Well, I don't think it's fair to take out your anger on the rank-and-file employees of the CTA, even if many of them are lazy slobs. There's also a lot of honest CTA workers who do they best they can within a flawed system, and they are just as frustrated as the rest of us. IMO, the anger needs to be directed toward CTA management, City Hall, and Springfield.
it would still be a great image - Angry mob overturns El car sending it plumetting to Chicago river off the Wells St. bridge, narrowly missing REO SPeedwagon performing on a nearby barge.
lletdownl i agree with you about the general complacency of people in general whether its out of hopelessness or lack of interest or whatever.. you're absolutely right that all of us have gotten way to stoic about things we have the power to change, especially in the US despite what people seem to think.. i just disagree with you about where it is realistically more beneficial to direct that power.
and i shouldn't classify everyone's train of thought as 'hopeless' i'm i guess speaking for myself and the almost decade i've been riding the cta watching repeated 'doomsday' scenarios, bailouts, changes of management and means, etc. etc. while i, the constant, riding the train everyday see trains get a little slower, a little dirtier, a little less reliable, etc., etc. that=hopelessness specifically that this new legislative proposal on the 17th will be the great salvation and the thing that turns it all around, maybe it will, maybe they're will be marked improvements if this happens. i hope so cause that is the kill the hopelessness that i believe a lot of people, including myself, have and would get more people involved in the future. i do believe some people, not all, but some would take action in the first place if they thought some good would come. i'm simply not holding my breath, it all seems way to idealistic, but i certainly don't fault you and appreciate your own actions.
and as i said, i don't know the solution myself, i don't have the answers and can't pretend to which is why i'm not a politician, but everything you said about the cta being the public's responsibility is true, and i never disagreed with that in my own statements. i don't classify it as a 'utility' per se myself the same as water or electricity but it is public infrastructure, but at the same time harder for outsiders to feel the need to care about, that's the root of the problem.
postal, i'm with you... map out a plan of improvements for the transit system and market it as being the catalyst that will woo the olympics committee and make the olympics more memorable than other cities and it'll get bought.. that's business.
Maybe we should do an online petition so theres less chance of recourse for those of us living in the city - I'd hate for property tax bill to get doubled or my gas shut off, or worse
Well, maybe the CTA really isnt in as much trouble as we thought and it was really a ploy to get the most corrupt city in America, the gangsters who brought u Vegas, a linked mass transit Leagalized gambling in Chicago bill. I wouldnt put it past them.
" I will not hold transit riders hostage for casinos" - Mike Madigan
you know what confuses me about casino's... I haven't heard anyone arguing persuasively, in favor or not, about them. There is always discussion about what kind of casino's they would be, where they would be, how many would there be, but if you asked around, most people have little to no clue about the nature of their impact.
Seeing as it is linked so heavily to the largest problem this city has faced in quite some time, i dont understand why there is not more conversation about the real consequences, good and bad.
thats what they say. I always associate casinos with impovrished rustbelt cities with no other options for tax revenues and indian reservations. Has Chicago really become that short sighted that casinos are it's only option? Does anyone think that this wont turn into a giant mob run enterprise? How many states passed Lottery bills in the 80's saying it would "solve" the education and road funding in their states, yet 20 years later the problems remain. Expansion of government and taxing authorities just breeds more spending, not fixes the existing budgets. Giving government casinos, well, they havent inveted a word for that yet. Thats like the kind of shit you find in Russia.
I agree, casinos are a bad idea. Gambling in general should be limited to Vegas and AC, including the lotto and indian gaming. But that's just my opinion and the gambling lobby is bigger than me.
IMO Chicago owes most of their problems to letting the Daley family own that town for over 40 years. A little churn in the mayors office might do some good to the windy city.
Unfortunately it's more than just the Daley clan, although they're the most obvious example. The entire political culture in Illinois is that of a third-world banana republic.
a separate issue but i've always felt that like ticket scalping, gambling should be allowed, and confined to approved areas. people should be allowed to do what they want with their own money, regardless of how retarded. giving the authorities a small area where the casinos are located would keep the crime problem to a minimum. it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with expanding government. the only reason gambling isn't legal everywhere is because our culture regards it as sinful.
