CHICAGO: Transit Developments

[le_brew]

Originally Posted by Tcmetro

Is the Post Office a good location for the station?

good location? GREAT; practical? needs to be determined

at least it is in discussion, at least among us. . .i have seen no official utterance for years.

[CTA Gray Line]

Originally Posted by Tcmetro

I've been reading a lot about the Union Station modernization plan.

- It seems that they are considering separating the mainline rail tunnel from the CTA tunnel. Mainline rail would be on Canal, the CTA (pipedream) tunnel would be on Clinton. They are probably going to ditch the pedestrian mezzanine from Union to Ogilvie, and the bus/streetcar level is out of the plans as well. Anyways, it seems a mainline tunnel would require electric trains, which aren't going to happen until we get real high speed rail in the Midwest.

- I think the tunnel is unnecessary if through tracks can be built. Is 222 Riverside the only thing in the way of through tracks? It seems Metra thinks through tracks will be detrimental to their operations.

- Is the Post Office a good location for the station? It would still require the through track issue to be solved, in which case a new station might as well be built at the current site.

- Tangential thought/question. It seems that with a CREATE project, Amtrak trains can be rerouted and the 16th St rail line can be abandoned. Any chance Metra will reuse this line for a crosstown service from the Northern/Western suburbs into the Electric District line? A proposal has been floated called "Crossrail Chicago", but if it isn't taken seriously I wouldn't be surprised if the line is abandoned and removed.

http://www.midwesthsr.org/crossrail-chicago

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c...008-story.html

[ardecila]

Per the Tribune article, CrossRail Chicago has seen support from politicians at the county and city level. I wouldn't be surprised if Cook County includes money for a detailed study in their 2015 budget. It was recently adopted into CMAP's Go To 2040 plan, so it is eligible for Federal money as well.

[UPChicago]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Per the Tribune article, CrossRail Chicago has seen support from politicians at the county and city level. I wouldn't be surprised if Cook County includes money for a detailed study in their 2015 budget. It was recently adopted into CMAP's Go To 2040 plan, so it is eligible for Federal money as well.

There is no money in the 2015 budget for that.

[jpIllInoIs]

REDEYE Chicago By Tracy Swartz, @tracyswartz
"From Red Line and Blue Line station renovations to an express bus system in the Loop, RedEye looks at Chicago transit projects the CTA and the city are expected to tackle next year."

• Ventra app: The CTA announced this year it will roll out a Ventra app that will allow Metra riders to use their phones to purchase tickets and CTA riders to use their phones to manage their Ventra accounts.
  
• Central Loop bus rapid transit: The city is expected to begin construction early next year in the Loop on a $32 million express bus system called bus rapid transit.
  
• New stations: Cold weather pushed back the opening of the new $50 million Cermak-McCormick Place Green Line stop on the Near South Side to spring, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation, which is managing the project.
  
• Work also is expected to begin next year on the new $75 million Washington/Wabash station in the Loop, a combination of the Randolph/Wabash and Madison/Wabash..
• Subway wireless upgrades: In a $27 million project, the CTA plans to upgrade the wireless network to 4G in the Blue Line subway by the spring and the Red Line subway later in the year..
• Station renovations: CDOT is expected to wrap up renovation to the Clark/Division Red Line stop..
• Also on the Red Line, work will continue on transforming the Wilson stop in Uptown into a transfer point for riders of Purple Line Express trains in a $203 million project.
• On the South Side, the CTA will continue to expand the 95th Street Red Line station in Roseland... a $240 million project.
• On the Blue Line, the CTA plans to begin work in the fall on renovations to the Addison, Irving Park, Montrose, Harlem and Cumberland stations as part of a four-year, $492 million program..
• Brown and Purple Line upgrades: By the end of next year, the CTA is slated to finish repairing track between the Merchandise Mart and Armitage stations so Brown and Purple Line Express trains can move faster as part of a $71.2 million project.
• Bus tracker signs: The CTA expects to install 140 signs that display bus tracking information by the end of 2015.... More than 250 of these signs already have been set up across the city.

[CTA Gray Line]

Originally Posted by UPChicago

There is no money in the 2015 budget for that.

Would you know what is the current Local Matching Cost for the $2.3B Red Line Extension Capital Funding? (depending on which Federal Program is used)

[CTA Gray Line]

A Very Happy New Year to you all........ Live Long and Prosper!

Mike Payne

[UPChicago]

Originally Posted by CTA Gray Line

Would you know what is the current Local Matching Cost for the $2.3B Red Line Extension Capital Funding? (depending on which Federal Program is used)

Not sure, I don't think Cook County contributes money to any of these types of projects directly but through grants. Most of the things the county spends money on directly, infrastructure wise, is in unincorporated areas, county roads or in small villages through IGAs.

