CTA Tattler

The Washington stop has been closed for nearly 2 years. What the hell have they been doing?

Can we even see a rendering? Or is there not enough money for one in this boondoggle.

Well I'm glad my tax dollars are hard at work on something that will be put in a "time capsule" for the next generation to magically find and enjoy.

Since there is no money for express service to O'Hare, there is no point spending money to complete the station.

The thing that was worthwhile doing and hopefully was completed is building a subway tube between the State and Dearborn station providing a rail connection between the two lines. This will permit greater flexibility in routing trains in the future by having them switch between the two subways. For EXAMPLE (only) the Orange line trains from Midway could be routed on to O'Hare.

I'm with Brian on this one. Closing down the Washington stop was a bonehead move.

The thing that also no one mentions is that this expansion was on the heels of the whole remodel of the Lake Street station that millions was poured into...thats like re-asphalting a road and then digging it up to put in a new water line...no common sense.

I've already called my alderman and told him not to vote for the $20 mil. As far as I'm concerned Block 37 can rot in hell and if it's so important then the commercial clients can pay for it.

KevinB

Oh, I forgot...maybe we can get them to whip us up a powerpoint presentation...lol

KevinB

All of a sudden the Talking Heads song "Road to Nowhere" is playing in my head.

Captain V:
For the Orange line trains to go to O'Hare, they have to spend even more money to complete the crossing at 18th & Wentworth.
Much better to build an entire line along the Belt Ry tracks along Kenton Ave., then continue north & connect with the Skokie Line & east to Howard. Then we get a true Crosstown line that avoids the Loop!

@captainvideo: THERE ALREADY WAS A SUBWAY TUBE CONNECTING THE BLUE AND RED LINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

am i losing my mind or did everyone forget that!? how did this happen? everyone keeps saying this about how they are going to build this thing to connect the red and blue lines ... it WAS connected. right? am i wrong? it was connected there and at jackson. you could go right to the daley center underground. the blind man with the synthesizer would play in the morning rush hour.

right? am i imagining that?

Smussyolay -
You are not a subway train.

smussyolay:

That was a passenger crossover. They are talking about a TRAIN crossover so that blue and redline trains could crossover to each others tracks :)

KevinB

I noticed on the bus tracker website the new June 23rd additions have been posted! Finally some major Northside routes! Still looks like it is going to be a while for the lake shore expresses or the 151 though. I'm thrilled the 92 Foster and 80 Irving Park is going live in two weeks though!

Yeah, I was going to mention that, Ed (signs went up attached to bus stop sign poles on Friday), but it doesn't really look like anyone here actually rides the CTA day to day anymore, just argues about it. You can't quite say "Finally some major North side routes" imo -- the Damen and Western buses aren't exactly desolate -- but yes, it's a batch that helps me tremendously, so I have no complaints.

When the LSD expresses do join the tracker, it's going to be a boon for drivers, too, as it'll be easy to see how fast traffic's moving (or not) by watching individual buses on the Drive. (Which opens up a new PR campaign for the CTA. "Why be stuck behind the wheel when you can be standing with 90 people on a packed bus?!") News stations would be smart to watch it too.

I saw the signs, but didn't have my glasses on, so I couldn't read them from inside the bus. I thought it was just talking about the old routes , not announcing new ones.

Is there a list of routes now available?

KevinB

Let's not forget that the Block 37 superstation was Mayor Daley's own personal atrociously bad idea. I suspect that, like so many Richie projects, it was undertaken regardless of whether or not it made any sense, because Richie wanted to give a bunch of tax money to his contractor buddies. No one should be surprised that costs are running at 50% or more over budget - it's a Richie Daley capital project, which means it's incompetently and dishonestly managed. By way of example, Millenium Park cost about 200-250% of what was projected, and the O'Hare expansion has doubled in projected cost before they've even dug any dirt.

It appears that what we'll end up with here is a $350 million unused hole in the ground. Walsh and W.E. O'Neil will come out of it fine - that was of course the plan - but the rest of us get to pay for this idiocy.

they're listed on the CTA website, under bus tracker.

