train trip from Belmont to Clinton and vice-versa took nearly 45 minutes because of the single-track section between Clark/Lake and Damen. This morning was roughly the same. Wouldn't one think that CTA would try to schedule trains at intervals which don't involve one train sitting for a very long period of time while one or two trains traverse the stretch in the opposite direction?

Ah well, first-world problems, I guess.

Aaron (Glowrock)

Well they've got to do it sometime and single tracking always sucks. The only alternative is a couple month line cut.

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by glowrock

45 minutes because of the single-track section between Clark/Lake and Damen.

Yeah, I got caught in that yesterday, both directions. I'm wondering if something other than single-tracking was going on, or if the location of the crossovers at both ends of the single-tracking was just really inconvenient for the Saturday Blue Line schedule.

[emathias]

I didn't realize Chicago had actually created a guide for Transit Oriented Development here in the Chicago. Nice to see it.

[jc5680]

Block Club has a nice update on flyover construction. Even has a bit of construction fundamentals (70 ft piers) you don't always see.

Crews Are Digging 70-Foot Holes Along The Future CTA Belmont Bypass In Lakeview. Here’s Why

One of the many obstacles faced to date on the Red-Purple Line Modernization Projects is avoiding underground utilities that are almost a century old


…
Already, 16 Lakeview buildings have been demolished to make way for the construction.

…
As part of this reconstruction, the contractor will move the century-old Vautravers Building at 947 W. Newport Ave. about 35 feet to the west to a space now used for parking in early 2021.

“We are building a completely new basement just west of the [Vautravers building],” Bosold said. “Then we will lift the building and shift it to the west.”

[ardecila]

If I'm not mistaken, these are the same caissons we see for highrise construction... so we do "always see them" on this forum, lol.

I appreciate getting info from Block Club on this kind of stuff, but I feel like the constant and intensive coverage really makes this work seem like they're building the Great Pyramid or something. In any Asian city, this kind of project would be very minor!

And certainly on the private side, companies like Case and Revcon do this kind of foundation all day nonstop for developers. It's a pretty standard technique.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by ardecila

If I'm not mistaken, these are the same caissons we see for highrise construction... so we do "always see them" on this forum, lol.

I appreciate getting info from Block Club on this kind of stuff, but I feel like the constant and intensive coverage really makes this work seem like they're building the Great Pyramid or something. In any Asian city, this kind of project would be very minor!

And certainly on the private side, companies like Case and Revcon do this kind of foundation all day nonstop for developers. It's a pretty standard technique.

People who don't follow construction and don't live downtown probably find it more new than people on this forum do.

[jc5680]

Originally Posted by emathias

People who don't follow construction and don't live downtown probably find it more new than people on this forum do.

Exactly, specifics of process are usually glossed over in construction coverage, I thought it was notable that they were going into more detail than typical

[IrishIllini]

Related chopped 10 stories off the proposed Equinox Hotel (down to 48 stories), but in transit news it seems like Burnett is pushing for the reconstruction of the Halsted L station given the development activity in the area. I think there are higher priority infill stations, but it’d be awesome to get this one back. The spacing on this segment of the Green/Pink Lines would be tight, but there’s a lot going on. 90/94 just east of Halsted eats a decent amount of the service area, but we’ll survive.

Hopefully the push wests continues and we can get a Pink Line stop at Madison in addition to a Brown/Purple Lines stop at Halsted and Division, and that Green Line stop at Damen that’s allegedly under construction...

[k1052]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Related chopped 10 stories off the proposed Equinox Hotel (down to 48 stories), but in transit news it seems like Burnett is pushing for the reconstruction of the Halsted L station given the development activity in the area. I think there are higher priority infill stations, but it’d be awesome to get this one back. The spacing on this segment of the Green/Pink Lines would be tight, but there’s a lot going on. 90/94 just east of Halsted eats a decent amount of the service area, but we’ll survive.