According to the CTA budget they are only putting $5 million in the budget for the red line extension project over the next 5 years to do environmental studies and hold hearings.

[le_brew]

Originally Posted by CTA Gray Line

A Very Happy New Year to you all........ Live Long and Prosper!

Mike Payne

likewise, happy new year.

let's hope that they announce something exciting to enhance chicago transit in 2015!

[ardecila]

Stumbled across this from a test back in August... if you squint, you could pretend you were in Germany!

These are intended for Toronto's new Airport Express, Nippon Sharyo brought them up from Rochelle to test on an urban line. Metra possibly wants something similar for its imaginary proposed new lines.


flickr/Robby Gragg

[CTA Gray Line]

Why are we so many Light-years behind them:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...m_hp_ref=world

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by CTA Gray Line

Why are we so many Light-years behind them:

Leadership, financing, culture, labor costs... and figure that when stacked up against Chicago, Beijing has 9 times the population, and a yearly ridership 15 times higher than CTA rail.

Its pretty clear to me.

[Jenner]

Regarding CUS upgrades, I had a proposed plan which would combine the Greyhound station and the train station to create a transportation hub. They could excavate the undeveloped portion of the Amtrak parking lot to place an underground waiting room, rental car booths, and more. Now you could combine Greyhound, Metra, Amtrak, and rental car all in the same area. This would centralize many transportation options.

I also like the medium term idea of opening up the whole terminus station.

I would really like a pedestrian tunnel from the station to connect to the other underground pedestrian tunnels in the city. I think that would be great enhancement rather than walking in inclement weather.

I had a host of other ideas written in a document. I could post that if there is interest.

[jpIllInoIs]

^ Well lets see um. I'm interested.
I think the lot you speak of is being redeveloped for CTA buses.
Megabus is being moved under the Congress expressway - right near the Clinton St Subway stop.

[Jenner]

You can see some of my ideas at this link.

In reality, the problem is that the space is too small for the crowding which occurs for commuters and Amtrak.

Yes, the lot that speak of would be used by CTA buses as a bus depot with vestibules. I am proposing to develop the underground portion (see document). One thing that I don't know about is how the basement of the headhouse and Union station are currently being used. Obviously some portion of the headhouse basement is used for baggage transfer, but I don't know if that requires the entire basement.

[emathias]

Am I the only one who thinks the City and CTA have really dropped the ball by not routing the Orange Line north to connect at Wells instead of Wabash? They could have moved the Metra tracks south of Roosevelt west far enough to allow develop-able lots along Clark, and built them out with "L" tracks over them and and alley sandwiched between them, then used Financial Place and parking lots to get over to Wells. It would only be a couple blocks away from the Red Line, but it would put the western parts of the South Loop closer to transit and if there were stations at Taylor Street, 18th Street and then somewhere in between, it would add a meaningful amount of transit service to parts of the South Loop and East Pilsen that are prime for dense, urban development and somewhat cut off from service by Dearborn Station developments, train tracks and the River.

I would venture that the cost to do that would be somewhere along the lines of $300 million which sounds like a lot, but would greatly enhance that part of the Central area for a fraction of the cost of a whole new line.

[le_brew]

[QUOTE=Jenner;6865932]You can see some of my ideas at this link.QUOTE]

I like your idea of using the old post office, in any way, to incorporate into passenger rail expansion. it is an obvious solution to relieve some congestion. regarding your pedestrian tunnel to the loop: don't know if you're aware that a defunct trolley tunnel exist under the river, and had been considered for reuse as a ped tunnel in the 1990s, and for other uses in earlier eras.

see link:
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1...-in-old-tunnel

[CTA Gray Line]

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/7...-pace-budgets/

Posted: 01/06/2015, 07:35pm | Rosalind Rossi

The RTA chairman or its board should have line-item veto power over the budgets of the CTA, Metra and Pace, the Regional Transportation Authority’s new chairman said Tuesday.

Kirk Dillard, elected RTA chairman in June, floated the idea during a University of Illinois at Chicago forum on “Best Practices in Regional Transit Governance"......

[Randomguy34]

I have had the exact same thoughts whenever I look at the Orange Line map, emathias. What the CTA could of done was share Metra's ROW, and then just have it go over Wells once it has gone past Roosevelt or go up to Lasalle Station and then to the Loop. I doubt the CTA would be willing to make the commitment to do this now, but maybe in a decade or two when the time has come to renovate the Orange Line they will. By then, The Wells-Wentworth Connector would have already been completed and more developments along its path would have sprouted up, thus giving the CTA incentive to reroute the Orange Line to attract more riders.

[ardecila]

Funny you should mention that... many mid-century plans included an expressway along Wells Street (really a Wacker Drive extension) with a transit line down the middle, feeding into a new subway Loop.

I was looking at Bertrand Goldberg's original plans for River City, and as usual, he had a better alternative:


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