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CTA President Ron Huberman has a plan to right the wrong that is the Block 37 CTA not-at-all-super-station mess: Private investment. Ayeee.
From the CTA's press release:
"I have carefully read the business case for airport service and believe that a premium service built and operated in conjunction with a private sector partner is the way to go," said Huberman. "To replicate the success of premium service in other major cities, we really need to leverage private sector resources and expertise."
"Premium service" would be express trains to O'Hare and Midway from downtown, although the express option isn't even imaged as that much faster: A 2003 release from the CTA said the proposed lines would cut travel time from Washington and State to O'Hare from 42 minutes to "less than 30 minutes."
Who's to blame for the mess? Frank Kruesi, according to members of the CTA board including Chairman Carole Brown, who say the ex-president misled them about the site's plans.
Despite the ongoing construction nightmares, Huberman has promised that "there will be some form of Washington station." [Wired, WBBM, Trib]
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They shoudl get the major carriers at ohare and midway to pay for it.
Private contractors should run the whole God Damn CTA
But then we would eventually end up paying for it through all those nonsense fees like the ones the major carriers are starting to charge now.
CTA really should have thought things through and made sure they had enough money in the bank before starting this project.
42 MINUTES from Washington/State to O'Hare?!?! That's some serious comedy right there. I regularly take the Blue Line from Addison to O'Hare and that portion of the trip ALONE has taken me 35-40 min. What a joke.
We need to take a good look at how other cities have implemented similar ideas. BAA, the private company that operates Heathrow Airport (among others), also runs an express train service that connects Heathrow with Paddington Station. It's not cheap -- about 28 GBP for an "express class" return ticket -- but it delivers on its promise of getting you into central London in 15 minutes vs. >1 hour on the Underground and for less money than a cab ride.
Private contractors should run the whole God Damn CTA
Here we go again.
Tell you what: I will get behind this idea 100% if you
1. Show me even a rough business model, with some idea of capital outlays and sources, revenue streams and profit projections;
2. Show me any evidence that any company from anywhere in the world would be willing to get into this business (there are a couple of large companies that operator toll roads, so maybe that's a place to start);
3. Tell me a new, privatized CTA would be better than the old private system that broke down financially some six decades or so ago.
Can you do that? If so, you would be the first privitization fan I have ever met who could. Good luck.
(Please don't mistake my disdain for any support of this Block 37 mess, or any of the other various messes this agency has found itself in. I just happen to think the mess results from issues that have little to with the general concept of public ownership, but rather specific failures of local public policy and funding and oversight.)
Excellent post Matilda I'd also add that our unique and corrupt city officials should not be the yardstick with which to measure public transit by.
If it's only going to save me 15 minutes, and cost me about 800% more than taking the Blue Line, I'm not going to use it.
If I'm cost-conscious: I'll take the Blue Line.
If I'm in a hurry or don't care about money: I'll take a cab in comfort all by my lonesome.
This would be useful for about 4 hours per day when this would be significantly faster than the Kennedy/Stevenson. Otherwise, who will ride it?
Matilda -- maybe you should ask "Booberman" for that biz plan/case; he's a GSB grad.
Has anyone ever seen or heard an explanation for how the express trains were going to go around/over/through the non-express trains? Was there going to be another track built? It's never made sense to me.
o c'mon, people. when you hear proposals like this, THINK!
think about the path of the blue line from downtown to o'hare.
think about how to have an express train and local stop trains share a single track. hmmm ... how can the express train be express if the local train in front is making stops???
oh, make a second track goin to o'hare!! aha!!
now think about the path of the blue line again. part of it is through a tunnel. part of it is through neighborhoods. part in the middle of an expressway.
can't we DOUBLE the width of the tunnel? my god, there's not enough money in the state of illinois to do that. can't we tear down homes to add more track alongside the old track? yeah sure.
can't you see that you were fed a line of bullshit from day one on this superstation proposal?!?!
and in expressing your disappointment over the "bad news" you reveal yourselves to have been naive enough to have believed it in the first place.
sheesh!
but don't feel alone. the media fell for it too, selling you one more comic book proposal as if they believed it were really possible. cripes almighty!