CHICAGO: Transit Developments

[Busy Bee]

Hilariously sad that light rail/tramway isn't even mentioned anymore. 4 of the 5 corridors are ideal. If the Cta hadn't engaged in the wholesale dismantling of the streetcar system and had instead focused on priority route modernization, these would have been obvious corridors for partial or full reserved row, high-capacity street railway lines.

[Toasty Joe]

Would center bus lanes be easier to convert to light rail in the future? Ideally some of these like Western would be heavy rail but the more I look at it the more I think center bus lane is the answer for all of them except maybe Fullerton?

[mrnyc]

x

[ardecila]

Hopefully they consider not just center bus lanes, but center platforms and buses with left-hand boarding. That's just a better spatial arrangement for everyone, center platforms don't take up as much roadway space and it's cheaper to build one shelter instead of two. On the boulevards, center platforms can be easily added to the landscaped medians with minimal changes to the overall landscape/roadway design.

Unfortunately I worry CTA will default to side platforms; left hand boarding means changing the bus fleet and the position of left hand doors behind the driver has a greater risk of fare evasion. Fare evasion should never be a reason to shy away from global best practices, but a lot of people get really worked up about it for some reason. I don't necessarily agree with the Mamdani-style free buses as a policy either, but at least it moots all the stupid pearl-clutching over fare evasion...

[Randomguy34]

The Illinois High Speed Rail Commission has a preferred alignment. It's not for certain the final one, but definitely the most likely. They'll be going with Route 4, which uses MED ROW until University Park, then it goes greenfield to Champaign, Springfield, and lastly East St. Louis. This is both the fastest and cheapest option, but the price tag is hefty

Travel Time: 2 hrs 22 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $44 Billion to $54 Billion

They're also considering a modified Route 4, called Route 12, that uses a mix of interstate median and greenfield. Saves $5 billion while only being 8 minutes slower

Travel Time: 2 hrs 30 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $39 Billion to $49 Billion


https://idot.illinois.gov/content/dam/so...r/260126-hsr-commission-presentation.pdf

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by ardecila

On the boulevards, center platforms can be easily added to the landscaped medians with minimal changes to the overall landscape/roadway design.

I have been saying this for a while, now. The boulevards hold the best chance for proper BRT with the lowest investment and driver pushback. They can use existing infrastructure and bypass many of the worries about traffic/lost lanes/lost parking.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

The Illinois High Speed Rail Commission has a preferred alignment. It's not for certain the final one, but definitely the most likely. They'll be going with Route 4, which uses MED ROW until University Park, then it goes greenfield to Champaign, Springfield, and lastly East St. Louis. This is both the fastest and cheapest option, but the price tag is hefty

Travel Time: 2 hrs 22 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $44 Billion to $54 Billion

They're also considering a modified Route 4, called Route 12, that uses a mix of interstate median and greenfield. Saves $5 billion while only being 8 minutes slower

Travel Time: 2 hrs 30 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $39 Billion to $49 Billion

https://idot.illinois.gov/content/dam/so...r/260126-hsr-commission-presentation.pdf

Seems kinda unimpressive? CAHSR is planning for a 2h40m travel time from LA to SF, for about 435 track miles. Average speed: 163mph. Illinois Route 12 alignment is ~300 miles in 2h30m, average speed: 120mph. If Illinois' train could achieve the same average speed as California's, the trip time would only be 1h50m.

Plus California will have speed-limited mountain crossings and tunneled segments, while IL's route is across dead-flat prairie. Hard to compare apples to apples on cost, since this is all funny math and I don't know YoE, but at least this puts Illinois' line at $180M/mile compared to (per the latest estimate) $290M/mile in California. So hopefully the lower average speed allows for fewer/less extensive heavy civil works and simpler land acquisitions.

Lastly - the focus on Chicago-St Louis is really not great. I get politically why it's a focus, the entire alignment is within Illinois, but it seems like a city that will continue to decline in relevance. It's not a big tourist destination, it's not a city with a thriving business sector, and the regional leadership has basically left the core city to slowly die. The advantage of HSR is in serving city centers; if you're heading to some suburban office park, you're better off flying.

I'd much prefer a connection to Minneapolis or Detroit. Those unfortunately require the coordination of multiple states, some of which are hostile to rail investment... but at least those cities are larger and growing, and you could make a stronger case for Federal help as compared to other worthy projects on the East/West Coasts and sunbelt.

[Busy Bee]

^Either that or they're padding for an excruciatingly slow station approach/departure expected at each end.

[Mister Uptempo]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

The Illinois High Speed Rail Commission has a preferred alignment. It's not for certain the final one, but definitely the most likely. They'll be going with Route 4, which uses MED ROW until University Park, then it goes greenfield to Champaign, Springfield, and lastly East St. Louis. This is both the fastest and cheapest option, but the price tag is hefty

Travel Time: 2 hrs 22 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $44 Billion to $54 Billion

They're also considering a modified Route 4, called Route 12, that uses a mix of interstate median and greenfield. Saves $5 billion while only being 8 minutes slower

Travel Time: 2 hrs 30 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $39 Billion to $49 Billion

https://idot.illinois.gov/content/dam/so...r/260126-hsr-commission-presentation.pdf

The one benefit to Route 4 is that it runs relatively close to the Illinois-Indiana border during the greenfield portion. That gets you halfway to Indianapolis, which has enormous potential for serving as a rail hub to points south and east.

HSR to STL seems like the least important of the four Chicago Hub core routes. Except connecting to Kansas City, what other routes could spring from STL that Illinois HSR would benefit from? Maybe Dallas-Ft. Worth?

