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THANK YOU for allowing me to keep things a bit light!
I normally would contribute on the forum. I don't know if it's the weather, or WHAT? But I just have not found much FUN on here with the current topics, like I used to.
I'll have to try to come up with something new.
And also, thank you, for your nice words...
Currently at work. Not much work, which is a GOOD sign for this part of society!
[quote=OyCrumbler;64534817]You were trying to say that the Red Line extension grants you access to the North Side since it would be an extension of a line that goes up to the North Side. I am pointing out that through-running these to Union Station in the Crossrail Chicago plan also provides access for South Side residents to not just the Loop (which is important!), but other parts of the city and vice versa. That was part of the point being addressed.
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A person using the EL system can get to all other EL lines on the L system for free already no construction needed. They can also get to all of the downtown Metra stations as well via walking and downtown buses. A person at 130th and the red line can use the Green line to go west to get to Oak Park, The Blue line to go NW and get to O'hare or west to get to Forest Park, The pink line west to Cicero/Berwyn. The Purple line to Evanston from howard. The Yellow line to Skokie from Howard.
If they need an Metra line they can board all Metra lines(not just the ones that stop at Union) via walking and buses. The Green line itself as well as the Cottage groove bus 4 and X4(express bus) allow the Green line to go further south and cover part of the area that the MEL covers. The J14(jeffery jump) also covers much of the area that the Metra Electric Line covers. This connection does not provide anything new to the south side as many of the trains out of Union are near other EL lines.
Anyway most of the lines out of union do nothing for a south side residents that the EL and busses can’t do within the City itself. The areas the North Central would cover would be areas that the Blue line and green line do. The South West Service is mostly covered by the Green line and Red line and somewhat covered by the Orange line via long bus rides from it’s stations. The problem with the SWS is that it is to the south, why go to union station for it? The BSNF is covered by the Green, Blue and Pink lines. The Milwaukee district west line is mostly covered by the blue and green lines in town with only a small portion of it far from EL service. The north central shares tracks with the MD-W and the MD-N is close to the blue line for most of its way out of town
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The other is that these lines often run through long segments without stops which is what RER/S-Bahn lines do save for the downtown centers and sometimes tail ends, though ME is a different beast to some extent because it's six-tracked, which is a significant time savings which is important in making mass transit useful. The claim of too near existing lines is not how transit works because they aren't all that close in regards to walking distance which is how a lot of people get to transit, and they are not always on the same arterial roads where the bus would service the same stations.
Ah 99% of CTA line stops have bus service. A station that can only pull from an half a mile will have poor service unless it has a parking lot or parking nearby(in which case the customers are drivers. Many Metra(but not all) Metra stations fit this bill.
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About a half mile walk is usually considered walking distance for rapid transit and there is only one station on MD-N and one station at RID that is within a half mile walk of a CTA line outside of the Loop. Between downplaying the value of transit to the CBD, the idea that frequency actually matters, and then pretending that these routes are being duplicated, it seems like you may not have much experience with living somewhere with truly good transit systems. Have you tried living elsewhere that has really good transit systems? Do you want to at least acknowledge this question? It doesn't seem like it and you keep on avoiding answering this for one quixotic argument after another. Seriously, have you tried living anywhere that has really good public transit and not just good for US standards, but just good compared to cities in other developed countries.
Other developed nations are FAR more dense and automobiles are far more expensive than the USA. The CTA serves a lot of people who are low income. Metra tends to serve people with more income. It makes difference in fare prices and service requirements. I used Metra because it was comfortable and fast enough that it could wisk me into the burbs in about the same amount of time it took to drive to that job and was cheaper than driving. I didn't need the NW line to stop in the City and if I did I would have used the Blue Line instead. I could use the CTA's extensive bus system or EL system to get to the Metra train without driving or I could drive to some of the stops and park. I lived FAR from anything resembling walking distance for that line and but still it was useful. This is how city people use Metra to get to jobs in the burbs or for a faster more comfortable but more expensive trip downtown. If going downtown it is often for work or because you don't want to ride the CTA and don't want to pay parking. Getting to the CBD is pretty easy from most part of town because of the EL system and Bus system and sometimes Metra. For me the fact that I can't transfer for free to/from Metra by bus was a non issue.
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The Red Line extension does not improve transit access very much from 87th St to downtown either--that's already in existence so already has good service.
However the people living south of 95th easier access to it.
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RID and ME to a RER/S-Bahn operation is for the most part not targeted towards improving transit for people who already have access to fast, frequent transit. It *is* meant to improve transit for people who do *not* currently have fast, frequent transit access which is the same as the Red Line extension!
