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  #33561  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 7:50 PM
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Steely Dan Steely Dan is offline
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we do have solutions, theyre buses
and in the non-winter months, the water taxis do a great job of getting suburban tourists from union/ogilvie over to mag mile/navy pier.

and it's fun too, because who doesn't love a boat ride down the world's most spectacular man-made canyon?
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  #33562  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 8:03 PM
the urban politician the urban politician is offline
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we do have solutions, theyre buses
^ That would not be a bad solution, but for a few things:

1. You need an integrated fare. Many people out in the burbs rarely, if ever, use the CTA

2. Metra's schedule is not very flexible. Say you want to come into the city at noon and leave at 2 am.

3. Buses are lame (yes, they do the job, but they are lame. Admit it)

Water taxis are obviously awesome, too bad they are only available half the year
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  #33563  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 8:06 PM
Kngkyle Kngkyle is offline
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we do have solutions, theyre buses
I wonder what percentage of tourists use CTA buses. I'd wager that it is in the low single digits at best. Public transit buses are just not an option that most American tourists would consider, for one reason or another. It's pretty much either train, cab/uber, or walk.
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  #33564  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 8:33 PM
marothisu marothisu is offline
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Even to this day it blows me away that there are no good solutions for suburbanites to reach the 2 most popular attractions in the entire Chicago region: 1) The Magnificent Mile, and 2) Navy Pier--without arriving by automobile.

Some sort of real east-west transit option needs to be created. When the critical mass is achieved that spurs such an investment, I can't say.
The Loop Connector addresses these..
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  #33565  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 9:21 PM
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Crain's is reporting that hundreds of head office people at McDonald's were offered buyouts.
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  #33566  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 9:49 PM
emathias emathias is offline
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The green portion of this is still my favorite plan:
http://www.chicago-l.org/plans/CUTD.html
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  #33567  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 9:51 PM
emathias emathias is offline
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Crain's is reporting that hundreds of head office people at McDonald's were offered buyouts.
Big moves like this are often used to change the culture and sometimes changing the people is a part of that. Seeing that McD's is a huge corp, I'm sure they'll also spend time educating the remaining employees on how to commute downtown - that seems like sometime a large corp would do.
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  #33568  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 9:54 PM
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Big moves like this are often used to change the culture and sometimes changing the people is a part of that. Seeing that McD's is a huge corp, I'm sure they'll also spend time educating the remaining employees on how to commute downtown - that seems like sometime a large corp would do.
Yep. Probably starting to do a shift in at least some of the people who work there. Probably trying to get rid of some of the older employees with stale ideas. When these things happen too, I really wish we would have access to an estimate of how many people (if any) move to the city.
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  #33569  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2016, 10:33 PM
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Interesting reversal of the real reason—to shed its urban workforce—that Sears left for Hoffman Estates in the 1990s.
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  #33570  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 3:30 PM
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Yep. Probably starting to do a shift in at least some of the people who work there. Probably trying to get rid of some of the older employees with stale ideas. When these things happen too, I really wish we would have access to an estimate of how many people (if any) move to the city.
The notion that everyone on a corporate payroll are there to share their ideas is being pretty generous. The creative (or lackthereof) "ideas" people are limited to a few dozen at most. Everyone else is a cog. Well they're all cogs but thats a whole other conversation.
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  #33571  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 3:36 PM
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The notion that everyone on a corporate payroll are there to share their ideas is being pretty generous. The creative (or lackthereof) "ideas" people are limited to a few dozen at most. Everyone else is a cog. Well they're all cogs but thats a whole other conversation.
Kind of agree, though it is more complicated than that sometimes and has to do with management structure at times and if they quiet ideas or welcome them within the structure. Some of the worst when it comes to not innovating I've seen came from some management quelling ideas so much that the people stopped trying to think outside the box as they saw no point in wasting energy to do so.

Been there done that - still doing it actually. Not speaking about McDonald's now, but there's a lot of "innovation" that happens at various companies internally within products that wouldn't get known to pretty much anybody outside of the company even if they're using the product.

I honestly don't think that age has anything to do with "innovation" - it's an excuse to me. One of the most innovative people I work with is in his 50s, and I work with a few others around that age who think way more outside the box than people just out of college. I think the difference between him and a few other people his age I work with who aren't thought of as innovative is that he never became jaded with work Those are the people, at least from what I've personally seen, which some companies are trying to get rid of, but definitely not "all people in their 50s and above need to go!" Have never seen that. At least from my experience it's basically the combination of people who cost a lot and who are more jaded with things.
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  #33572  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 3:57 PM
DePaul Bunyan DePaul Bunyan is offline
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^ I'm sure in the beginning a lot of people will drive.

Time will eventually fix these issues, and eventually I suspect you'll see a greater proportion of workers arrive via transit/shuttle/foot. But of course it won't be overnight.

But I will say that with all these forces at work (centralization of jobs, booming city core) the city/region will be obliged to make strategic transit investments. Even to this day it blows me away that there are no good solutions for suburbanites to reach the 2 most popular attractions in the entire Chicago region: 1) The Magnificent Mile, and 2) Navy Pier--without arriving by automobile.