ETA - Also, regarding travel times, the report notes that routes utilizing interstate medians have an 8% schedule pad, while greenfield routings have a 20% schedule pad. Route 4 is primarily a greenfield route, so, 4 has the potential to have its travel times whittled down to as low as 2 hours flat. A significant portion of Route 12 is greenfield, so, reduced travel times might be possible here as well.

[k1052]

Originally Posted by ardecila

I'd much prefer a connection to Minneapolis or Detroit. Those unfortunately require the coordination of multiple states, some of which are hostile to rail investment... but at least those cities are larger and growing, and you could make a stronger case for Federal help as compared to other worthy projects on the East/West Coasts and sunbelt.

Yes and I think do Detroit. It's closer and Indiana is not entirely opposed to rail, especially if they get a couple stations.

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by Randomguy34

The Illinois High Speed Rail Commission has a preferred alignment. It's not for certain the final one, but definitely the most likely. They'll be going with Route 4, which uses MED ROW until University Park, then it goes greenfield to Champaign, Springfield, and lastly East St. Louis. This is both the fastest and cheapest option, but the price tag is hefty

Travel Time: 2 hrs 22 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $44 Billion to $54 Billion

They're also considering a modified Route 4, called Route 12, that uses a mix of interstate median and greenfield. Saves $5 billion while only being 8 minutes slower

Travel Time: 2 hrs 30 minutes
Capital Cost Range: $39 Billion to $49 Billion

One advantage I can see with Route 4 is that the Greenfield portion after UNPK can be viewed as an option to connect to southeastern lines to Lafayette-Indy-Lville-Cincy and with MED upgrades perform as Chicago's contribution to the "South of the Lake Reroute" to Clev and Detroit. In other words Route 4 meets the immediate stated goal of providing a HrSR line to Chmpn, Sprgfld IL and StL while also holding the door for some of the Eastern alternatives.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

^Either that or they're padding for an excruciatingly slow station approach/departure expected at each end.

I hope not. Chicago has the advantage of the Metra Electric/ICRR corridor which is massively wide, grade-separated and straight as an arrow, with room for separate tracks for Metra, HSR and freight. And it extends to the edge of the urban area. The only downside is you need a short tunnel to get from the lakefront over to Union Station, or buy the SCAL from the railroads that own it.

St Louis, I'm not sure. Depends if they want a new river crossing or if they're planning to use one of the existing rail bridges and approaches (MacArthur or Merchants Bridge). The current Amtrak route uses both bridges, depending on how trains are dispatched.

[Bonsai Tree]

Curious what you all think NITA will try and do first?

After the RLE and RPM is done, all large capital projects will be under the purview of NITA.

From what I've heard, they certainly will want to go for a large capital project that symbolizes the new structure.

Thoughts?

[Busy Bee]

I'll get back to you on that but right now I just want to stress how much I wish the acronym could be TINA.

[moorhosj1]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

Curious what you all think NITA will try and do first?

My vote is for the A2 project with a new West Loop station.

[sentinel]

Originally Posted by moorhosj1

My vote is for the A2 project with a new West Loop station.

What is this?

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Bonsai Tree

Curious what you all think NITA will try and do first?

After the RLE and RPM is done, all large capital projects will be under the purview of NITA.

From what I've heard, they certainly will want to go for a large capital project that symbolizes the new structure.

Thoughts?

Nobody really knows for sure, since NITA doesn't exist - it won't formally exist until later this year, and many details of the new agency are not written into law so it depends who is appointed to the NITA board and what capacities they want to build into the agency.

For example, NITA could establish their own muscular planning department, or they could continue the current practice of a barebones staff that basically rubberstamps CTA and Metra's plans.

Note that CTA, Metra, and Pace all have capital plans already and I expect those to proceed without a big interruption. Most projects will focus on State of Good Repair and ADA compliance, expansion is a small piece of the pie. But on the horizon is RLE which will take several years, and later phases of RPM which will be just as costly and time-consuming as the first phase. Also Metra to Rockford.

Originally Posted by sentinel

What is this?

The A-2 interlocking is near Grand/Western where Metra's tracks into Ogilvie cross tracks leading into Union Station. Both the signals and the track switches themselves are controlled by a system of ancient, 100-year old machinery. Any issues here can shut down half of the Metra system - and Amtrak trains to Milwaukee.

Metra is considering plans to either rebuild this track crossing, or to replace it with a flyover bridge to carry one set of trains over the other. Part of this plan could also include a new Metra station near the west end of Fulton Market between Ashland & Ogden. I still think the station is a good idea, but the growth of office in that area is effectively dead so it's not gonna turn into a busy commute destination.


source

[Busy Bee]

Northern Illinois transit replaces 'fiscal cliff' with bridge to the future

(Crain's paywalled)

[Nouvellecosse]

I remember a few times people here debating whether expanding service on the ME would be a better option to service the southside than the Red line extension. While I'm not a Chicago transit expert, I have to wonder as well.

• Video Link

[Randomguy34]

It hasn't been talked about enough but the North, Northwest, and West Sides are slowly developing a coherent bike grid. Cause of aldermanic prerogative, it's been a decade long protracted war for new bike lanes, at the ward-by-ward level, resulting in a patchwork of bike infrastructure. But we've now reached a tipping point where enough of those patches have become a quilt. This is leading to significantly more people becoming cyclists who then want to see more bike infrastructure in their neighborhood, as we're seeing in Portage Park.

Portage Park Bike Network Plan Sees Strong Support At Packed Neighborhood Meeting

https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/03/06/...-support-at-packed-neighborhood-meeting/