I dont regard gambling sinful at all - I do however have issue with an industry knowingly praying off the least who can afford it. Theres nothing sinful about games of chance, or sporting events with unknown outcomes. Yet thats illeagal, whereas games with stacked house odds are leagal? What if like ciggarettes, ( which are banned) each table had a "warning: Your best odds of beating the house in this game is 30%", what would happen then?
Agreed.... I'm pretty much a civil libertarian when it comes to "moral" crimes: To each his own. However, I have a big problem with an industry whose sole objective is the exploitation of working-class people, especially in industry with such heavy connections to organized crime.
Daley probably thinks he can turn Chicago into some sort of Midwestern Monaco for the high rollers. What would more likely happen, though, is that Chicago begins to resemble Elgin or Michigan City, with blue-collar workers gambling away their unemployment checks while the rest of the city continues to rot away.
nonsense. people need to learn to take responsibility for themselves. i've never gambled in my life. never smoked either. but i say that smoking should also not be banned.
I don't think gambling should be banned per se, but I think that entrusting mob-connected Illinois politicians with casino funding is like entrusting an alcoholic with bartending.
btw sorry i didn't mean to derail the thread. but, its my contention that most politicians are corrupt in some way or another, regardless of the industry they are most connected to. i don't think taxpayers should be paying for casino construction. but the fact that the gambling industry is wrought with corruption isn't the reason gambling is illegal everywhere. it is due to our collective "value" system, which is probably the reason why gambling so easily attracts corrupt individuals, be they politician or otherwise, as gambling is not seen as "wholesome." besides, a lot of casinos today aren't run by the mob, they are run by corporate america. i just don't see why gambling should be anymore illegal than cigarettes, fast food, or winner's cup vodka. it isn't our job to hold people's hand just because they can't control themselves. if you took gambling away from the gambling addict wouldn't he just become addicted to something else?
You're right about the Mayor, and others, using this as a tool to get casinos. Lost in all of his and Huberman's "doomsday rhetoric" is Julie Hamos's attempt to clean up the pension plan and get a regional authority together to deal with the real problems. It reminds me of Daley askign for new taxes when Chicago garbage trucks have 3 man crews and private ones just one guy. Also we spend $400 million in TIF money every year. United Airlines just got another $5 million for their relocation downtown. TIF money is siphoned off the top without any traces in your property tax bill.
though this could be really difficult on the city (i for instance have no idea how id get to work...cab?) a strike really would cripple the city and hopefully shock horribly selfish and lazy politicians into arriving at a solution.
As far as republican's pushing hard to create an RTA, i think its pretty clear that they have no altruistic motive to do so. They likely would be the sole beneficiary of syphoning more future money from the cta, towards more ring highways and expanded suburban infrastructure...which trust me, they would do in a heart beat. Thats the business of politics, get what you can for your constituents, so i dont blame them for what i see as misguided development policy. Just dont paint them as benevolent when they are clearly not.
However at this point, i dont care... the ring counties can pave every square inch if theyd like... i just want to have the opportunity to get to work on time without waiting on the blue line platform for 30 min waiting for a train i can fit in.
lletdown is right... Republicans in Springfield are firmly in the pockets of the developers, and have favored policies that encouraged suburban sprawl at every turn, usually at the expense of the city.
While the CTA has been going through all this drama, didn't the Tollway Authority just recently open, with much fanfare, a 20-mile extension of I-355 through semi-rural areas of DuPage and Will Counties? For some reason they never had any trouble getting funding for that project.
I correct myself. Chicago secret tax system, called TIFs, eats $500 million right off the top of the property taxes we pay without any notice to the taxpayer.
ah, it feels good to rent! (sometimes) actually, i'm sure that property tax assessment will somehow sneak its way into my pocket!
http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/ <~ lynn becker's blog in case you haven't seen it before... has had a bunch of posts about the TIF system... also has good links to more informative TIF arcticles... and the occasional architecture related post
when your state and city government are the largest organized criminal entity in the nation, theres a reason for everything. No one would ever entrust Chicago with a casino but if you hold your transit syatem hostage, you'll get what you want.
But I'd like to predict that by 2016 they'll build multiple new lines to CTA. Somehow, this messed up place always delivers spectacularily when need be. They know whats at stake.