Many of the people in that area can use the bus to get to the Red Line or Green line or use buses to head north and if you are heading to the CBD, you would just use the Metra. Unless you work nights in the CBD Metra works reasonably well for most commuters.
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The thing is that doing this with shifting and improving how RID and ME operate gets this done far faster and to a much wider swath of people and neighborhoods on the South Side for the same budget as the Red Line extension! You seem to keep on confusing yourself with these arguments about things that no one is claiming.
I think what you want will cost FAR more than what you think.
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Yea, I know the bus routes in Chicago--they would also serve the Metra lines at high frequency except there would be a lot more bus routes that can be used as single transfer to fast, frequent rail with RID and ME improving service because here are far more stations for these and you can get this going well before 2029. We are talking about dozens of stations potentially able to at least get some increased access immediately followed by incremental improvements over the course of a few years versus four stations to happen in six years
Those extra stations would tend to draw off passengers on the Red or Green line.
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You don't understand through-routing if you think it reduces capacity or eats up more space. You seem to be thinking of it as just a route extension which to some extent it is as a single seat ride or reducing transfers by one does save time and that *is* valuable despite other comments made by you that seems like you don't believe that to be true. Through-routing is more than that--it's an efficiency increase over the alternative of terminal operations.
Trust me the reason why the EL has fast frequent access lies more with the fact that it isn't attempting to go way out to places like Joliet than with switching operations. The Red line for instance does not use the loop(it uses terminal operations) but has more frequent service than the green line and some other lines that use the loop. The red line is about 26 miles long the RID is 40 miles. At equal speeds(which they are not) one red line train would be able to cover it's 52 round trip faster than the 80 mile round trip. One red line train would be able to make a round trip and one one-way trip in the time it takes for RID to do a round trip if average speeds were equal(which they are not). In reality the RID takes 1 hour and 30 to get to Joliet and about 1 hour for the Red line(at lower speed) to reach Howard from 95th. At rush hour there can be as little as 6-8 mins. between red line trains but it will take fewer trains and less complex operations to achieve that than the RID.
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You do not seem to understand this. The Loop is essentially a through-routing operating, but in a special subset of that (which also exists elsewhere as does the varying entry and exit points for loops that the L uses). That is done specifically because that kind of operation is a lot more space efficient and a lot faster than terminal operations. This very basic and fundamental aspect of through-running seems to not be acknowledged. It's really easy for you to just acknowledge that you were mistaken or misspoke, but that seems difficult for you.
El lines have switches at their non downtown terminals and trust me it takes the red line(or any other line) less time to pull out of an station and get switched to the other track than to go around the loop and far less space. What the loop does is turn around the lines on it, while serving the area of the loop and allow easy transfers between lines. Metra uses the downtown terminals to store trains between runs and thus it's terminal is functioning like a rail yard. The CTA stores trains not being used are stored in rail yards somewhere on the system(i.e. Trains are pulled from the rail yard at 95th street or Howard and taken to the tracks next to the platform it will depart from).
Anyway for a bit of history. The Jackson Park and Lake Street lines predate the loop as well as the line that would evolve into the Blue and Pink line they would be the first lines connected by it. The Northside main line(the one that heads to Howard) was the first new EL line to connect to it. The Lake Street EL made the first circuit of it and the last new train to connect to it is the Midway(orange line). The State street and Dearborn street subways were originally built to take some pressure off the loop as it had reached capacity. In fact the EL still had sub-terminals( terminal stations not on the loop) in the downtown area until the CTA took over in the late 40ies.
A person using the EL system can get to all other EL lines on the L system for free already no construction needed. They can also get to all of the downtown Metra stations as well via walking and downtown buses. A person at 130th and the red line can use the Green line to go west to get to Oak Park, The Blue line to go NW and get to O'hare or west to get to Forest Park, The pink line west to Cicero/Berwyn. The Purple line to Evanston from howard. The Yellow line to Skokie from Howard.
If they need an Metra line they can board all Metra lines(not just the ones that stop at Union) via walking and buses. The Green line itself as well as the Cottage groove bus 4 and X4(express bus) allow the Green line to go further south and cover part of the area that the MEL covers. The J14(jeffery jump) also covers much of the area that the Metra Electric Line covers. This connection does not provide anything new to the south side as many of the trains out of Union are near other EL lines.
Anyway most of the lines out of union do nothing for a south side residents that the EL and busses can’t do within the City itself. The areas the North Central would cover would be areas that the Blue line and green line do. The South West Service is mostly covered by the Green line and Red line and somewhat covered by the Orange line via long bus rides from it’s stations. The problem with the SWS is that it is to the south, why go to union station for it? The BSNF is covered by the Green, Blue and Pink lines. The Milwaukee district west line is mostly covered by the blue and green lines in town with only a small portion of it far from EL service. The north central shares tracks with the MD-W and the MD-N is close to the blue line for most of its way out of town
Ah 99% of CTA line stops have bus service. A station that can only pull from an half a mile will have poor service unless it has a parking lot or parking nearby(in which case the customers are drivers. Many Metra(but not all) Metra stations fit this bill.
