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Ready for a Silver Line? The CTA is chopping off the Cermak Branch from the Blue Line and will be calling it something else, tentatively the "Silver Line," starting this summer. It's hard to describe what they're doing with words, we've gotten all confused trying to figure it out, but we think we finally have this graphic right. So just look at it to see the changes.
A key component of the change is the Paulina Connector, that section of elevated tracks that runs just west of Ashland Ave., parallel to it. The CTA has used this connector to move equipment between the Blue & Green Lines but it hasn't been used for regularly scheduled trains since the 1950's. Don't worry about that shit being rickety after not having been used for 50-odd years, the CTA has recently renovated and upgraded it so it can handle daily service.
This Cermak Branch change was approved by the CTA board for a 180-day trial. There are also 8 bus routes that are being realigned and 5 that are being added, including a Cicero express from the Jefferson Park Blue Line to the Midway Airport Orange Line. At the end of the trial the CTA will decide if they want to make the changes permanent.
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The CTA Board wants the CTA to let the school kids to pick the color of the new line. Kind of like how they get to draw the city sticker. But a drawing is creative, there are only so many colors that make sense. Perhaps they can let the kids vote on a color and pick the one they want anyway. An early lesson in Chicago civics, .
Best. Map. Ever. lol
And, actually, perfectly accurate!
What the article in the paper didn't describe, however, was the plan to also continue the existing 54 Av-O'Hare service as a special, rush-only kind of thing, in combination with the 54 Av-Loop service. I'm not sure if CTA is definitely doing that (I'm too lazy to try and find out at the board meeting right now), but, as it was presented in their West Side improvements proposal thing, they described something that would look like this:
http://sandbox.elevatedconsulting.com/silveropt.gif
I guess doing it that way would impact the fewest people while benefitting the most, by still having some service that goes the current way, but overall having higher frequency on both current branches, getting people downtown faster via elevated, etc.
And again I'm totally rambling.
Mr. X, totally. Why they want to do this sounds like propaganda.
I mean, how can anyone hate a plan at CTA that involves the children? lol
Until CTA drops using colors as route names and starts using letters (which seems like a practical inevitability), they really can't go beyond the colors they have, plus grey/"silver". Once that's used, at best, they could strip the Skokie Swift shuttle service of having its own color and reassign yellow, I suppose.
From a mapmaking perspective though, if they'd just drop this simplistic color naming thing and become a little less obsessed with static routing, CTA could probably do some cooler things with routing.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to just link the Cermak branch to the Orange line?
This probably has something to do with testing the Paulina connector for daily use in advance of the CTA pushing for the utterly pointless Circle line.
I think 54 Av-Midway would probably be a bad idea just because I can't imagine any real potential for ridership taking advantage of such a through-route. And it'd mean only half the Loop in use by that route (either acting like Green, or just its opposite).
And it has nothing to do with testing anything. The Connector is fully capable of being in operation. You think they built it and are going to start running service over it before knowing if it's service-worthy? lol
As I understand it, some of the funding they received to rebuild the Connector, which may or may not actually be included in the final routing of the Central Area Circulator ("Circle Line"), which is merely in the planning stages, was granted on the condition that it gets used in revenue service by 2006. I think they're actually late on the requirement. It needed to be rebuilt, as it was a crumbling and essential component to the rail system, being the only track connection between the entire Blue Line and the rest of the rail network. Why not rebuilt it and actually put it into use if it better serves people in Pilsen?
Who cares about the Centrum Silver line, I want the Super-Loop to start being built. http://transit.homestead.com/SuperLoop.html
Who cares about the Centrum Silver line, I want the [URL=http://transit.homestead.com/SuperLoop.html]Super Loop[/URL] to be built.
No condescending asshole, I wasn't implying that it's not structurally sound. I was implying that they are motivated to try this in part because they want to get a handle on how efficiently they will be able to stream service through a corridor that is already used by several other lines.
As for routing the Cermak through to Midway, I can't imagine how making the loop tracks more congested by having two separate lines operating on it will benefit service. The only people the single spoke 'silver' line benefits are current cermak branch commuters who work/go to school in the area from Dearborn and Madison to Michigan and Wacker. In exchange for this benefit, ANYONE who uses routes that run over the loop will probably see a large increase in delays caused by switching problems.
Um, childish name-calling aside, you said "testing the Paulina connector for daily use," implying that somehow they didn't know if they could regularly run trains over that specific section of track.
Secondly, your conspiracy theory about seeing how much service they could put through any corridor in preparation for the Circle Line isn't sound because the parts where the being-studied Circle Line concept might actually raise concerns about road capacity aren't even a part of this specific rerouting. And even there it's clear they're well aware of the limitations of their infrastructure, if you've actually gone through the trouble of reading through the proposals that have been published.
Now, in all fairness--higher usage of a section does increase the likelihood that a delay will have more significant effects. Because these variables are unknown, it would stand to reason that before making it a permanent change, after doing intensive research and challenging its feasibility on paper, that they would try it out as a tentative revision first, which, you know, is actually what they're doing.
Congrats. You just made the guy's point.
He was actually just exaggerating mine, that it would potentially be a problem... Mine was with the tone that "This is a possibility, if not probability, but overall a good idea." His tone was "They're too stupid to realize that it will do this," despite the fact that they're doing this as an "experiment" to find out first.
I agree with "just wondering." ANOTHER line to run ont the loop's tracks? Is that crazy or what? Like we need another train to be running on those lines.
Yes, this might cause more load on the loop... but I'd guess that they'd route it on the outer loop w/ the brown line. So, the outer loop would be no more loaded than the outer loop.
The CTA recently finished putting in a new set of track/switches at the Wells/Lake intersection so a train from the Lake Street line can turn south on Wells.
So, you'd end up w/ the Inner Loop carrying:
And the Outer Loop carrying
I'm still waiting for the circle line. build me the circle line damn it!
Wait a minute. Didn't the CTA just finish threatening to implement service cuts a few months ago unless the state gave them money and the riders paid higher fares? But now they can add service and even build a new connector?
Isn't this going to eventually be connected with the brown line once the Brown line station improvements get finished? I always thought that was the plan eventually.
Scott, Federal and state funds will generally improve and subsidize infrastructure project such as this, if I remember correctly. That why it's pretty easy to get new train stations or renovations done. Operating costs are wholly on the CTA. (that's what the fare increase was for) I believe that there will be more operating revenue coming from this line as there will finally be a train stop for the United Center.
What goes around, comes around. The proposed rerouting of the Silver Line (aka Cermak Line, Douglas Park Branch), brings the trains back to the Loop after the line was rerouted into the Dearborn Subway over 50 years ago. Before February 21, 1951, the Douglas Park Branch joined with the Logan Square Branch near Paulina and Congress, and traveled on an elevated structure east in an alley between Van Buren and Congress Street, and then connected with the Loop at Wells and Van Buren.