That's doubtful... 2016 is only 8 years away, and it takes much longer than that to build a new rail line. My firm does a lot of transit work for multiple agencies, and it's an incredibly slow process even under the best of circumstances. There's tons of behind-the-scenes feasibility studies, environmental reports, cost analysis, lots of legal maneuvering for property acquisition, and of course the design and construction. And that's assuming you already have all the funding in place to begin with.
And while you build the new lines, you also have to design and build new railcars to operate on those lines. That's a multi-year process in itself. The CTA already has a severe shortage of railcars, and about half their existing fleet is rapidly approaching the end of its life cycle. The CTA's newest rolling stock is over 15 years old, which is considered middled-aged in the railroad world. It doesn't help that every company that has ever manufactured CTA railcars is now out of business.
Even if the CTA somehow manages to get its funding sorted out this month, and even without the added burden of building additional rail lines, they're going to be in a very painful position for years to come while they struggle to catch up on all their deferred maintenance and infrastructure needs.
they'll do it. Thats the good side of the "machine style" of gov. is that when they want something, they just do it. Theres plenty of n/s belt railroads in town that are hardly used that the right of ways are already there.
The $500M Orange Line to Midway Airport -- which operates mostly on existing railroad rights-of-way -- was first seriously proposed in 1980, received federal funding in 1986, and opened for service in 1993. That's a 13-year process, began at a time when Chicago had much more political clout in Washington than it does now. I suppose it's possible to build a new crosstown line or a circle line in time for 2016, but they would need to get the federal funding ASAP.
Unfortunately, with the CTA's current problems making national headlines, with the region's elected leadership having zero credibility, and with the national economy showing signs of a downturn, I don't see federal money being as forthcoming now as it might have been in 1986.
Also, keep in mind that the Orange Line connects the nation's second-largest business district with a major airport, through a part of the city that was severely under-served by rapid transit. The need was much more critical. Neither the Crosstown Line nor the Circle Line can really make that claim.
We have a crosstown line here in NYC, the G train, that connects Brooklyn and Queens without going through Manhattan. It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice, the G train is pretty much a half-forgotten backwater of the subway system that sees relatively few passengers and even less attention from the MTA. I fear the same thing would eventually become of any crosstown line in Chicago, a city with a much lower population density and transit ridership than NYC.
LIG, Chicago is not NYC and is ripe for development. The entire westside is essentially abandoned. A circle line, belt line whatever would only spur development. In fact thats how the el was created - the different private lines were backed by realestate speculators who extended the lines to as yet unbuilt parcels. The line came first then the people. Plus they need a way to get people to Washington Park if they intend to build a stadium there. As for clout, I agree, the next president of the United States just aint what it used to be.
If a transit line is all it takes to spur development, why does the Green Line -- a relatively fast ride that directly serves the Loop -- go through mile after mile of burned-out, abandoned lots?
The fundamental problem with a crosstown line (as I alluded to in my example of New York's G train) is that, by definition, it doesn't go downtown. Most transit riders want to be able to ride their train downtown without having to make one or more transfers.
The CTA's proposed Circle Line along Paulina Street would make sense if it also goes into the Loop, and the long-proposed Crosstown Line along Cicero Avenue might be viable if it connects the Jefferson Park transit hub to Midway Airport, but again, this is all pie-in-the-sky until the CTA resolves its current budget mess and begins tackling the huge backlog of existing infrastructure needs.
Its my understanding that the circle line ( Paulina) has been well on its way in congress for years. Along with 2 west side circulators to connect it to the loop - I have no idea what the circulators are - be it trolleys, streetcars, etc. Most interesting is that federal setaside funding has been slowly accumulating for a bluline to Oakbrrook and woodfield - yes the mega suburban shopping/ edgecity model are the new hubs in the system. So a cross town would be the bypass to get to the technoburbs.
Although I'll concede that Schaumburg needs some sort of rail transit options, I'm very skeptical about extending the Blue Line there. What happens when an inbound Blue Line train fills to capacity before it even gets to O'Hare, and people at Jeff Park and Logan Square stand on the platform and watch one train after another pass by without any chance of being able to squeeze on board?
