Quote:
Originally Posted by Zerton
I don't think spending all the budget on a route so far into the periphery is money well spent.
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Why? Those neighborhoods are dense and transit-dependent. Many of the people who live there work downtown, or journey through downtown on their way to work. The distance from downtown is irrelevant, since (for the forseeable future) we will not all be living within 3 miles of our jobs in the Green-washed Kumbaya Hippie Commune of Chicago.
Also - as I keep stressing - a Red Line extension will also pick up a new market of riders due to its large park-and-ride at 130th. These are people currently driving downtown who might be willing to go a very short ways off the highway and switch onto a train to avoid the Ryan congestion and the high cost of downtown parking. Are there a lot of people who fall into this boat? I'm not sure - maybe not. I do know that the availability of Cumberland has enabled me to go to the city from my place in the suburbs at times when Metra service is infrequent, and that means more money spent and at least one more person in the downtown area.
Finally, the CTA can provide a much greater level of service to the South Side for only a minimal rise in overall operating costs, since all the current bus routes now have to slog up to 95th. Eliminating this leg of the bus journeys will save fuel, lower emissions, and ultimately allow CTA to run fewer buses overall (and employ fewer drivers) without reducing the service level. Alternatively, the savings here can be applied elsewhere, such as introducing new bus service on Elston or Clybourn, or bringing back the X-express buses.
Does all that make sense, or am I just drinking the kool-aid of the CTA planning staff? The rail network, since the 1960s, was supposed to be a citywide skeleton, and the bus lines would fill in all the gaps to provide comprehensive transit across the city. The Red Line south to 130th is the biggest missing bone in that skeleton.