But to copy & paste:
Routes that will be available starting June 23, are: 54A, 56, 56A, 68, 77, 78, 80, X80, 81, 81W, 84, 85, 85A, 86, 88, 90, 90N, 91, 92, 152

It's the Forest Park (???) garage, I think.
Mind, I take some of these buses, but I can't get the tracker to load on either my work computer (useless anyway, since I have to transfer to the 80) or my home computer, so it does me no good.

Ahh, thanks. The only helpful one for me is the 152...I really would like to see the 22 and 36 there though

KevinB

I think that's Forest Glen, Dee.

A new batch of buses. So KevinB complains. Personally I'd really like the bus that runs outside my door to finally be tracked but I'll just wait my turn and avoid whining like a self-absorbed child.

Fred:

You know, Ed pretty well said the same thing and I don't see you complaining that he's whining. Please crawl back under your rock, troll.

KevinB

"For the Orange line trains to go to O'Hare, they have to spend even more money to complete the crossing at 18th & Wentworth."

Not neccessarily; the trains can be run to the green line tracks, as now, and then use the currently unused connection from the green line tracks to the State Street subway that used to be used when the North-South trains ran from Howard to Englewood and Jackson Park. But a crossing at 18th would reduce the travel time.

In any case I only intended this as an EXAMPLE of what the subway connection between the State and Dearborn lines COULD be used for.

The point is that the construction of Block 37 provided a unique opportunity to connect the two subway lines at a much lower cost (even with the overruns) than it would cost if a tunnel had to be built below one of the streets or existing buildings, and the CTA was right to take advantage of this unique opportunity to provide for a RAIL connection between the two lines.

I think that the way the express service to O'Hare was to be implemented was wrong. The plan they had would have had the train stopping and waiting at each station for the normal Blue Line train, so there really was no benefit time-wise. Also, there is no room to run additional tracks in the median of the Kennedy.

Metra currently offers service to O'Hare, but it is so limited that it is practically worthless. I think that they only run six trains a day.

A third way might be to construct a rail connection between the Green and Blue lines using the stubs for the never-built Lake Street Subway. Somewhere west of Laramie, connect to the Union Pacific West Line and take the same route that Metra uses for the under-utilized North Central Service. You could even construct a connector between the North Central tracks and the Blue Line where they cross. Eventually, you could even add express tracks between Clark/Lake and Laramie if you really need the trains to run express.

The easiest way to get express service to O'Hare though would be to have Metra run more trains from Union Station to O'Hare throughout the day and on weekends. I have a feeling that if there was really demand for this sort of service, Metra would already be providing it, since they could do it right now with no additional construction.

Expanding service more frequently and on weekends on the North Central Metra line to O'hare would be a great idea IF they also extended the O'hare peoplemover to the O'hare Metra station. I've taken the Metra to O'hare, then waited for the shuttle bus, which then takes you to the peoplemover. Not that big of an ordeal, but a one-transfer ride to O'hare's terminals would make it much more attractive. There are a LOT of people, especially those with baggage, that will refuse deal with a shuttle bus connection.

http://www.nbc5.com/news/16562929/detail.html

Here we go again folks...stories like this make me so glad that I am moving to Wisconsin.

It does sound like connecting the two subways was worthwhile. The question in my mind is how much additional money was wasted by also trying to build a "superstation." If the bulk of the money spent would have been needed anyway in order to connect the two tunnels (i.e., if little of the money spent so far has gone into the station part of the project), then "mothballing" it is less offensive. I have a feeling this is unlikely to be the case, though...

It's too bad they didn't use the wasted money on more useful capital projects, like the various expansion projects that are still in need of local funds, or the capital work that has been done lately but funded by bonds that will burden the CTA budget for years to come.

So short sighted.

They can already transfer trains with the new Paulina connector. It is a pain in the neck, but it is probably still faster than using a crane or other heavy equipment to move them.

High speed, high quality, express service from Block 37 to O'Hare could be offered by a private for profit corporation. To do this would require using dual-power rail cars that can run both on diesel power and on the CTAs electic power. This would make it possible to avoid the bottleneck resulting from using the Blue line tracks for this purpose.