Other developed nations are FAR more dense and automobiles are far more expensive than the USA. The CTA serves a lot of people who are low income. Metra tends to serve people with more income. It makes difference in fare prices and service requirements. I used Metra because it was comfortable and fast enough that it could wisk me into the burbs in about the same amount of time it took to drive to that job and was cheaper than driving. I didn't need the NW line to stop in the City and if I did I would have used the Blue Line instead. I could use the CTA's extensive bus system or EL system to get to the Metra train without driving or I could drive to some of the stops and park. I lived FAR from anything resembling walking distance for that line and but still it was useful. This is how city people use Metra to get to jobs in the burbs or for a faster more comfortable but more expensive trip downtown. If going downtown it is often for work or because you don't want to ride the CTA and don't want to pay parking. Getting to the CBD is pretty easy from most part of town because of the EL system and Bus system and sometimes Metra. For me the fact that I can't transfer for free to/from Metra by bus was a non issue.
However the people living south of 95th easier access to it.
Many of the people in that area can use the bus to get to the Red Line or Green line or use buses to head north and if you are heading to the CBD, you would just use the Metra. Unless you work nights in the CBD Metra works reasonably well for most commuters.
I think what you want will cost FAR more than what you think.
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Those extra stations would tend to draw off passengers on the Red or Green line.
Trust me the reason why the EL has fast frequent access lies more with the fact that it isn't attempting to go way out to places like Joliet than with switching operations. The Red line for instance does not use the loop(it uses terminal operations) but has more frequent service than the green line and some other lines that use the loop. The red line is about 26 miles long the RID is 40 miles. At equal speeds(which they are not) one red line train would be able to cover it's 52 round trip faster than the 80 mile round trip. One red line train would be able to make a round trip and one one-way trip in the time it takes for RID to do a round trip if average speeds were equal(which they are not). In reality the RID takes 1 hour and 30 to get to Joliet and about 1 hour for the Red line(at lower speed) to reach Howard from 95th. At rush hour there can be as little as 6-8 mins. between red line trains but it will take fewer trains and less complex operations to achieve that than the RID.
El lines have switches at their non downtown terminals and trust me it takes the red line(or any other line) less time to pull out of an station and get switched to the other track than to go around the loop and far less space. What the loop does is turn around the lines on it, while serving the area of the loop and allow easy transfers between lines. Metra uses the downtown terminals to store trains between runs and thus it's terminal is functioning like a rail yard. The CTA stores trains not being used are stored in rail yards somewhere on the system(i.e. Trains are pulled from the rail yard at 95th street or Howard and taken to the tracks next to the platform it will depart from).
Anyway for a bit of history. The Jackson Park and Lake Street lines predate the loop as well as the line that would evolve into the Blue and Pink line they would be the first lines connected by it. The Northside main line(the one that heads to Howard) was the first new EL line to connect to it. The Lake Street EL made the first circuit of it and the last new train to connect to it is the Midway(orange line). The State street and Dearborn street subways were originally built to take some pressure off the loop as it had reached capacity. In fact the EL still had sub-terminals( terminal stations not on the loop) in the downtown area until the CTA took over in the late 40ies.
You seem to keep losing sight of what's actually being argued, at this point, it does not seem like you are capable of constructive conversation because little of what you're saying has anything to do with what I'm saying and you keep repeating lines that are irrelevant. Why are you still talking about Joliet? Do you have no idea what a short turn is? Who said anything about running frequent and fast trains to Joliet? I said repeatedly that the services are for to Blue Island, and while Joliet services can certainly be upped in terms of times of day, they do not need to be. This seems to be the third time we're rounding back to this when this was never what was said in the first place. This keeps happening with you where there's seemingly no comprehension on your part which makes this pretty stupid.
A person on RID and ME were you to actually do fare integration would also be able to freely transfer to the L and vice versa. That's one of the main purposes of fare integration. The main point of the Red Line extension is to give fast and frequent transit access to other parts of the city, but especially the Loop given that it's by far the largest employment center and home to major institutions. This has been stated by advocates for the Red Line extension over and over again. RID and ME converting to fast and frequent service with fare integration would do similar but for the same budget to far more You have to be completely out of your gourd if you think the budget for getting that baseline service for RID and ME in terms of electrification and greater operations would cost anything close to $3.5 billion.
