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Review: Paramount Room
With the Olympic bid picking up steam, one South Side organization sees it as a chance to build a new hybrid Metra-CTA line to connect under-served transit spots. Calling their proposed branch the Gold Line, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, or SOUL for short, has a plan but it's pretty expensive. According to the Trib:
Parts of the South Side, particularly neighborhoods close to the lakefront and south of Jackson Park, are among the city's most densely populated and the most in need of additional rapid transit, SOUL believes.Under the group's Gold Line plan, more frequent trains would be provided on the Metra Electric District Line. The plan also calls for allowing transfers between Metra trains and CTA buses and adding a new station at 35th Street...
SOUL estimates that implementing the Gold Line would cost $159 million. This would pay for adding 26 Electric District Highliner cars for $91 million as well as for new tracks, station upgrades and fare equipment.
Supporters say the Gold Line could transport people to jobs at Soldier Field, McCormick Place, and even the Olympic Village. The RTA, however, doesn't seem all that gung-ho about it. Reminding supporters it will have to compete with a legion of other projects, RTA Executive Director Steve Schlickman said simply, "We will look at what the SOUL people are advocating and assess the value of all the options and see what makes sense."
This isn't the first time there's been talk of the Gold Line, but the upcoming Olympic Bid has given supporters some hope that an Olympic win would further their chances of seeing the line become a reality.
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Gold line. Yeah! Build it!
they can't even get the circle line going. now this?
i heard on npr that people who live on the south side (especially the far south side where there isn't an EL line)have some of the longest commutes (by time) in the country because of the lack of public transportation.
as a former resident of the south side, i totally believe it.
But...the "Gold Line"? Really? Given its proposed route, how long will it be before it gets nicknamed the Bling Line?
Not counting right now, that is.
Well first the city has to get all those poor and black people to move. Then we can have all the public transit you can eat.
Oh, I'm sorry, I was thinking like the people who run this city there. Apologies.
I can't remember which episode it was in, but once on The Simpsons they were watching Soul Mass Transit System...which of course this reminds me of
So this would be the SOUL train.
This seems like an aweful lot of money for little more effect than adding metra trains to mostly pre-existing track and allowing CTA-Metra transfers. I think a Red Line extension would be a better use of this funding.
I think a re-vamp of the Green-Line is more in order. The green line is already on the east side, and would do well with some increased hours and stops.
I for one have looked at renting in South Shore and public transportation options after 5pm are a major sticking point. The lakefront apartments are nice, but the neighborhood needs more diversity. With the right funding in transit, this could transform into a Roger's Park on the South. (A good mix of all types, and truly affordable rents)
You're right in that a Green Line revamp/extension makes far more sense for the south side than extending the Red Line to 130th, but sadly that's not even on CTA's radar.
there should be an el line that runs south of 95th street. it's crazy that the el runs into skokie and evanston but does not run south of 95th street.
Skokie and Evanston have money/white people.
It's more than just that, though. The CTA is always quicker to resurrect historical lines that are already existing then to build new lines. There was a train to Skokie along the current yellow line as early as 1925.
Some GoogleEarth measurements of straight-line distance from the generally-accepted center of town at State and Madison:
Linden Stop: 13.36 miles
Skokie, End of the Skokie Swift: 12.46 miles
95th: 11.9 miles
130th, end of proposed extension: 15.38 miles.
As it stands, the distance CTA rail covers north from the center of town is approximately 1.4 miles farther than the distance covered south. The distance northwest is about a half mile farther than the distance south. If the Red Line extension is ever completed--and that's a big if--then the distance south will surpass the distance north by almost 3 miles.
True, but the trip South is still within the city, and as somebody already mentioned, people on the South Side are criminally underserved. I'd love to see more expansion all over, but what can you do.
I, too, would like to see expansion all over. I just think that it makes more sense to fill in underserved areas closer to the city center before we extend feelers farther and farther away, as such feelers only encourage people to spread out while making the development of connections between lines less likely. Were I suddenly to be declared King Richard III, I'd add stops to the Green Line and extend it southeast, I'd build the oft-discussed Circle Line, and I'd build the Red Line extension, probably in that order. But I'm not likely to be declared King Richard III.
the areas closer to city center already have something approximating public transportation. yes it needs to be improved, but it is something.
the far south side has just buses - infrequent buses. people generally have to take multiple buses to even get to a train. and since people live farther away from city center and farther away from jobs, it could be argued that they need public transportation even more.
having trains service the far south side will not encourage people to spread further out - the people are already there. it is Chicago as much as downtown or wicker park are Chicago. the people who live there pay city taxes. it's not some undeveloped piece of prairie. having a train line will help people get to work. it will allow people to drive less.
What I suspect to be more likely is that having a CTA rail line extending south from 95th would allow landlords to push up rents, driving the people who currently live in these far south side neighborhoods even farther from the city center. It would eventually become the territory of young professionals who take the Red Line downtown to work but drive everywhere else. You aren't building a network, after all. You're building a spur.
Meanwhile, people who live in the relatively nearby neighborhoods the Green Line doesn't reach--people who today have to utilize the same mix of buses you mention--would continue to be bypassed.
I'm being flip about the "money/white people" line but it's not just a razz.
The green line and other south-side lines generally serve a less economically advantaged demographic. Where someone in Andersonville has a choice between car and CTA or even taxis, folks to the south rely much more heavily on the CTA service, which is spotty and frequently cut at the whim of the "doomsday" scenario du jour.