I see the whole Schaumburg extension being a disaster unless dramatic steps are taken to increase capacity on the line further inbound, but I haven't seen this issue seriously addressed by any of the proposals. I suppose you could have some trains start at O'Hare or Rosemont and other trains begin at Schaumburg, but the fact of the matter is that you're still adding huge numbers of riders to a line that is already bursting at the seams.
express lines - look at the eisenhower - it has land banked since the 50's for what was then called the Westchester line. I guess Im saying never say never around this city because when its at its most pathetic looking, thats always the time massive projects are unveiled. I think it's the local government's way of making it's citezen's thnkful.
But the land use issue - Chicago is so ripe for development its sick. America is supposed to grow by 30% in the next 40 years. That kind of housing burden will be the biggest weve ever faced. I cant think of another metro area with so much infrastructure such as parks streets and sewers ready to go, possibly Detroit. The southwest has land but no water so....
I too have read that the Paulina circle line is a fairly well developed and articulated project. With the intent to use lots of already existing infrastructure like abandon freight lines and over passes (one of which runs right near my house).
I agree with LIG though that a massive capital investment like the circle line, or blue/red line extension (though the red line extension, ive read, is a done deal), should wait. Tracks need to be completely rebuilt, trains upgraded, stations repaired, overall capacity increased before anything else should be done. The truth of the matter is the CTA already has more tracks down than any city outside of NYC, more stations as well.
The coverage area of Trains and Busses combine is already quite impressive. Getting the CTA up to where it should be as far as maintenance and capacity would likely make the need for capital projects much less intense.
CTA Funding Meltdown
Well, I don't think it's fair to take out your anger on the rank-and-file employees of the CTA, even if many of them are lazy slobs. There's also a lot of honest CTA workers who do they best they can within a flawed system, and they are just as frustrated as the rest of us. IMO, the anger needs to be directed toward CTA management, City Hall, and Springfield.
(that was in response to the 1979 incident)
it would still be a great image - Angry mob overturns El car sending it plumetting to Chicago river off the Wells St. bridge, narrowly missing REO SPeedwagon performing on a nearby barge.
lletdownl i agree with you about the general complacency of people in general whether its out of hopelessness or lack of interest or whatever.. you're absolutely right that all of us have gotten way to stoic about things we have the power to change, especially in the US despite what people seem to think.. i just disagree with you about where it is realistically more beneficial to direct that power.
and i shouldn't classify everyone's train of thought as 'hopeless' i'm i guess speaking for myself and the almost decade i've been riding the cta watching repeated 'doomsday' scenarios, bailouts, changes of management and means, etc. etc. while i, the constant, riding the train everyday see trains get a little slower, a little dirtier, a little less reliable, etc., etc. that=hopelessness specifically that this new legislative proposal on the 17th will be the great salvation and the thing that turns it all around, maybe it will, maybe they're will be marked improvements if this happens. i hope so cause that is the kill the hopelessness that i believe a lot of people, including myself, have and would get more people involved in the future. i do believe some people, not all, but some would take action in the first place if they thought some good would come. i'm simply not holding my breath, it all seems way to idealistic, but i certainly don't fault you and appreciate your own actions.
and as i said, i don't know the solution myself, i don't have the answers and can't pretend to which is why i'm not a politician, but everything you said about the cta being the public's responsibility is true, and i never disagreed with that in my own statements. i don't classify it as a 'utility' per se myself the same as water or electricity but it is public infrastructure, but at the same time harder for outsiders to feel the need to care about, that's the root of the problem.
postal, i'm with you... map out a plan of improvements for the transit system and market it as being the catalyst that will woo the olympics committee and make the olympics more memorable than other cities and it'll get bought.. that's business.
i think the letters to the olympic committe is a brilliant idea - the only one that will hit hard --
http://www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/executive/members_uk.asp
The International Olympic Committee .
Executive Board
Château de Vidy
1007 Lausanne
Switzerland
FAX
(41.21) 621 62 16
Atten: Count Jacques ROGGE
President
BUT THEY NEED TO BE COPIED TO RON HEUBERMAN AND KING RICHARD
Maybe we should do an online petition so theres less chance of recourse for those of us living in the city - I'd hate for property tax bill to get doubled or my gas shut off, or worse
temporary reprieve on the doomsday scenerio
crains
Well, maybe the CTA really isnt in as much trouble as we thought and it was really a ploy to get the most corrupt city in America, the gangsters who brought u Vegas, a linked mass transit Leagalized gambling in Chicago bill. I wouldnt put it past them.