Unfortunately, I feel like I've wasted time talking to somebody who doesn't quite understand some very basic things about transit. It seems like you're not actually interested or knowledgeable about this topic, and you've never really lived in a city with anything resembling very good transit services. Ultimately, it doesn't matter really because if you have this limited understanding of how transit runs or what efficient transit is and don't seem to be open to learning more, then you probably have just about zero influence one way or another on this. As talking about this with you is a bit frustrating and at this point pretty dull so I'm not getting anything from this that I'd value, then this is a poor use of my time. I might return to this topic when someone who has an actual reasonable point about this or an interest in understanding how transit runs chimes in, but not for more of whatever this is.
The Red Line to 130th St would help revitalize theFar South Side of Chicago. The problem here is that the city of Chicago has sorely underserved that section of the city for decades, due to redlining, segregation, and corruption, but the Red Line would at least give residents of the Far South Side a one-seat ride to downtown Chicago as well as provide rapid transit access to that area. I'm for it and hopefully the city of Chicago can build the extension since it's been in planning since the 1960's I believe.
The TIF funding is coming from the South Loop AND downtown. And Bronzeville. And Canaryville. And Woodlawn. It is a zone that stretches from Madison street all the way to 134th Street.
The Metra Electrica and Rock Island lines are separated by 2.5 miles. By comparison, after the split, the Brown Line and Red Line are separated by barely a mile, and the UP-N line is available within that mile as well. Are you also outraged by the north side having too much commuter service within walking distance of residents?
Are you outraged about the same TIF structure that is funding the Red/Purple line Modernization? Or is that okay because it serves white people?
Oh wait....buses are good enough for brown people amiright? I mean after all, what can brown people expect? A 2.5 mile hike to a train that only passes once every hour or less, and doesn't offer transfers to other lines ought to be good enough for the lower classes, RIGHT?
OyCrumbler has done an admirable job explaining the much more cost effective and impactful solution that should be undertaken with these funds, but won’t be, to our shame.
But I do want to respond that your inclination to assume any opposition to this project *must be* because it’s benefitting “brown people” is one of the least effective persuasion techniques, beyond being a terrible assumption. If you can argue for something on the merits, you should argue for it on the merits. If you can’t, you should probably listen to the merits of the counter arguments before you throw up the “they don’t agree with me because they’re racist”.
I'd think that before making any major capital investment like this that they should wait for the dust to settle on the new work paradigms that have left huge tracts of empty office space around the country.
Just seeing what the "new normal" looks like going forward should be step #1.
OyCrumbler has done an admirable job explaining the much more cost effective and impactful solution that should be undertaken with these funds, but won’t be, to our shame.
But I do want to respond that your inclination to assume any opposition to this project *must be* because it’s benefitting “brown people” is one of the least effective persuasion techniques, beyond being a terrible assumption. If you can argue for something on the merits, you should argue for it on the merits. If you can’t, you should probably listen to the merits of the counter arguments before you throw up the “they don’t agree with me because they’re racist”.
Race is an argument with merit, and YOU are the one who 'should probably' listen more.
Last edited by MarianRavenwood; 12-10-2022 at 05:13 PM..
Race is an argument with merit, and YOU are the one who 'should probably' listen more.
It can be sure, but in the way you’ve yielded it in this thread, simply as a “if you don’t agree with me, you are racist”, no it’s not.
You claimed that this won’t require any local tax dollars. It will take at least $1,000,000,000 of local tax dollars. That’s beyond the opportunity cost of not using federal money for other, more impactful transit projects.
For a fraction of that billion dollars of local tax dollars, all of the ME could be converted to rapid transit with 10 minute headways. That’s a win for the entire south side. But it requires coordination from two separate transit agencies who barely acknowledge the other, and so instead we must spend 4 billion+ (these things always go over budget) for 4 new stops on the end of a line.
If there were a similar metra line in the north side that could be converted to rapid transit, I would argue that’s the path to go down till I’m blue in the face. But there’s not. There’s only this. And since we live in a poorly run, cash constrained city, there are trade offs to be made. My vote is for the cheaper option which unlocks greater transit improvements for a much wider population. Your vote is the significantly more expensive option serving only a very narrow population.
Complete and total waste of funds and money. There's many areas that could actually could support future growth with the CTA instead of this political boondoggle. The southside isn't growing and extending the red line further into such an area will do nothing but strap the CTA with additional fixed costs with no return. But as a bonus the red line should become even MORE exciting after dark!
ur incorrect. the southside, and especially the pullman area have been building and adding so many jobs. esp right off 111th and the bishop ford. between walmart, method, amazon, and gotham greens, there are a number of employers in that area. there's also the pullman museum that was recently renovated on 111th and cottage grove.
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