Developing good, safe, reliable public transit helps bolster a communty. But communities without economic bases find it harder to get the public transit dollars. Catch-22.
I feel like you are arguing to keep communities cut off from the rest of the city for fear of gentrification. The orange line stimulated local business and did things like create grocery stores in food deserts. I think a train line would bring more benefits than drawbacks to the Chicago residents already living in these neighborhoods.
I would be shocked if the extension of the red caused some sort of mass exodus of young professionals to the neighborhoods farthest from downtown, like West Pullman. We do not see this happening with many other south side neighborhoods with train access. One of the appeals of neighborhoods like the West Loop and Wicker Park are their proximity to down town.
Why would a red line extension be a spur? What makes the other lines more a part of a system than the south side of the red line?
Here is the NPR story I referenced.
http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=34591
key quotes: "According to the 2000 census, residents in this area, which includes the neighborhoods of Riverdale, Pullman, and Roseland, have one of the longest commutes in the country."
"Right now they pay what I call a South Side tax, because they have to take at least one bus, sometimes two buses, before they can get to the train. So it places a hardship on people to be able to go where the available jobs are."
Can you really claim that, given that nobody is forcing anyone to live in a certain neighborhood? People move all the time in order to be closer to jobs, closer to schools, closer to public transportation--In fact, they usually take those factors into account when they're looking for a home in the first place.
I am not claiming that personally. I am quoting the story.
But many of the people the article is referring to are limited by their income. There are few areas in Chicago where rent and housing costs are as low as they are on the far south side. I think the point is that people in this area pay the city taxes but get fewer city services.
Sorry. I didn't mean you personally. I meant it in general, as in 'can one really claim'.
I think that affordability is an issue. Feeling comfortable in your chosen community is another.
Of course people in Riverdale, Pullman, and Roseland have long commutes ... those neighborhoods are among the farthest from the city center. The northern end of Riverdale is about 15 miles away. By comparison, the outer loop highway around Houston, one of the nation's least dense, most sprawling cities, averages only about 13 miles from the city center.
My reasoning for calling a Red Line extension a spur is that it would extend all by itself far beyond the range covered by the rest of the network. It doesn't connect with any other part of the system. It only serves people who live along a certain corridor. It doesn't increase the web of rail options, creating more of a complementary structure of lines akin to New York. It's just an isolated prong.
The Orange Line, on the other hand, was built in an underserved hole in the middle of the web and served as more of a complement to the rest of the system. It filled in the web. As someone who thinks high-density development of cities to be preferable to low-density sprawl, I believe this makes more sense. We need that kind of development of the system before we reach out farther from the city center.
Go for the Gold!
Come on, olympics, gold, get it?
Let me just be selfish and say: Bring back the Humboldt Park Line!
http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/humboldt.html
It is sad that there was more comprehensive mass transit here like 100 years ago..
It is ludacris to see what the CTA was compared to today. I frequently find myself spending hours at Chicago-L.org in amazement.
This is one of my only reasons in thowing my support behind the olympics. They will be forced to spend on transportation infrastructure. Securing federal funds for Southside infrastructure only seems possible in this scenario. Sticking w/ the current gameplan nothing will be done for some time in this regards.
It wasn't that more comprehensive. The only differences were more stops on the douglas and congress blue lines (which you can still see on the line), the bumboldt park line and the stockyard exchange connector line on the green line.
We now have the orange line.
That said, what is more sad is that we have gotten exactly one new line in about 60 years in this city.
In fact I would call that pathetic.
Re: Gold Line
And monkeys might fly out of my butt.
SOUL - That is one great acronym!
Also, the far far south side is not a minority or poor neighborhood, so the racial arguments don't really work here. Hegewisch is about as middle class as it gets in the city.
hmm. When was the last time you were IN Hegewisch?
Yes this needs. No MUST be built. The southside, particularly the southeast side has so much potential. That a CTA line would reinvigorate the whole neighborhood. The metra doesn't run frequent enough and long enough.
"Go For the Gold." Yeah great slogan. If this were built I would finally be behind Chicago getting the Olympics otherwise transit, would be just a clusterfu*k more so than it already is.
Yeah but it should not be contigent on the olympics happening.
Please. We all know they'll extend the Blue Line to Woodfield before this happens.
Wow, this place is full of public transit planners.
Expand, expand, expand! It costs money, both long-term capital dollars to maintain and operating funds to, err, operate. The State proposed (because it hasn't been signed yet) $2.7B in capital funding over 5 years, which is status quo at best. $10B over 5 years is needed to bring the current system into good repair.
But who cares, let's expand the system. ;)
We've all mostly been talking hypotheticals. I don't think any of us believes ANY of this is likely to happen ... at least not as long as we're spending $975 million to add a lane to about four miles of the Dan Ryan.
I know, I just thought I'd play the matilda role since I haven't seen her commenting lately.
I know this is a 3-day old post, but just wanted to clear something up. The reason the Green Line doesn't run east of Cottage anymore is because a politically connected neighborhood organization, The Woodlawn Organization, doesn't want it to and believed the old el to Stony depressed property values on 63rd. Idiotic, but true. I suppose you could extend it south on Cottage but the cost would be prohibitive with no easy right-of-ways, which all the other proposals have.