Do you think the EL will ever be expanded or new lines added? (Chicago: moving, transportation)

[j_cat]

You know how the Red Line is a fairly straight line? Goes through downtown but then continues on? Some towns like D.C. have all their lines pretty much like that (except for their kooky boomerang-shaped Red Line). Makes it easier to avoid transfers and the inevitable delays that result.

I think the Brown Line should be extended in this manner. It should go down the south lakeshore. It also wouldn't hurt to extend it further north and/or west.

[j_cat]

Or how about just a line all the way down Lakeshore Drive? Or at least North Lakeshore Drive. It would reflect the extreme shoreline density gradient a lot better than the Red Line does. It might be considered ugly for that setting, but is it any worse than the road that's already there?

[emathias]

Originally Posted by tonythetuna

...
The bus would get to Jefferson Park much quicker.

Riiiight. I assume from this statement you've never actually been to Lawrence or attempted to use Lawrence (car or bus), as it's not an easy street to navigate. You know that just calling a bus "express" doesn't actually make it be able to go any faster, right?

And just how would your through-route a bus to O'Hare? If you threw it onto the highway, you'd sort of be missing the entire point.

A rail route between Lawrence and the Blue Line would allow for fast routing from Lincoln Park on northward to O'Hare and from Evanston south to O'Hare, actually making public transit to O'Hare something useful for more than just the desperate or those already downtown. Currently using the Lawrence bus to the Blue Line, it takes about 75 minutes to get from Lincoln Square to O'Hare. The rail route I described would get you there in 25 minutes. The O'Hare area is also the second (or, at worst, third) largest employment center in the Chicagoland region after the Loop. And while it's still not exactly a pedestrian paradise, it's a lot more conducive to being served by mass transit that most other areas.

The MidCity Transitway you mention would run along Cicero Avenue. Last year there were an average of 13,000 weekday riders on the three buses that serve the various parts of Cicero Ave coving over 11.5 miles on the main portion (over 15 miles total, but the endpoints would be beyond the new rail). The two buses that serve Lawrence carried about 16,000 per weekday last year, and that's for a route that partially served by a rail line and they do most of it for an area that's 5.5 miles long - more ridership in less than half the distance.

I do support the idea of the Midcity Transitway, but as far as bang for the buck, a Lawrence subway actually looks very good.

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by emathias

Riiiight. I assume from this statement you've never actually been to Lawrence or attempted to use Lawrence (car or bus), as it's not an easy street to navigate. You know that just calling a bus "express" doesn't actually make it be able to go any faster, right?

I guarantee I have been on Lawrence walking,busing,and driving about 5000 times more than you have.

If you read my whole post, you would see that I brought up sending the bus down Foster instead of Lawrence most of the way.

Originally Posted by tonythetuna

Why? Why not just make an Lawrence express bus? Or better yet, have it start at the Lawrence Red Line station, but run down Foster after going up Western or something. The bus would get to Jefferson Park much quicker.

The express bus would not go all the way to O'Hare, it would just go to Jefferson Park where riders would switch to the Blue Line.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by tonythetuna

Why? Why not just make an Lawrence express bus? Or better yet, have it start at the Lawrence Red Line station, but run down Foster after going up Western or something. The bus would get to Jefferson Park much quicker.

The ridership per mile for the Lawrence bus is over double that of the Cicero bus. And personally I've always found Cicero to be more likely to have the physical layout for an express bus, while Lawrence definitely doesn't.

If you think Lawrence could get by with an express bus, then you have no business advocating rail for Cicero.

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by emathias

If you think Lawrence could get by with an express bus, then you have no business advocating rail for Cicero.

What part of my post did you not comprehend? I said to send the bus down Foster most of the way.

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by emathias

Currently using the Lawrence bus to the Blue Line, it takes about 75 minutes to get from Lincoln Square to O'Hare. The rail route I described would get you there in 25 minutes.

