Jumping out of the stimulus gate: Dearborn subway work to create 400 jobs
About 400 people will find jobs fixing slow zones after work begins in the Dearborn subway this month. Those jobs are being paid for by $56.6 million in federal stimulus funds under a contract approved at the March CTA board meeting.
Kiewit-Reyes was awarded the contract to renew approximately 36,000 feet of track in the Blue Line Dearborn subway tunnel. Last fall, the CTA eliminated slow zones in the Red Line subway tunnel and on the north end of the Blue Line O'Hare branch.
The most recent slow zone map shows that the Dearborn subway has the highest portion of slow zones on the Blue Line at 14.1%. Overall, 7.3% of CTA track is in a slow zone -- just under 100,000 linear feet of track. In the summer of 2007, when the CTA began aggressive slow zone repairs, more than 22% of track was in a slow zone.
The Dearborn subway work will be primarily weekend work, with single tracking during the work period, said a CTA spokesperson. More detail should be released soon.
The map still shows no slow zone on the brown line between sedgwick and armitage where it turns and goes over north ave. The train barely creeps at 15mph. I know there are a few curves, but its reeeeal slow.
Posted by: Alan | April 02, 2009 at 09:22 AM
I like that they put out these maps, but I don't know how accurate they are. I pointed out in a previous thread they supposedly removed a bunch of Red Line Main North slow zones, yet I could not find it depicted on the map where it was.
The Brown Line states that it has 1,481 feet of 15mph slow zones, but I can't find on the map where that is.
The same thing for the Congress line. The numbers on the map don't seem to add all the way up to the numbers below.
I'm thinking there are very small areas of slow zones that are too small to post OR that simply the map is not kept up with the numbers, or vice versa.
Posted by: chris | April 02, 2009 at 09:38 AM
Why was the Dearborn subway given priority over all the other slow zone work? How do they choose these things?
Posted by: chris | April 02, 2009 at 09:39 AM
Yeah, I always wondered about that around North ave. I would think it would be able to take the curves quicker then it does. It also creeps sometimes on the straightaways between Armitage & Chicago.
Posted by: Paul | April 02, 2009 at 10:06 AM
What about the Purple Line Express-in-name-only? Last time I was on that thing the Red Line flew past us north of Argyle. The Red and the Purple then played tag all the way to Howard and I swear we pulled into the station at almost the same time.
Posted by: Martha | April 02, 2009 at 10:06 AM
I haven't noticed any lack of speed on the Brown Line. Since going back to using the train I have to remember I don't have to leave at 9 to get here by 10 anymore.
Posted by: Cheryl | April 02, 2009 at 10:10 AM
The North Avenue curve has been slow since day one way back in the olden days. It was a cheap way to keep the track construction going.
Posted by: Arfo | April 02, 2009 at 10:18 AM
I believe the Brown Line slow zones are on the crossover at Clark Junction. (It seems to me that those would be permanent slow zones like on the curves and not be listed on the map, but I'm no expert.)
The Dearborn Subway was probably targeted because areas closer to the city center affect more people -- and maybe because they already had contractors who were very familiar with the subway work after they did the Red Line? Again, I'm no expert.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | April 02, 2009 at 12:51 PM