Some sort of real east-west transit option needs to be created. When the critical mass is achieved that spurs such an investment, I can't say.
Well, it's a good thing Chicago and Illinois are all about funding their obligations and are in a good financial position to make large infrastructure investments in public transit.
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  #33573  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 4:02 PM
marothisu marothisu is offline
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Well, it's a good thing Chicago and Illinois are all about funding their obligations and are in a good financial position to make large infrastructure investments in public transit.
Do you think that the only place to get funding is from the local and state level? You know where tens of millions for the Blue Line renovation has come from? Federal funding. You know where tens of millions for some present/future Red Line work came from? Federal funding. There ARE programs federally for more localized public transit and Chicago has been the recipient of such programs.
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  #33574  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 4:21 PM
DePaul Bunyan DePaul Bunyan is offline
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Do you think that the only place to get funding is from the local and state level? You know where tens of millions for the Blue Line renovation has come from? Federal funding. You know where tens of millions for some present/future Red Line work came from? Federal funding. There ARE programs federally for more localized public transit and Chicago has been the recipient of such programs.
You're talking tens of millions. The Chicago Central Area Circulator would have cost $700 million back in the 1990s before the inevitable cost overruns, delays, graft, etc. Today you're looking at well over $1 billion, likely several. And that's the cheaper alternative to a subway.

Bus Rapid Transit is realistic and doable, but it's still just a bus. And Chicago is frozen tundra at least four months out of the year.
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  #33575  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 4:36 PM
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Loop Connector could possibly be a lot cheaper than the number you're quoting.
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  #33576  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 5:20 PM
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Or—through some sort of land-use planning—we could just refrain from putting big destinations where transit is inconvenient.

Naw, that's just crazy talk.
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  #33577  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2016, 6:26 PM
LouisVanDerWright LouisVanDerWright is offline
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Or—through some sort of land-use planning—we could just refrain from putting big destinations where transit is inconvenient.

Naw, that's just crazy talk.
The problem is half of Chicago wasn't built for the way the modern economy employs people. Previously you either worked downtown and commuted in and out via streetcar or L or you worked in a neighborhood factory (which were very spread out around the city as we all know) and lived near work. It is unquestionably true that large areas of Chicago are suffering from a combination of the near total collapse of the manufacturing sector as an employment anchor and the urban flight trends which seem to have recently started to reverse. As such, that second way of living and working in Chicago has all but evaporated. Of course the creation of super highways and natural fligbh of industry to greenfield sites also complicates things further, but that's another story.

Now, with the new more mobile modern workforce, I don't think it is at all unreasonable to expect that firms, especially smaller firms that previously might have inhabited class C space which is rapidly disappearing, might start choosing to locate in the very spaces left vacant by industry. These areas are built to accommodate mass employment, that's the very story of Chicago itself. What is surprising is seeing a corporate giant like McDonald's jumping in on the trend.

I would say we should expect to see a lot more Green Exchange developments in the near future. And if we do, workers will adapt and move into long forgotten neighborhoods that are a fantastic place to live if your office is a half mile down Pulaski or Pershing or any other of Chicago's legacy industrial corridors. In fact, our next development of this type is already underway in the Olsen Rug / Marshall Field warehouse. Not only will this building contain expanded operations for Climateguard, a now open German Fresh Market, and additional big box retailers, but it will have 80 live work units and 300,000 SF of offices. All in all this is one of the biggest developments in the city right now at a whopping 1.5 million SF with 450,000 of that being office or live work. It's really a city unto itself and, if successful, it could create a gold rush to grab and reposition like buildings all over the city. Yet it's nowhere near transit and almost never talked about on this forum.

Last edited by LouisVanDerWright; Jun 4, 2016 at 6:41 PM.
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  #33578  
Old Posted Jun 6, 2016, 2:36 PM
msu2001la msu2001la is offline
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I commuted from Evanston to Jackson/Morgan for 6 years via Metra and never found it to be an issue. I even had free parking at my office, but driving usually took longer and was way more annoying. The 15 min walk to/from Ogilvie (plus another 10 mins or so of walking in Evanston) was never something I thought was an issue.

Rain and snow? Crappy weather affects everyone's commute. Does anyone wake up to a fresh 6" of snow and think... "I'm going to drive to work today instead of taking the train"? Maybe I'm unique on this topic, but those are days when I'm most thankful that I can get to work without using a car.

Commuting to this area is not nearly as difficult as some are making it out to be.
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  #33579  
Old Posted Jun 6, 2016, 2:51 PM
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Interesting plan. I would have assumed there would be some opposition from condo buildings along the lake, but maybe the historically high lake levels are muting that a bit?

http://chicago.curbed.com/2016/6/1/1...ion-renderings
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  #33580  
Old Posted Jun 6, 2016, 3:04 PM
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There is already beachfront along most of that stretch. The lake levels may play a part in it, but there's also safety concerns on the unlit, semi-private beaches. People in the condo towers have reported drug deals, etc there and I think they'd prefer a well-lit landscaped park area.
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