CHICAGO: Transit developments

[markh9]

Soon...


Morgan Station About to Open by swanksalot, on Flickr


Morgan/Lake Station - April 26, 2012 by Strannik45, on Flickr


Morgan/Lake Station - Boarding areas by Strannik45, on Flickr

[OhioGuy]

^^ I'm curious how much sidewalk space was taken up by the station structures on both sides of the street? It's difficult to tell from the photos.

[untitledreality]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

I think the idea of moving all the express bus riders from Marine Drive/Sheridan/Lake View all the way over to Clark just so they can support a streetcar is a nonstarter with the highrise residents who currently enjoy bus service at their doors. They might walk over to Clark for a subway, but I don't think they will for a streetcar.

Originally Posted by HowardL

Exactly. On Lake Shore, the 135 takes you to work; the 146 takes you to Michigan Avenue. Life runs parallel to the Lake. The L is considered pretty far west. Clark is considered remote.

But they are not talking about the 135/145/146/147 bus lines, just mainly the 22/36 and the 134/143/151/156. The 22/36 alone is 38,000 daily boardings and even if you leave the express routes alone, just adding the 151 (which is by no means express) brings another 21,000 daily boardings. 59,000 potential riders is a big number, on par with the Brown Line's daily ridership.

Yes, its just a step above a napkin sketch, but its a decent idea that could be a very good idea with a little work and there are already a group of people trying to push it to whoever will listen.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by OhioGuy

^^ I'm curious how much sidewalk space was taken up by the station structures on both sides of the street? It's difficult to tell from the photos.

Not much. The stationhouses are built largely in the parking lane.

[Standpoor]

scuttlebutt over at chicagobus.org is for a Morgan station opening tomorrow. Has anybody here heard anything.

[ardecila]

It might make sense to do a stealth opening tomorrow while ridership is already depressed for NATO. Any locals or random people who wander in can help CTA work out the final kinks without a big flow of people.

I have to imagine Rahm will want to do a huge ceremonial GRAND OPENING and take credit, though.

[headcase]

Originally Posted by Standpoor

scuttlebutt over at chicagobus.org is for a Morgan station opening tomorrow. Has anybody here heard anything.

I was actually on the Green line yesterday, and they did play the Morgan street announcement after leaving Clinton.

SSDD

[Standpoor]

It is open. It looks pretty good but the buildings obscure a lot of the views. One pane of glass was already shattered, whether it was from construction or nefarious deeds who knows. The entrances take up a lot of room but a good standard sidewalk width is always maintained. Should be a great catalyst for future growth.

[lawfin]

This is really good news, now if we could get perhaps two more on say damen near united center and western that would serve to help replace all the old green line stations that used to run west from the loop.

Would also like to see a few infill green line stops on south elevated perhaps around 18th, Cermak, 26th and 31st would be nice and help develop the potential of the near south side

[ardecila]

Morgan is awesome and looks very... German, lots of high-tech steel & glass. I have yet to see it in person, so I can't yet judge how vandal-proof it is.

I'm hoping this kind of design language can become the template for some of the other proposed elevated stations at Cermak and Division. The Washington/Wabash station apparently already has that weird wavy motif and so does the new Clark/Division, but even those are huge improvements over the cheesy new designs in the State St Subway.

[Mr Downtown]

I'll have to go see it, because I'm usually a fan of European modernism, but I find the big lettering everywhere rather off-putting. Having a version of the current CTA logo on the station is one thing, but the big MORGAN STATION on the bridge beam just seems like an engineering firm's idea of cheap decoration. It's like a tramp stamp for infrastructure, and will be just as regrettable in 30 years.

[ardecila]

Agreed, mostly - the typography isn't even very distinctive. I understand the desire to match the Helvetica of CTA's graphic standards, but as a large-scale piece of public art it just comes off as bland and soulless. It seems almost like the designers were trying to seed a new neighborhood name, but this area is already known as Fulton Market. I suppose there's still time for the name to catch on, though.

Conceptually, I like the idea of CTA starting to use typography in a decorative sense, as super-graphics or some more restrained format, but the current graphic standards are not meant for this.

Also - let's hope the CTA doesn't change logos anytime soon.

[BorisMolotov]

It's funny you said that about the new neighborhood name, in one of the pictures by markh9 at the top of this page because you can see a Fulton Market sign on one of the chimneys of a building behind the station

[emathias]

I was at the Morgan stop yesterday. It looks really good - it's what all the Brown Line stops should have looked like, in my opinion.

Some of the trains don't have announcements with Morgan on them yet. I ate dinner in Douglas Park last night and on the way back downtown on the Pink Line, they announced Clinton after Ashland. They did stop at Morgan, but it wasn't in the announcements.

One of the coolest things, actually, are the cool sculptural bike rakes they have on each corner.

[jc5680]

More Morgan Station photos via Steven Vance via Grid.

I for one would like a lot more of these. Oversized type and all.

[OhioGuy]

Looks pretty good!

[ardecila]

The new compact LCD screens are great. They don't block sight lines and they don't show a bunch of useless ads whenever you're trying to check the arrival times. Here's hoping they roll 'em out at more stations.

[jc5680]

I could do without the CDOT signage at the entrances though. Seems confusing, and I don't recall seeing them at other stations. If they are there they certainly aren't as pronounced.

[the urban politician]

AWESOME!

I hope this sets a new design standard for the CTA

[Kippis]

Wow! The Morgan station looks BADASS. I'm just wondering how long it'll take for those idiot street thugs to "rough it up" a little ...