" I will not hold transit riders hostage for casinos" - Mike Madigan
Madigan lays groundwork for casinos
you know what confuses me about casino's... I haven't heard anyone arguing persuasively, in favor or not, about them. There is always discussion about what kind of casino's they would be, where they would be, how many would there be, but if you asked around, most people have little to no clue about the nature of their impact.
Seeing as it is linked so heavily to the largest problem this city has faced in quite some time, i dont understand why there is not more conversation about the real consequences, good and bad.
Because people are intelectualy lazy
Don't casinos cost society far more than they bring in?
thats what they say. I always associate casinos with impovrished rustbelt cities with no other options for tax revenues and indian reservations. Has Chicago really become that short sighted that casinos are it's only option? Does anyone think that this wont turn into a giant mob run enterprise? How many states passed Lottery bills in the 80's saying it would "solve" the education and road funding in their states, yet 20 years later the problems remain. Expansion of government and taxing authorities just breeds more spending, not fixes the existing budgets. Giving government casinos, well, they havent inveted a word for that yet. Thats like the kind of shit you find in Russia.
I agree, casinos are a bad idea. Gambling in general should be limited to Vegas and AC, including the lotto and indian gaming. But that's just my opinion and the gambling lobby is bigger than me.
IMO Chicago owes most of their problems to letting the Daley family own that town for over 40 years. A little churn in the mayors office might do some good to the windy city.
Unfortunately it's more than just the Daley clan, although they're the most obvious example. The entire political culture in Illinois is that of a third-world banana republic.
a separate issue but i've always felt that like ticket scalping, gambling should be allowed, and confined to approved areas. people should be allowed to do what they want with their own money, regardless of how retarded. giving the authorities a small area where the casinos are located would keep the crime problem to a minimum. it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with expanding government. the only reason gambling isn't legal everywhere is because our culture regards it as sinful.
I dont regard gambling sinful at all - I do however have issue with an industry knowingly praying off the least who can afford it. Theres nothing sinful about games of chance, or sporting events with unknown outcomes. Yet thats illeagal, whereas games with stacked house odds are leagal? What if like ciggarettes, ( which are banned) each table had a "warning: Your best odds of beating the house in this game is 30%", what would happen then?
Agreed.... I'm pretty much a civil libertarian when it comes to "moral" crimes: To each his own. However, I have a big problem with an industry whose sole objective is the exploitation of working-class people, especially in industry with such heavy connections to organized crime.
Daley probably thinks he can turn Chicago into some sort of Midwestern Monaco for the high rollers. What would more likely happen, though, is that Chicago begins to resemble Elgin or Michigan City, with blue-collar workers gambling away their unemployment checks while the rest of the city continues to rot away.
nonsense. people need to learn to take responsibility for themselves. i've never gambled in my life. never smoked either. but i say that smoking should also not be banned.
I don't think gambling should be banned per se, but I think that entrusting mob-connected Illinois politicians with casino funding is like entrusting an alcoholic with bartending.
most bartenders are alcoholics
At least they're usually not indulging their habit at taxpayer expense.
btw sorry i didn't mean to derail the thread. but, its my contention that most politicians are corrupt in some way or another, regardless of the industry they are most connected to. i don't think taxpayers should be paying for casino construction. but the fact that the gambling industry is wrought with corruption isn't the reason gambling is illegal everywhere. it is due to our collective "value" system, which is probably the reason why gambling so easily attracts corrupt individuals, be they politician or otherwise, as gambling is not seen as "wholesome." besides, a lot of casinos today aren't run by the mob, they are run by corporate america. i just don't see why gambling should be anymore illegal than cigarettes, fast food, or winner's cup vodka. it isn't our job to hold people's hand just because they can't control themselves. if you took gambling away from the gambling addict wouldn't he just become addicted to something else?