The trains would run from Block 37 using the Blue line until the Blue line crosses the Metra's Milwaukee District West Line. At this point a connection would be built and the trains would use the Metra's line (powered by Diesel)westward. They would switch to the Metra's North Central Service line until it meets the CTA's tracks into O'Hare. A connection would be built at that point so that the trains would then use the CTA's tracks into O'Hare terminal, running on electric power again. In addition a station at the International terminal would be added. (This should be done anyway for the blue line.)

Passengers could check in, get their boarding passes, and check their baggage at the Block 37 station and enjoy fast service to both the international and the main terminal.

This is the kind of high speed service that mayor Dailey had in mind. It would help Chicago compete for the Olympics. Madrid already has high speed train service from its airport to its downtown.

Another notch in Huberman's belt:

" 6:22 PM CDT, June 10, 2008

Hundreds of riders were evacuated from two CTA trains Tuesday afternoon after a man was struck and killed by a Red Line train just south of the Chinatown stop on the South Side, authorities said."

What is Huberman supposed to do when people kill themselves at rush hour? I don't think we'll ever have a CTA President that can heal the sick, or make trains levitate.

If there were truly logistical errors here (I hear not enough shuttle buses)then that will need to be addressed (I wonder how many extra buses are available at rush hour, and how long it would take to get them out...no garages near there).

I think I read somewhere that the incentives and bonuses on that lucrative, slushy base $198K per annum kick in when our beloved transit president can be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, preferably all at the same time. C'mon people, if Frank in his DayGlo Gore Tex and system map tie couldn't keep resisting and eluding soon-to-be felons off the tracks, what's RonH supposed to do? Bring back Frank; he was the bomb!

By the by, last Friday a Metra train was delayed for two hours because a freight train carrying animal fat had a leaky valve. The tanker spewed fat all over the rails and track bed, which necessitated all trains be stopped because it's kinda hard to brake with grease on the rails. No shuttles were available and passengers were trapped on trains and/or stranded for hours. I loathe CTA bullfat as much as the next poster, but let's keep it in perspective.

The notion that a for-profit company could or should run an express train service to O'Hare is flawed in a few ways.

First, if it was truly a profitable venture, it is difficult to explain why no one appears to be clamoring to do it.

It seems more likely that some sort of public subsidy would be necessary - either in the form of subsidizing the rather large startup costs (capital construction) and/or an operating subsidy.

If this is right, and it really is, all told, a subsidized service, then it seems difficult to make the argument that a modestly faster trip between the Loop and O'Hare is, dollar for dollar, the best use of whatever scarce capital funds the CTA or city can scrounge up in the forseeable future. Expanding the rail network -- or simply making the existing one work right -- would appear to serve far more people far more effectively than cutting 20 minutes off of the trip to O'Hare for a modest number of well-off travelers. (While tanking a bunch of cab drivers' livelihoods in the process.)

On the other hand, suppose that proponents are right, and that the express train is actually, all told, a profitable enterprise. Other than for Daley patronage purposes, why exactly would we want to just hand off the profit opportunity to some private company? Let the CTA run it and use the profit to subsidize the rest of its transit operations and thus limit the need for fare increases in the years to come.

(And before anybody starts with some capitalist invisible hand nonsense: unless you're envisioning having three or four independent express train operations competing with one another on separate tracks, this is not a situation where privatization will employ "market forces" to creat magical efficiencies that are somehow beyond the reach of the CTA.)

Extending the people mover to the O'Hare metra station would be a good idea.

" Another notch in Huberman's belt:

6:22 PM CDT, June 10, 2008

'Hundreds of riders were evacuated from two CTA trains Tuesday afternoon after a man was struck and killed by a Red Line train just south of the Chinatown stop on the South Side, authorities said.'

