“Transit Explorer” Map Shows Nine Upcoming Transit Projects in Chicagoland

Last week, Yonah Freemark and I published a new map called Transit Explorer, which shows all of the new transit projects that are under construction, or being planned, across United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Yonah, a project manager at the Metropolitan Planning Council and author of The Transport Politic blog, collected the data and created the map. I assisted him by writing the code for the map, which uses open source technologies, including OpenStreetMap.

Yonah has been tracking projects on his blog for seven years, and this is the first time he's created an open-source map for the information. He says his goal was to make the map "easy-to-use and fun for anyone who's interested in how public transportation can affect the future of their cities."

The map (embedded above) shows a number of upcoming or proposed projects in the Chicago region, including five new or overhauled CTA and Metra stations, three new rapid bus lines, and the reconstruction of a CTA 'L' corridor.

• Pace Pulse - Milwaukee Avenue
• Pace Pulse - Dempster Street
• CTA's Ashland bus rapid transit proposal
• CTA's new Washington/Wabash station, replacing the Randolph/Wabash and Madison/Wabash elevated stations
• CTA's 95th Street station reconstruction
• CTA's Wilson station reconstruction
• CTA's Red-Purple Modernization project
• Metra's new Peterson/Ravenswood station on the UP-North line in Edgewater
• Metra's new 79th/Wallace station on the Rock Island line in Auburn Gresham

Freemark said he's most excited about the bus rapid transit line on Ashland Avenue, and the "arterial rapid transit" Pace is planning on Milwaukee Avenue. We hope you enjoy exploring the map and learning about upcoming transit projects all over North America.

Update Jan. 13: We reached out to Metra to learn the status of their Peterson/Ravenswood and 79th/Wallace stations. Here's what their spokesperson Michael Gillis said, "Those two stations are among a group of state-funded projects that are currently on hold due to the state budget situation. We won't know when we’ll be able to proceed until we hear from the state."