Hopefully the push wests continues and we can get a Pink Line stop at Madison in addition to a Brown/Purple Lines stop at Halsted and Division, and that Green Line stop at Damen that’s allegedly under construction...

It seems to me that you could pretty cheaply add auxiliary entrances to Morgan on the east side of the station around mid-block between Sangamon and Peoria with high barrier gate fare controls instead. That would certainly improve the access for people to the east of the station.

As you say there are higher priorities for new infill stops.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by k1052

It seems to me that you could pretty cheaply add auxiliary entrances to Morgan on the east side of the station around mid-block between Sangamon and Peoria with high barrier gate fare controls instead. That would certainly improve the access for people to the east of the station.

As you say there are higher priorities for new infill stops.

Sounds like a GREAT use for TIF funds... high impact, low cost....

Still, glad to see Burnett pushing for CTA to solve the traffic problems in the West Loop area instead of more parking. Not that Burnett has any real leverage over CTA, though.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Sounds like a GREAT use for TIF funds... high impact, low cost....

Still, glad to see Burnett pushing for CTA to solve the traffic problems in the West Loop area instead of more parking. Not that Burnett has any real leverage over CTA, though.

And it should be pretty fast. With all the office coming online just to the east the need appears obvious.

[Tcmetro]

I think the Halsted Green Line is a great idea. The area is going to need some significant transit improvements, considering the expansion of the downtown zoning a few years ago. A stop at Halsted likely wouldn't open until the later part of the 2020s at the earliest, so I think it's entirely reasonable to assume demand will be higher whenever it does open.

The Green Line could do with a few more infill stops also. Western, Elizabeth, 26th would all be very helpful in improving downtown connections. 63/Racine could be reopened relatively easily, and perhaps some other demolished stations could be rebuilt, maybe in tandem with a re-extension along 63rd to University or Stony Island.

[Randomguy34]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Hopefully the push wests continues and we can get a Pink Line stop at Madison in addition to a Brown/Purple Lines stop at Halsted and Division, and that Green Line stop at Damen that’s allegedly under construction...

From an interview between Burnett and former DPD commissioner Reifman (2 years ago?), Reifman said they won't rebuild Brown/Purple infill stations until the Belmont flyover is finished. It's cause the Brown/Purple lines are already at capacity during rush hour, and adding new stations in the central area will overload the lines until they can improve frequency. So don't expect new stations until the end of 2024

Edit: Looks like the Brown/Purple section of the bypass will be finished in 2021, Red/Purple tracks a few blocks north are being reconstructed between 2021-2024. Hopefully that means new stations after 2021

[emathias]

I was looking at CTA Rail Ridership stats for full year 2018 (the last year we have full stats for), and noticed that the official full year total for rail ridership was around 225 million riders. But if I go through the line items and add up total yearly ridership for each line, it sums up to 186.3 million.

Can anyone here explain that discrepancy?

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by emathias

I was looking at CTA Rail Ridership stats for full year 2018 (the last year we have full stats for), and noticed that the official full year total for rail ridership was around 225 million riders. But if I go through the line items and add up total yearly ridership for each line, it sums up to 186.3 million.

Can anyone here explain that discrepancy?

One possibility is that the total rail ridership is unlinked trips, but the line totals are entrances at each station. So the 225 might somehow include people who enter on one line and have an in-system transfer to another?

[aaron38]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

From an interview between Burnett and former DPD commissioner Reifman (2 years ago?), Reifman said they won't rebuild Brown/Purple infill stations until the Belmont flyover is finished. It's cause the Brown/Purple lines are already at capacity during rush hour, and adding new stations in the central area will overload the lines until they can improve frequency. So don't expect new stations until the end of 2024

Edit: Looks like the Brown/Purple section of the bypass will be finished in 2021, Red/Purple tracks a few blocks north are being reconstructed between 2021-2024. Hopefully that means new stations after 2021

At the speed at which the CTA moves *cough, Damen, cough*, they should just start the process now. Like they'll actually finish rebuilding a station before 2024 if they start in 2022.