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Thursday, 11 October 2007

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ryan

The travel times have to be primarily because people aren't heading to the loop. Some of the worst travel times shown on that map are from areas immediately adjacent to the Red Line. These must be people who are heading to the south suburbs or to scattered retail areas not easily reached by el lines. I'm not sure the Gray Line (which is the real name of the thing called the Gold Line here) would address that very much.

I'm a supporter of the Gray Line, but I don't think we should exaggerate its effects. What will do more to reduce south side commutes is if the experiments in the next two years with transit signal preemption and ultimately with bus rapid transit allow for speedier bus service.

withrow

Ryan, the Gray Line was significantly different than the plan outlined here, which I explain in bold at the top of the article. The Gray Line included the Blue Island electric line and, more importantly, called for manning all the stations and having the CTA accept the fares. The Gold Line is agnostic about those issues.

As far as the commute time map goes, I just disagree with your inferences and will endeavor to improve this article so that my reasons for including it are a little clearer.

Tim Freeman

My personal idea for South Side 'L' improvements was a simple one: building a short, 2 mile segment of track to connect the Green Line at 61st with the South Chicago Branch at Stony Island. 3rd-rail would be added to the South Chicago Branch, and certain grade crossings removed.

The South Chicago Branch would be transferred to CTA and taken off of Metra's hands, and the remainder of the Green Line's East 63rd Branch would be demolished - the neighborhood doesn't even want it there.

Of course, this isn't as cheap as your idea, but it would definitely help to revitalize the South Side Green Line, which is doing poorly in ridership terms.

withrow

Yeah, your proposal is pretty expensive. Not out of the question IMO, but expensive. The neighborhood would howl about an aboveground L along 61st St, so the more politically viable route would be a subway under the Midway that connects up with the Green Line in Washington Park.

I'd be in favor of such a subway. Then you'd have major employers at two ends of the southside Green Line-- the Loop and the Univ of Chicago. I agree that this would help revitalize the Green Line, as well as the neighborhoods along it.

I completely disagree with your assertion about the neighborhood not wanting the East 63rd leg of the Green Line. When the idea was floated a few years ago to tear down more of it, I took part in a rally against that and the businesspeople close to the stop also complained.

What would help both the east and west branches would be if there were a relatively inexpensive change made to allow a shuttle to run from one of the branches that would be timed to pull into a connecting station, say Garfield, at the same time as the train from the other branch. Then both branches could run trains every 10 minutes during the day, which would make transferring to the Green Line from buses much more useful. The capital cost of this improvement would be about $2 million, I'm told.

Besides the huge capitol costs involved with putting in a third rail along the South Chicago branch, time of the run would be a drawback. From 63rd to Randolph is 20 minutes now on the Metra Electric. 63rd across the Midway and then up to the Loop seems like a more lengthy trip, although there is the benefit of coming right into the Loop.

Otto

"[T]he more politically viable route would be a subway under the Midway that connects up with the Green Line in Washington Park."

Wouldn't rickshaws be simpler?

withrow

Otto, I know that a subway under the Midway sounds like an extremely expensive project, but I think you'd find that the expected cost/ridership would compare pretty favorably to other transit and road projects. I haven't seen anyone cost out that subway idea; I'm just guesstimating.

The Gray Line has been costed out-- Mike Payne's more ambitious proposal, that is. And it beats every other major rail transit expansion the CTA is contemplating for cost/ridership. No one's costed out just the Gold Line segment, but I'd expect it to do even better than the Gray Line.

Otto

"I know that a subway under the Midway sounds like an extremely expensive project [...]"

I said nothing about expense. What would recommend tunneling under the Midway, steam and cooling plant infrastructure aside, over allowing rickshaws on its surface?

Mark

I like the idea of connecting the Green Line with the South Chicago Electric line. I'm not sure it makes sense to tear down the El on 63rd that already gets you halfway there only to rebuild elevated tracks 2 blocks north. Not sure what alignment would work for the neighborhood.

Mark

It would be possible to connect the So. Chicago branch to the Green Line without switching to 3rd rail if the CTA could purchase rolling stock with both 3rd rail shoes and pantographs such as Metro North runs on the New Haven Line out of Grand Central in NYC. Of course purchasing and maintaining a distinct set of rolling stock could be more expensive than converting the power system.

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