Bus Transit

This morning the Chicago Sun-Times published a fairly solid editorial with some interesting thoughts on the task ahead for whomever takes the reigns of the Chicago Department of Transportation after Commissioner Gabe Klein steps down later this month. “Too often in the past the city’s transportation chief has focused more on potholes and snow removal than on a vision of a city in which the streets work for everyone,” the paper states. Actually, Streets and Sanitation handles almost all snowplowing, but the sentiment is spot-on. “Gabe Klein… broke that mold. His replacement should be someone who follows through on Klein’s foresighted initiatives while addressing long-neglected problems.”

It seems like every time the city proposes an innovative sustainable transportation project, there’s someone who attacks the plan as an irresponsible waste of money for our cash-strapped city. For example, Roger Romanelli and his Ashland-Western Coalition anti-bus rapid transit group have repeatedly argued that the CTA’s plan to build 16 miles of fast, reliable BRT on Ashland Avenue at a cost of $160 million is outrageously expensive. Other initiatives like Divvy bike-share, which cost $27.5 million for the first 400 stations, and the Dearborn protected lanes, which cost $450,000, have also come under fire from citizens and in the press as frivolous uses of taxpayer dollars.

Not long after Gabe Klein reported for work as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation on May 16, 2011, there was speculation that he wouldn’t stick around long. Klein’s wife was remaining in Washington, D.C., where he had previously run the DOT. As an ambitious guy who had worked in several different fields, including the bicycle and car-sharing industries, it seemed likely he’d stay long enough to accomplish certain goals and then move on to his next endeavor. And, following five different CDOT chiefs in five years, some of whom seemed indifferent to sustainable transportation, a bike-riding transportation czar who voiced a commitment to "complete streets" seemed too good to be true.

Opponents of the CTA’s plan to build fast, reliable bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue have argued that, despite the success of BRT in numerous international and U.S. cities, Ashland is a unique street where converting car lanes to dedicated bus lanes won’t work. Streetsblog readers also have asked for examples of systems that share the elements of the CTA’s plan: a four-lane street converted to two travel lanes plus center-running bus lanes, with most left turns prohibited, on-street parking, and some local, curbside bus service retained.

Yesterday, 11 members of the Metropolitan Planning Organization policy committee, including Metra and Pace, voted to add the Illiana Tollway to the GO TO 2040 regional plan. This enables the Illinois DOT and Indiana DOT to move forward with the project approvals necessary to receive federal funds.

Remember to join Streetsblog and the Active Transportation Alliance next week as we celebrate the CTA’s plan to build fast, reliable bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue and talk about the campaign to make this vision a reality. We’ll be hosting the Ashland BRT Advocate Social and BeeRT Pub Stroll this Tuesday, October 15, 5:30 p.m. at the Cobra Lounge, 235 North Ashland, just north of the Ashland/Lake ‘L’ stop.

Today’s Sun-Times article on the city’s plans to implement fast, efficient bus rapid transit on Ashland Avenue and in the Loop didn’t provide much new information on the projects, and it included a few errors. However, it did provide a bit of a window on the mayor’s thoughts on the subject.

As the CTA wraps up track reconstruction on the south Red Line, slated to reopen on October 20, there’s some movement on the upcoming rehab of the 95th Street Terminal, originally built in 1969 as part of the Dan Ryan Expressway project. The agency has hired Walsh Construction to serve as the construction manager and general contractor for the $240 million station rebuild, scheduled to begin next year.

I recently attended a Ventra balance transfer event at Marquette Park. At these community events, CTA staffers are on hand to read the balance on residents' existing farecards and transfer it to a Ventra card. It was an enlightening experience – but not in a good way. Critical bits of info about the transition process are missing or easy-to-miss on the CTA and Ventra web sites, and the opportunities to use existing fare media continue to dwindle. Yesterday was the last day to buy new reloadable magnetic stripe cards.