It just dawned on me that the mayor engineered all of this so he can have his downtown casino. Damn he's good.
crainschicagobiz
Yet another Band-Aid.
then perhaps its time for a different form of Band-Aid
Svae the CTA concert
You're right about the Mayor, and others, using this as a tool to get casinos. Lost in all of his and Huberman's "doomsday rhetoric" is Julie Hamos's attempt to clean up the pension plan and get a regional authority together to deal with the real problems. It reminds me of Daley askign for new taxes when Chicago garbage trucks have 3 man crews and private ones just one guy. Also we spend $400 million in TIF money every year. United Airlines just got another $5 million for their relocation downtown. TIF money is siphoned off the top without any traces in your property tax bill.
you so right - say what u want about the republicans but they have been pushing hard to create an RTA
employee work action
to employ democrats.
though this could be really difficult on the city (i for instance have no idea how id get to work...cab?) a strike really would cripple the city and hopefully shock horribly selfish and lazy politicians into arriving at a solution.
As far as republican's pushing hard to create an RTA, i think its pretty clear that they have no altruistic motive to do so. They likely would be the sole beneficiary of syphoning more future money from the cta, towards more ring highways and expanded suburban infrastructure...which trust me, they would do in a heart beat. Thats the business of politics, get what you can for your constituents, so i dont blame them for what i see as misguided development policy. Just dont paint them as benevolent when they are clearly not.
However at this point, i dont care... the ring counties can pave every square inch if theyd like... i just want to have the opportunity to get to work on time without waiting on the blue line platform for 30 min waiting for a train i can fit in.
lletdown is right... Republicans in Springfield are firmly in the pockets of the developers, and have favored policies that encouraged suburban sprawl at every turn, usually at the expense of the city.
While the CTA has been going through all this drama, didn't the Tollway Authority just recently open, with much fanfare, a 20-mile extension of I-355 through semi-rural areas of DuPage and Will Counties? For some reason they never had any trouble getting funding for that project.
I correct myself. Chicago secret tax system, called TIFs, eats $500 million right off the top of the property taxes we pay without any notice to the taxpayer.
http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?post_date=2007-11-15&id=27147
The City is in a real hole and we need transparency about what is happening.
Oh, I think we are about to notice...
hehe, crowbert, exactly...
ah, it feels good to rent! (sometimes) actually, i'm sure that property tax assessment will somehow sneak its way into my pocket!
http://arcchicago.blogspot.com/ <~ lynn becker's blog in case you haven't seen it before... has had a bunch of posts about the TIF system... also has good links to more informative TIF arcticles... and the occasional architecture related post
Don't forget the Reader's excellent and long-running coverage of the TIF budgeting shenanigans by Ben Joravsky. Go read it and be mad.
i found this to be indicitve of the insanity-
link
The Economist: Off Track: Most commuters are miserable, but Chicago's may be the most beleaguered
when your state and city government are the largest organized criminal entity in the nation, theres a reason for everything. No one would ever entrust Chicago with a casino but if you hold your transit syatem hostage, you'll get what you want.
But I'd like to predict that by 2016 they'll build multiple new lines to CTA. Somehow, this messed up place always delivers spectacularily when need be. They know whats at stake.
That's doubtful... 2016 is only 8 years away, and it takes much longer than that to build a new rail line. My firm does a lot of transit work for multiple agencies, and it's an incredibly slow process even under the best of circumstances. There's tons of behind-the-scenes feasibility studies, environmental reports, cost analysis, lots of legal maneuvering for property acquisition, and of course the design and construction. And that's assuming you already have all the funding in place to begin with.
And while you build the new lines, you also have to design and build new railcars to operate on those lines. That's a multi-year process in itself. The CTA already has a severe shortage of railcars, and about half their existing fleet is rapidly approaching the end of its life cycle. The CTA's newest rolling stock is over 15 years old, which is considered middled-aged in the railroad world. It doesn't help that every company that has ever manufactured CTA railcars is now out of business.
Even if the CTA somehow manages to get its funding sorted out this month, and even without the added burden of building additional rail lines, they're going to be in a very painful position for years to come while they struggle to catch up on all their deferred maintenance and infrastructure needs.
they'll do it. Thats the good side of the "machine style" of gov. is that when they want something, they just do it. Theres plenty of n/s belt railroads in town that are hardly used that the right of ways are already there.
The $500M Orange Line to Midway Airport -- which operates mostly on existing railroad rights-of-way -- was first seriously proposed in 1980, received federal funding in 1986, and opened for service in 1993. That's a 13-year process, began at a time when Chicago had much more political clout in Washington than it does now. I suppose it's possible to build a new crosstown line or a circle line in time for 2016, but they would need to get the federal funding ASAP.
