Quote:
Originally Posted by the urban politician
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Hardly surprising ... none of the Chicago projects is far enough long to receive any substantial award (a completed EIS/preliminary design would do wonders here), and the availability of local funding is highly questionable.
If the Red/Orange/Yellow extension EISs proceed this year rather than continuing to get peridodically delayed for various political reasons like the Alternatives Analyses were, it's conceivable the 2012 and 2013 New Starts could have something for the region, but until then...
That's just CTA. Then there's Metra. The unglamorous but useful projects for the UP-W and UP-NW could well both qualify by 2012 (preliminary engineering supposed to occur in 2010). The Southeast service is farther behind, I don't think there's even an approved "locally-preferred alternative" yet so it may not be up for another few years. And the STAR Line, well, we should be so lucky that atrocity dies.
That said, the luck of any "small starts" projects for the region is a tad less explainable or defensible.
In defense of Chicago and in critique of the entire program and structure of American transit funding, note that Houston is getting money for it's
$600 million Southeast Light Rail line projected to serve... 12,000 daily transit riders. CTA has, roughly,
40 distinct
bus routes that serve that level of ridership or greater. Money well spent, dear taxpayers.
EDITED per ardec's correction below.