View Single Post
  #105  
Old Posted May 3, 2006, 2:25 AM
Chicago Shawn's Avatar
Chicago Shawn Chicago Shawn is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Chicago
Posts: 2,815
CTA Meeing notes....

Well, it seems the Circle Line is in a more preliminary stage than prevouisly believed. The alignment seen in maps is just a concept, and is one of a few corridors of study.

Some points made:
-1.8 million daily trips to/from loop as of today.

All forms of transit technoligy were looked at from streetcar to maglev to see what best suits the study area bounded by Fullerton on the north, Rockwell on the west and Pershing on the south. Original corridors of study were Halsted, Clinton/Canal, Ashland (Paulina), Ashland-Ogden, Damen and Western.

It was chosen that BRT, Light Rail and Heavy Rail will be explored further in this area, and 3 corridors will continue on to the next phase of study. Those routings are: Ashland, Ashland-Ogden, and Western. As of right now, the mode of transit for the coridors could be any of the three, and exact loactions of transfer stations is not yet known. This is the purpose of community meetings in order to gather people's opinon's which is required by the FTA. They ask that all questions and comments are written onto provided cards to serve as a record for the feds that such community workshops have been conducted. So if you favor heavy rail on a certian routing, place it on a card.

The CTA is working with CATS (Chicago Area Transportation Study) to determine greatest impacts, ridership, cost per rider and so forth. They currently have federal approval to conduct studies and persue funding for the circle line; red, orange and yellow line extensions, as well as the Ogden Avenue trolly.

They collected everyone's comment cards and merged them into very generalized questions for the presenters.

-As of right now, there are no immediate plans for a United Center station on the Pink Line, but it will start running in June for the *6 month expierement*.

I did have a chance to talk to a couple of the CTA planners, and mentioned our community group that will stand up in favor of increased transit and TOD developments, and one planner was so intriged that he wants me to email him more information on the group. He was also pretty impressed by Latso's idea of extending the Orange Line out to Bridgeview through the Bedford Park railyards. I menioned it to him as we were talking about the Orange Line, and refered to it as an idea by one of our members. He really loved the idea of having a Midway park 'n ride out that way.

That about wraps it up in a nutshell. I am on a mailing list to recieve any updates on the circle line project. Anyone who fills out a comment card can request the same. Under organization I put "Newly formed group of citizens for good urban planning, as of yet not named."
Reply With Quote