Smart people take that route in off-peak hours only. You must take that route during rush hour.

[Hendu]

Originally Posted by emathias

Riiiight. I assume from this statement you've never actually been to Lawrence or attempted to use Lawrence (car or bus), as it's not an easy street to navigate. You know that just calling a bus "express" doesn't actually make it be able to go any faster, right?

And just how would your through-route a bus to O'Hare? If you threw it onto the highway, you'd sort of be missing the entire point.

A rail route between Lawrence and the Blue Line would allow for fast routing from Lincoln Park on northward to O'Hare and from Evanston south to O'Hare, actually making public transit to O'Hare something useful for more than just the desperate or those already downtown. Currently using the Lawrence bus to the Blue Line, it takes about 75 minutes to get from Lincoln Square to O'Hare. The rail route I described would get you there in 25 minutes. The O'Hare area is also the second (or, at worst, third) largest employment center in the Chicagoland region after the Loop. And while it's still not exactly a pedestrian paradise, it's a lot more conducive to being served by mass transit that most other areas.

The MidCity Transitway you mention would run along Cicero Avenue. Last year there were an average of 13,000 weekday riders on the three buses that serve the various parts of Cicero Ave coving over 11.5 miles on the main portion (over 15 miles total, but the endpoints would be beyond the new rail). The two buses that serve Lawrence carried about 16,000 per weekday last year, and that's for a route that partially served by a rail line and they do most of it for an area that's 5.5 miles long - more ridership in less than half the distance.

I do support the idea of the Midcity Transitway, but as far as bang for the buck, a Lawrence subway actually looks very good.

A few things to consider:

1) there's an abandoned rail line two blocks east of Cicero that would make for an easy CTA right-of-way similar to the orange line. Rail down Lawrence would need to be built from scratch and require some eminent domain. Bang for buck goes to midcity easily.

2) The midcity line would be the only rail line that covered the north, west and south sides of the city, and it would connect the orange, pink, green and blue (both branches) lines, come fairly close to the brown line, and offer O'Hare to Midway service. The CTA is after all supposed to make the entire city livable and not just the lakefront.

3) The Cicero bus is practically unusable. A main draw for the Cicero bus should be the connection between the north/northwest side and Midway but who is going to change buses in a no-mans land at Cermak & Cicero? I've done it a couple of times and I would not recommend it. Also a Cicero rail line would attract more riders than even the former x54 route because of grade separation from the Austin neighborhood...that little bit of separation makes a huge difference.

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by Hendu

A few things to consider:

1) there's an abandoned rail line two blocks east of Cicero that would make for an easy CTA right-of-way similar to the orange line. Rail down Lawrence would need to be built from scratch and require some eminent domain. Bang for buck goes to midcity easily.

2) The midcity line would be the only rail line that covered the north, west and south sides of the city, and it would connect the orange, pink, green and blue (both branches) lines, come fairly close to the brown line, and offer O'Hare to Midway service. The CTA is after all supposed to make the entire city livable and not just the lakefront.

3) The Cicero bus is practically unusable. A main draw for the Cicero bus should be the connection between the north/northwest side and Midway but who is going to change buses in a no-mans land at Cermak & Cicero? I've done it a couple of times and I would not recommend it. Also a Cicero rail line would attract more riders than even the former x54 route because of grade separation from the Austin neighborhood...that little bit of separation makes a huge difference.

Thank you. I did not have the energy or articulation tonight to write that.

[APPLEI]

Originally Posted by JacksonPanther

The fact that the southern lakefront has no CTA service is another problem that needs to get resolved, and not as a social program. It's just to serve a number of riders that are currently driving, taking buses, or Metra.

What we need is to expand the Brownline over or under US-41 that connects The Loop with (South Loop, Douglas, Oakland, Kenwood, Hyde Park, Woodlawn, South Shore, South Chicago, Eastside & Hegwisch)