Quote:
Originally Posted by orulz
Reg the Gray Line proposal. Have you figured out how much additional rolling stock would be needed in order to run the headways you propose and support the ridership you expect? Is that included in the cost? (I see $200 million and $300 million on your website).
Another comment/question. Seems it would be a cinch to add fare gates for the stations on the IC mainline embankment or along the lakefront, but more difficult for the surface stations on the Blue Island and South Chicago branches, particularly the stations in the median of a road. Los Angeles is in the process of adding turnstiles to many of their stations, but basically skipped the surface stations, for now at least.
I suppose something similar to the outer ends of the Brown and Pink lines is possible-but how much do you figure this would cost per station? There are quite a few. Would this even be possible without being "Grandfathered" like the legacy CTA lines?
|
The Rolling stock is already bought, paid for, and under construction by Nippon-Sharyo in the Metra Highliner II configuration (note the fast Rapid-Transit type acceleration):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqFr...eature=related The Gray Line would use approx. 60-70 cars (of the 160 total order), but modified (at a significantly reduced construction cost) for a Rapid-Transit type service:
http://www.grayline.20m.com/photo3.html
If you visit any of the surface stations, you can see that there is plenty of room for (Ventra) TVM's and Turnstyles. Each station would need probably 2 TVM's, 2 or 3 Turnstyles, and 1 ADA Entry; I would guess $1-2M each for most stations X 40 Stations (of course some big/busy stations would require more)
This brings up another point, off-train fare collection is ESSENTIAL for the project to work at all -- without it each train running every 10 minutes would require at least a 3-man (or more) train crew, such astronomically high labor costs would make the operation fiscally impossible right from the outset.
SOUL made/makes no recommendations on the fare collection issue, which was left by them in the hands of the Agencies ("Alien vs Predator") -- and ended up with them getting nothing because if it (and partially dragging the Gray Line down with them by association).