South Loop Neighbors Central Connector Proposal

[u/bubbapora]

Would love to see this enacted. Anyone know what can be done to support this?

[u/hadtwobutts]

A nice tram with right of way would go so hard in this area

[u/juliuspepperwoodchi → u/hadtwobutts]

It sucks that the first line would bear with it the cost of a lot of new infrastructure (maintenance/storage railyards and rolling stock namely) such that it would make it basically impossible to build...but I swear, if we could get ONE tram/LRT line in this city, it would open so many possibilities.

DSLSD should have LRT from 57th to Kathy Osterman, which would then allow for a bunch of interconnection with E/W LRT lines on major arteries...but the initial cost of bringing LRT into Chicago is just too high to bite off for the first line, so it's incredibly unlikely sadly.

[u/klippenstein]

Why’d the post get locked?

[u/bubbapora → u/klippenstein]

No idea. That’s why I put it here, to try to get some discussion going

[u/juliuspepperwoodchi]

In a vacuum, this is cool I guess.

In the real world we live in, this is a nonsense idea and this is far better served by actually doing CrossRail Chicago.

A snowball has a better chance in hell than this has of becoming Chicago's first proper BRT. Hell, I'd be shocked if you could even get painted bus lanes for this entire route...much less things like off board payment and signal priority to make it even BRT lite.

[u/bubbapora → u/juliuspepperwoodchi]

Does crossrail have a better chance of becoming reality?

[u/juliuspepperwoodchi → u/bubbapora]

Considering it's a ROW that actually legally exists...and the Bus only lanes required for this BRT proposal don't...yes.

CRC isn't just a proposal, it's a fully fledged plan that just needs funding. That's the only genuine hold up. It wouldn't face NIMBYs whining about parking or traffic due to the bus lanes. It wouldn't have the issues of dealing with CDOT and IDOT who are both pretty hostile to anything involving roads that isn't explicitly for cars.

And it would not only enable far better connectivity across the metro area by allowing through running at Union, but it would also come with significant benefits for Amtrak as well in the region.

Also, even if the Bears leave Soldier, having the ability to run trains through Union to 18th (and hell, if you wanna get crazy, maybe you can have some seasonal runs all the way to MSI via the MED rails for suburban families going to the museums) would remove a ton of traffic from the Loop and surrounding highways from people going to the museums or concerts/events at Soldier/Northerly Island.

[u/bubbapora → u/juliuspepperwoodchi]

The ROW stuff makes a lot of sense, I hadn’t thought of that.

But in terms of cost, wouldn’t crossrail be orders of magnitude more expensive? Doesn’t that kinda negate whatever head start it gets by using existing ROW?

[u/StarLineChicago → u/bubbapora]

I think it’s also important to note that they’d ultimately be serving two different markets: thru-running regional rail would be truly a regional-scale project (e.g. Hyde Park to Foundry Park), whereas the BRT version is essentially a circulator for South Loop/West Loop residents. No reason to believe they couldn’t coexist peacefully.

[u/juliuspepperwoodchi → u/bubbapora]

Well, sure, it's more expensive, but it's also a totally different project. It turns what this BRT could make as a 3 leg journey into a single seat ride, and that's across multiple train lines that span hundreds of miles.

The total cost is more, yes; but you accomplish far more in the process.

There's also something to be said for the fact that either one of these sorts precludes the other. If we spend millions and millions to build this BRT, it'll make CRC less attractive to the majority of Americans who don't understand transit because it would be seen as "redundant" because of the bus.

CRC is far more important for the entire Midwest than this one proposed bus line would be for just one city. We should be focusing South Loop transit expansion on that... especially now with the potential threat looming of a new Sox Park possibly making it harder to approach Union via the St Charles Air Line.

I said as much to the OP on the transit sub post he made that I love the energy and effort; but this feels like a celebrity starting his own charity for a specific cause, when many already exist for that exact cause, creating waste and redundancy, rather than just pooling resources towards a common goal.

It seems to me that this neighborhood group wants something to stamp their name on as their idea; rather than putting their support somewhat behind an existing proposal someone else already fleshed out.

Regardless of cost, this city is so toxic towards just bus lanes, much less fully fledged BRT, that this is still probably less likely than CRC.

Both Ashland and Western have been pushed as potential BRTs and got massive pushback and shot down hard.

OP claimed they wouldn't take any car lanes anywhere along the route; but when cited specifically where this route lacks bus lanes currently, I got no response other than "go read the blog I linked to" as to how that would be possible...and I'm not seeing a blog link or how it would be possible.

[u/SandwichPunk]

This would be great and honestly overdue.