Posted by: Cind Marks | June 10, 2008 at 06:46 PM"
~~~~~~~~~

Cind -
What's your point? Riders are SUPPOSED to be evacuated when the trains aren't going to be moving - for whatever reason. This time it was for a CPD death investigation.

I'm not a Ron fan. I think he is all smoke and mirrors and is making a bad system worse, but I don't see any way to blame today's incident on him - or anyone else at the CTA. The guy jumped over a retaining wall from the expressway onto the tracks. Pity the operator who saw the accident happen.

Now, if you want to blame Ron and Co. for the poor way the reroute service information was handled - go ahead.

"The point is that the construction of Block 37 provided a unique opportunity to connect the two subway lines at a much lower cost (even with the overruns) than it would cost if a tunnel had to be built below one of the streets or existing buildings, and the CTA was right to take advantage of this unique opportunity to provide for a RAIL connection between the two lines."

It seems pretty difficult to believe that it is worth all this money when nobody seems to have an idea of a good use for it. Why would anybody want to take a train through the loop to go from O'Hare to Midway. If they want to spend so much extra time than they could have if they used a cab or the various shuttle services available, then they won't mind spending another two minutes transferring at Clark/Lake.

A better use for the connection might be to switch the blue and red train routes. They could have red line trains go from the North side to Forest Park and blue line trains travel from O'Hare to 95th. There are a number of reasons why this makes sense. It allows easier access for north siders to the west loop office buildings (which is where most of the growth is). The blue line already stops fairly far west at the Clark/Lake stop. It also seems much more logical to route the blue line in a consistant direction rather than have it essentually come back in the same direction it came from. I doubt very many people take the line from the northwest side to the Forest Park branch(other than to the UIC area). That is not efficiant. There also would seem to be some advantages of having the tourists and businesspeople coming from O'Hare be able to take a single train to near the musuem campus and McCormick place. But a major disadvantage of this would be that discouraging those who work in the west loop from walking to State Street may cause diminished retail activity there. And there are other drawbacks as well. It probably makes sense but it seems to me that there would have been much better uses for the CTA to have spent the money. But I'm sure this is something that the city and the CTA have thought about and I wouldn't be surprised if they have already decided to do it without telling anybody.

From today's trib article:

"[Huberman] proposed a new agreement with Joseph Freed & Associates, the Block 37 developer, to finish the shell of the station and the shell of a tunnel connecting the Dearborn Street and State Street subways."

Wait, a shell of a tunnel? $300 million and they didn't even lay track?

The value of connecting the subways goes beyond the possibility of any particular new route it might enable. Having alternate routes available increases the range of options available when parts of a line are shut down for construction or during emergencies.

For example, if what happened on the red line yesterday happened on the O'Hare branch of the blue line, one could imagine running blue line trains up the northern branch of the red line in a pinch, sending dispaced riders to a variety of west-bound buses all across the north side rather than trying to cram them all onto shuttle buses that mimic the blue line route.

Likewise, if there was a problem with the western branch of the green line, you could send northbound trains up the O'Hare branch of the blue line if need be.

If they're not going to use it for anything else, let Gigi Pritgzer move her Chuck E Cheese there.

"For example, if what happened on the red line yesterday happened on the O'Hare branch of the blue line, one could imagine running blue line trains up the northern branch of the red line in a pinch, sending dispaced riders to a variety of west-bound buses all across the north side rather than trying to cram them all onto shuttle buses that mimic the blue line route."

I'm having a difficult time seeing how that would make a difference. The incident happened, for Christ's sake, south of the Chinatown station. That is like four miles from the subway. If the CTA doesn't have the infrastructure to allow it to run trains to at least Roosevelt in this situation, how would a connection tunnel to the blue line have made a difference? They already have a connection to the Green and Orange lines north of the incident that took place. That, for some reason, didn't allow trains to operate in the subway.

MK -

Read the original post carefully. Yank wasn't writing about the incident on the Red Line. This was a hypothetical situation occurring on the O'Hare branch of the Blue Line. I still don't think it would work. There is no spare capacity during rush hour and that is why these incidents are always going to cause the major disruptions that they do.

ebob: It's true there is not (much) spare capacity, but the reroutes I described would spread the pain around much more effectively. Having slow or reduced service on two lines, for example, is probably better than having effectively no service on an entire branch of a line (which is what nonexistant shuttle buses offer during rush hour).

Also, while there's not a lot of spare capacity there is some (especially if you look at the express tracks north of Belmont).

However you cut it, you're right - an entire branch of a rail line closing during rush hour is going to suck. But having added flexibility in routing trains gives the CTA more options to employ to make it suck somewhat less.