Quote:
Originally Posted by Bootstrap Bill
I'm glad to see things aren't as bad as I had thought. It's just that I had been reading various forums over the years and kept reading about various proposals to extend the subway and El that kept getting voted down.
The subway is still only 12 miles long, right? Are there any plans to extend it, or add new lines in the foreseeable future?
|
What do subways have to do with anything? Yeah, the subway is 12 miles, but there is no functional difference between a subway and our elevated lines. All of the new lines or extensions currently being spec'd are elevated or grade-separated surface lines because they function the same and cost far less than subways do. In addition to the new orange line, in 1984, just four years before your visit, Chicago finished the extension to O'Hare, a number of stations that were part-time stations when you visited are now full-time. And the Green Line and Pink Line have been completely renovated since your visit. The Brown Line has had all its stations expanded to accomodate longer trains so that it can handle its growth. There are extensions recently approved, but not yet funded, for the south branch of the Red Line, for the Orange Line and the Yellow Line. There has also been a routing selected for the second piece of the new routes for the Circle Line, which will improve access to our Medical District, and the City is tentatively planning a new subway through the West Loop to provide better access to two of the commuter rail stations - this would be called the Clinton Street subway, and would also involve expanding Union Station's high-speed rail capabilities, and underground bus connections to aid in running mostly-grade-seperated bus services to the Michigan Avenue corridor from the West Loop commuter rail stations and office district. That's long-term, but it is a plan that will probably find legs once this recession starts to lift and/or the Feds get serious about funding more than just starter routes of high-speed rail.
Chicago has 8 lines and 144 stations on over 100 miles of rail serving about 620,000 people on a typical weekday, all running the same train cars as the subway, all capable of sending trains into the subways for the purposes of emergency reroutes or transferring equipment between train yards and lines, and rail serves both airports.
Despite the improvments, L.A., which is about 40% bigger than Chicago, has 5 lines with 62 stations (including light rail stations) on 73 miles (including light rail) serving 275,000/day, and your subway and light rails lines run incompatible equipment, with rail serving no area airports.
You also seem to be unaware of the extent of our commuter rail, which constitutes 11 lines with 237 stations covering 495 miles of track in Illinois and into Wisconsin. That doesn't include the seperate inter-city South Shore line, which functions as a commuter rail into Indiana, all the way to South Bend (home of Notre Dame), which has 20 stations over 90 miles of track. On the South Side inparticular, the commuter rail system also provides a lot of service within the city, not just for suburban commuters.