Unfortunately, with the CTA's current problems making national headlines, with the region's elected leadership having zero credibility, and with the national economy showing signs of a downturn, I don't see federal money being as forthcoming now as it might have been in 1986.
Also, keep in mind that the Orange Line connects the nation's second-largest business district with a major airport, through a part of the city that was severely under-served by rapid transit. The need was much more critical. Neither the Crosstown Line nor the Circle Line can really make that claim.
We have a crosstown line here in NYC, the G train, that connects Brooklyn and Queens without going through Manhattan. It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice, the G train is pretty much a half-forgotten backwater of the subway system that sees relatively few passengers and even less attention from the MTA. I fear the same thing would eventually become of any crosstown line in Chicago, a city with a much lower population density and transit ridership than NYC.
LIG, Chicago is not NYC and is ripe for development. The entire westside is essentially abandoned. A circle line, belt line whatever would only spur development. In fact thats how the el was created - the different private lines were backed by realestate speculators who extended the lines to as yet unbuilt parcels. The line came first then the people. Plus they need a way to get people to Washington Park if they intend to build a stadium there. As for clout, I agree, the next president of the United States just aint what it used to be.
If a transit line is all it takes to spur development, why does the Green Line -- a relatively fast ride that directly serves the Loop -- go through mile after mile of burned-out, abandoned lots?
The fundamental problem with a crosstown line (as I alluded to in my example of New York's G train) is that, by definition, it doesn't go downtown. Most transit riders want to be able to ride their train downtown without having to make one or more transfers.
The CTA's proposed Circle Line along Paulina Street would make sense if it also goes into the Loop, and the long-proposed Crosstown Line along Cicero Avenue might be viable if it connects the Jefferson Park transit hub to Midway Airport, but again, this is all pie-in-the-sky until the CTA resolves its current budget mess and begins tackling the huge backlog of existing infrastructure needs.
Its my understanding that the circle line ( Paulina) has been well on its way in congress for years. Along with 2 west side circulators to connect it to the loop - I have no idea what the circulators are - be it trolleys, streetcars, etc. Most interesting is that federal setaside funding has been slowly accumulating for a bluline to Oakbrrook and woodfield - yes the mega suburban shopping/ edgecity model are the new hubs in the system. So a cross town would be the bypass to get to the technoburbs.
Although I'll concede that Schaumburg needs some sort of rail transit options, I'm very skeptical about extending the Blue Line there. What happens when an inbound Blue Line train fills to capacity before it even gets to O'Hare, and people at Jeff Park and Logan Square stand on the platform and watch one train after another pass by without any chance of being able to squeeze on board?
I see the whole Schaumburg extension being a disaster unless dramatic steps are taken to increase capacity on the line further inbound, but I haven't seen this issue seriously addressed by any of the proposals. I suppose you could have some trains start at O'Hare or Rosemont and other trains begin at Schaumburg, but the fact of the matter is that you're still adding huge numbers of riders to a line that is already bursting at the seams.
express lines - look at the eisenhower - it has land banked since the 50's for what was then called the Westchester line. I guess Im saying never say never around this city because when its at its most pathetic looking, thats always the time massive projects are unveiled. I think it's the local government's way of making it's citezen's thnkful.
But the land use issue - Chicago is so ripe for development its sick. America is supposed to grow by 30% in the next 40 years. That kind of housing burden will be the biggest weve ever faced. I cant think of another metro area with so much infrastructure such as parks streets and sewers ready to go, possibly Detroit. The southwest has land but no water so....
I too have read that the Paulina circle line is a fairly well developed and articulated project. With the intent to use lots of already existing infrastructure like abandon freight lines and over passes (one of which runs right near my house).
I agree with LIG though that a massive capital investment like the circle line, or blue/red line extension (though the red line extension, ive read, is a done deal), should wait. Tracks need to be completely rebuilt, trains upgraded, stations repaired, overall capacity increased before anything else should be done. The truth of the matter is the CTA already has more tracks down than any city outside of NYC, more stations as well.
The coverage area of Trains and Busses combine is already quite impressive. Getting the CTA up to where it should be as far as maintenance and capacity would likely make the need for capital projects much less intense.
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